Compost Tea

I made compost tea many years back (probably close to a decade ago now), after reading Toolbox for Sustainable City Living by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew. (See my post on RUST for a bit about the book.)  I was reminded of this a couple of weeks back when I arrived to do an urban agriculture work day and walked into a mini-workshop on compost tea. The woman providing the information gave the best summary I’ve heard for using compost tea.

“Think of it as probiotics for plants,” she said.

Compost tea is derived from compost but it is used differently.   The main purpose of compost tea is to build up life in the soil. And, depending on what kind of life you want to build up (fungal or bacterial), you brew it differently.   All this is explained in the book, Teaming with Microbes by Lowenfels and Lewis.  Both this book and Toolbox have good descriptions of how to brew compost tea.

On the other hand, the method for compost tea described by Stephanie Davis in her book, Composting Inside and Out, (I talked about the book in my last post) doesn't involve aeration and so it creates an anaerobic ‘tea’, what Lowenfels and Lewis call ‘compost extract’.  If you want the right kind of microbes, you need to aerate it. (For a detailed, fussy description of how to brew compost tea, see this page by ‘The Soil Guy’.)  One way to get aeration is to use one of  those pumps that you aerate fish tanks with.   That's what I used, so many years ago.

It's not something you will need all the time, but if you really want to add life to your soil, compost tea will do it.

Quote of the Day: “The simplest definition of compost tea is: A brewed, water extract of compost.

“Properly made compost must be used…  Compost tea is therefore, a ‘cold brewing’ process, allowing growth of the organisms extracted from the compost.” - Elaine Ingham

The Joys of Compost

I realized at some point that most of my favorite things in the world began with the letters C,O,and M--communes and community, naturally, but also compassion and communication, and,of course, compost.

I sometimes joke (but I’m more serious than you might think) that compost is my religion.   I point out that Hindus and Buddhists think that when you die, you are reincarnated, Christians and Muslims believe that when die, if you are good, you go to heaven, and I believe that, if I’m very good, when I die, I will be composted.

I’ve talked a bunch about composting in this blog, particularly in my posts, Compost Happens!  and Waste. And I’ve written about the reasons composting is so important in my post on Thinking in Circles. When we compost, we mimic the way that the world works.  And there are lots of different ways to compost.

In my “Compost Happens!” post I talked about there being two main ways of composting. I wrote that eight years ago, I wouldn't say that now.

I got out a book from the library called Composting Inside and Out by Stephanie Davis. The subtitle of the book is “14 Methods to Fit Your Lifestyle”.  What's strange is that, even though it also says on the back cover, “Step-by-step instruction for 14 different composting methods”, there is no listing in the book of the 14 methods.  I had to tease them out by trying to look at all the options she provides. As far as I can tell, the 14 methods are:

1. Compost bins
2. Tumblers
3. Three bin systems
4. Digesters
5. Piles or heaps
6. Barrel tumblers
7. Bins
8. Wire mesh
9. Trench
10. Lasagna
11. Humanure
12. Nature Mill Auto Compost Bin
13. Bokashi
14. Worm bins

The first eleven methods are outdoor methods, the final three are for indoor composting.  Also, numbers 6, 7, and 8 cover DIY ways of composting as opposed to several others where you purchase a finished product.

Smiling Hogshead Ranch, where I am now helping out, lists six different ways to compost in their explanation of what the compost committee does (you have to tap on the word Compost), saying, “How much do we love compost? Let us count the ways…”

1. 3-bin system
2. Windrows
3. Leaf mold
4. Vermiculture
5. Bokashi
6. Mushroom composting

(Vermiculture is using worms.  Worm bins basically.)

I’m sure that, even between these two lists, they don't cover all the different ways of composting. The joys of composting are endless.

And, best of all, for me, I get to do a lot of it.

Quote of the Day: “Compost has rewards beyond our imagination. We benefit specifically in our gardens and, less obviously, within our thinking.   … Can composting encourage you to see the world differently? Many compost converts have told me that it has done so for them, and I have to admit it has changed my perspective as well.” - Stephanie Davis

A Really Fungi

I mentioned in my last post that I have been studying mycology, which is the study of fungi.  (Here's a joke from the book, Radical Mycology: “Why did the mushroom go to the party?  Because he was a fungi.”) Most people, when they think of fungi, think of mushrooms, but mushrooms are just a small (but very visible) part of the fungal world.

There are single celled fungi, including yeasts and ‘chytrids’, but many fungi form long strands of cells called ‘hyphae’ (singular: hypha) which join together to form a network called mycelium. These are the white threads that you can find in the earth, in compost, and in rotting wood. These are also the many colored molds you see on decaying foods. One of the largest mycelium ever found is a fungus in Oregon that is 3.4 miles in diameter and thought to be more 2,400 years old!

Mushrooms turn out to be the ‘fruiting bodies’ of the mycelium. Basically, when the mycelium decides that it is time to reproduce, it forms a mushroom, which contains spores that germinate to start new fungi.

Fungi are divided (by mycologists and other scientists) into several phyla. The various books that I looked at disagreed as to what many of these were, but there were two that all the books agreed on. These are the ones that produce some of the more visible fruiting bodies, the Ascomycota (which produces, among other things, truffles, morels, and cup fungi) and the Basidiomycota (which produces most of your standard mushrooms).

A different way of looking at fungi is to understand how they nourish themselves.   Fungi can be put into four categories: saprophytes, parasites, mycorrhizal, and endophytes.  

Saprophytes are the decomposers of the fungal world. They live off of dead matter: dead plants, dead animals, even dead fungi, as well as fecal material.  They (along with the bacteria) are the reason the world isn't filled with dead bodies (and leaves and logs and plants). The saprophytes recycle organic matter--especially wood, which is hard for bacteria to break down.

The parasites go after living tissue.  These are the fungi that cause diseases in plants and animals (including people).  And sometimes the lines are blurry between the saprophytic and parasitic fungi--especially when a creature or plant is old, weak, and/or dying.   Some saprophytes get a head start, so to speak, before the tree, or whatever, is truly dead.

The mycorrhizal fungi are extremely important for the soil.  Their mycelium are connected with plant roots and feed the roots minerals and other nutrients in exchange for the sugars that the plant provides. They are a huge part of the ‘soil food web’ that I mentioned in my piece about Elaine Ingham.

Finally, the endophytes actually live inside plants, mostly in a mutualistic manner, protecting the plant while the plant nurtures them.

Some books that I have found useful in my study of mycology include:

• A 1963 British text, Soil Fungi and Soil Fertility, by S.D. Garrett
• My 2002 old standby, Biology, by Campbell and Reece
• Another old favorite, Teaming with Microbes, by Lowenfels and Lewis (2010)
• The book that I mentioned in my last post and at the beginning of this one, Radical Mycology, by Peter McCoy (2016)
• And the well known book by Paul Stamets (the real person, not the Star Trek: Discovery character), Mycelium Running (2005)

(Incidentally,  Jeff Lowenfels has a new book out called Teaming with Fungi that I haven't gotten to look at yet.)

Next, Radical Lichenology.

Quote of the Day: “Imagine yourself as a fungus!... Where do you live? What do you like to eat? What do you observe in the environment around you?” - Mitra Sticklen and Maya Elson

Four Scientific Minds

As I’ve been saying, I have been reading a lot of science over the past few years. Not just soil science and chemistry and biology, but mycology and nutrition and microbiology and social science and, of course, system theory.   While I have learned a lot from a lot of different people, I realized recently that I have had four major influences.  As I said at the end of my last post, they are all women and I don't think that is an accident.

I am not opposed to ‘reductionist science’.  I think there are a lot of things that can be learned from it.  But there is only so far that you can go with it, before you need to connect the dots.  System thinking is essential to understanding the world and system thinking is all about relationships.   And, no surprise, women are a lot better at thinking about relationships than men.

So,here are four women who have strongly influenced my thinking.

And the first, since I’ve been talking about soil science and ended my last post with a quote from her, is Elaine Ingham.

Elaine Ingham is a soil microbiologist who has studied and popularized the interactions of the inhabitants of the soil.   She uses the term ‘soil food web’ to describe these complex relationships that support the health of the soil, the plants living in it, and the food we eat from those plants. While a bunch of it concerns who eats who in this subterranean ecosystem, a lot of it is also about how plants interact with bacteria and fungi, trading with each other and literally feeding each other.   I love how she uses the term ‘soil food web’, rather than ‘food chain’, to point out that it is not a linear process.   It’s about relationships and interactions and, of course, systems. She has gotten many people to rethink how they garden and grow plants and treat the soil.

A second microbiologist who has had an influence on me, is Lynn Margulis. I think of her as a microbiologist because of all of her work with bacteria but, like many important thinkers, she would hardly stay in one category.  She studied genetics and zoology, taught in the Biology department at Boston University, the Botany department at the University of Massachusetts, and the department of Geosciences at Amherst College.  She came up with the theory of endosymbiosis (that mitochondria and chloroplasts were independent organisms that were incorporated into eukaryotic cells), and then spent decades fighting all the opposition to it.  By the 1980s, it was generally accepted science. She (along with James Lovelock) was one of the originators of the Gaia Hypothesis. She was an opponent of Neo-Darwinism, believing that life moved forward by cooperation rather than competition. I love the quote from her and her son, Dorion Sagan, “Life did not take over the globe by combat, but by networking.”  Sadly, she died in 2011.

My third influence is Donella Meadows,  who I have written about  several times here.  I’ve promised a few times to do a full fledged review of her book, Thinking in Systems, but have never done it.  It’s been an influence on me, nonetheless, especially her chapter on 'Leverage Points'. She was the principal co-author of Limits to Growth which was a major warning that capitalist growth couldn't continue indefinitely.  It seems obvious, but in 1972 it was a shock to many leaders and routinely criticized by people who couldn't believe it.  Now it seems prescient.  She left MIT and their computers and moved to Vermont where she founded the Sustainability Institute along with an ecovillage and an organic farm.  Unfortunately, she has died as well, in 2001.

Finally, I have recently grown to appreciate Elinor Ostrom, a political economist, who, ironically, was rejected from UCLA’s economics department (getting a PhD in political science, instead) and went on to become the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in economics.  She directly challenged the idea that a shared commons would always end in tragedy, doing research and field studies that showed examples of societies that successfully managed natural resources together.   She championed multifaceted, grassroots approaches, arguing against any single answer for social and ecological problems.  She outlined the basic principles involved in these sharing systems and you can actually watch her explain how to get beyond the tragedy of the commons.   And, while doing the research for this post, found out that she, too, died, in 2012.

In honor of these wonderful women, all of whom taught the benefits of cooperation and relationships, I would like to request that anyone who reads this, further explore the work of any or all of them.  Their ideas and thinking deserve to be spread. They were true pioneers and I think we can all learn from them.


Quote of the Day: “... communities of individuals have relied on institutions resembling neither the state nor the market to govern some resource systems with reasonable degrees of success over long periods of time.” - Elinor Ostrom  

Deeper into the Soil

When I started writing this, I realized that it would be my fifth post about soil.  (I added a label called “Soil" so that my posts about soil and soil science can be found more easily.   My last post on this was The Soul of Soil,  written back in December of 2015.)  I think about soil a bunch and I’ve written about soil a bunch.   In this post I will try to dig a little deeper, so to speak.

What does soil have to do with social change?  At the most basic level, if you want to create a sustainable society,  you need to take care of the soil.  Soil is what sustains us.  And, because I am interested in communities as a tool for building a new society, and communities (and societies) consist of people and I want to see healthy people, they need to eat well and that requires good soil.  There will be no social change without taking care of the soil.  We literally, as well as metaphorically, stand on the soil.

I’ve talked several times about soil science being a combination of chemistry,  geology, and biology.   So, when I decided to start re-learning about soil, the first thing I did was do a bunch of background reading on geology.  Then I started reading about soil, both in books like Teaming with Microbes (see my post on Soil Science where I talk a little about this book) and a textbook called Fundamental Soil Science (by Mark Coyne and James Thompson) and in other science books, like the book that started it all, Biology, by Neil Campbell and Jane Reece (that's the one I refer to in my post on Biology 101: An Introduction) and a book that I acquired last year, called Environment by Peter Raven and Linda Berg, that have chapters focusing on soil.

Interestingly enough, both the Biology and Fundamental Soil Science textbooks talk about biogeochemical cycles.  Yes, biology, geology, and chemistry.

What they are talking about is the cycling of elements (at the least, carbon and nitrogen and phosphorus--but the Soil Science book also covers sulfur and even iron and manganese and “heavy metals”) through the soil and the atmosphere and the water.  Ions of these elements (or compounds that contain them, like phosphates and sulfates) cycle through all of these, plus rocks and living creatures. Thus biogeochemical.

I’m also learning a lot more about weathering (how the rocks turn into soil), soil profiles (and the different horizons involved with that), and the various types of soil.   There are still chapters to read on soil management, the hydrologic (water) cycle, watersheds, and soil fertility--so much to learn.  I find myself reading and rereading chapters and getting out even more books from the library. And soon it will be spring and I will be actually working with the soil and creating more soil by composting. Maybe I will never be done with soil science.

In the meantime, speaking of science, I currently have four science heroes--and they are all women.   And I don't think that is an accident.   I will talk more about that in my next post.

Quote of the Day: “Real soil is active, alive, moving!” - Elaine Ingham

The Soul of Soil

I’m here at a co-op house that I usually stay in when I’m in the Boston area and I was looking for something to read.  A novel perhaps?  But I couldn’t find any novels I wanted to read on the co-ops bookshelves.  I was finally settling down with a book on “libertarian paternalism”, when I happened to spot The Soul of Soil on an out of the way shelf.

There it was.  Soil chemistry.  Soil biology.  Compost!  I love this stuff.

I’ve written about soil stuff before (see particularly The Story of Soil, 3/13/10, and Soil Science, 7/20/13) but it’s always good finding and reading more.  This book is especially good because it takes a systemic viewpoint.   It talks about organic agriculture, and regenerative agriculture, and even permaculture, but mostly the authors (Grace Gershuny & Joseph Smillie) claim the title ‘ecological agriculture’ for what they do.

The only thing that bothers me is that they sometimes seem to not understand some basic biology.  For example, the authors appear to need to describe everything as either an animal or a plant.  They actually describe fungi as plants that “do not contain chlorophyll”.  This is a system of classification that hasn’t been used in biology since the 1970s.  But their knowledge of chemistry and the various soil critter seems sound and they even point out that the most common variety of earthworm in North America came with the Europeans and “turned out to be better adapted to cultivated conditions than its native predecessor.”

As far as I’m concerned, I can’t read too much about the soil.  I think that taking care of the soil is key to taking care of ourselves, especially when it comes to growing food or any form of plant life.  The authors use the quote: “Feed the soil, not the plant,” and go on to say “soil organisms will provide a balanced diet to crops.”  I’m willing to forgive a lot to anyone who cares this much about the soil a little mistake or two.  (Plus, this is a really fun book to read--at least if you like soil.)

Quote of the Day: “...to understand soil is to be aware of how everything affects and is affected by it.  We are all part of the soil ecosystem.” - Grace Gershuny & Joseph Smillie

Soil Science

Now for a three part digression back to Science World. 

When I was at Dancing Rabbit, I discovered that they had a pretty good library.  I spent quite a bit of time there reading various books.  One thing they had a lot of were books on soil science.  (Which make a lot of sense since many people there were into growing food.)

As I was looking through the books, I realized that a lot of the things I'm interested in (composting--see my post Thinking in Circles, 1/6/13, humanure--see Humanure, 1/10/13, and growing food--see Gardening as Social Change, 5/7/10) were related to soil and that soil science was a very complex discipline involving the sciences of geology, botany, microbiology, ecology, and a lot of chemistry. (I will write more about chemistry in my next post.)   I've also written about extensively about soil and my interest in it before--see Food (Soil and Seeds), 5/13/09, and especially The Story of Soil, 3/13/10.  This post will be a recap of a lot of that.

Soil science begins with rock. Due to water and wind the rock is broken down or weathered.  The fractured rock becomes boulders, stones, cobble, and gravel.  This collection of loose mineral material is called 'regolith'.  This is the 'parent material' from which soil is born.

As even the gravel is pulverized, it's broken into the grains which become soil: sand, silt, and clay, each finer than the one before.  A soil of mostly clay won't drain water very well, a soil of mostly sand won't hold water and drains too quickly.  Loam, the best soil for growing things is 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay.  (A little clay goes a long way.)

The most important element in the soil, both to hold water and for plant growth, is the organic matter, also known as humus.  This is the endpoint of things like compost and humanure.

About half of typical soil is solid material (sand, silt, clay, and humus) and half is air and water, which is also very important to the health of plants, since roots need to breath and take in water.  Pores in the soil (the spaces between soil particles) is where the water and air reside.

"Good structure allows the soil to retain adequate water as well as drain excess water; promotes ease of seedling emergence, root penetration, and tuber growth; air movement; and erosion control."  (from Eash, Green, Razvi, and Bennett, Soil Science Simplified, Fifth Edition--this is a good reference book on soil science that I got out of the public library and have been reading since I got back from Dancing Rabbit. It's not one of the books I read while I was there.)

There are also a lot of creatures that live in the soil, ranging from microorganisms such as bacteria, actinomycetes, algae, fungi, mycorrhizae (fungi that live in or around the roots of plants and provide nutrients and water for the plants), protozoa, and nematodes,  (a really good book about all of this is Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis, a book I did read while I was at Dancing Rabbit) to larger organisms such as earthworms, springtails, mites, pill bugs, sow bugs, ants, and even larger animals like mice, shrews, rabbits, and moles.

There's a lot more I'm learning about soil chemistry (see my next post), erosion, and types of soil, but this is the basics.  If we are going to focus on the needs of people (which I think any radical social change is going to need to do), we have to realize that plants provide our food and air and basically keep us alive.  Soil is what keeps plants alive.


Quote of the Day:  "The soil is the lifeblood of your land and, therefore, you." - Nicole Faires

The Story of Soil

As winter becomes spring, I am thinking more about growing food. One of the things I have been studying is soil. Last spring, I wrote a post on 'Food (Soil and Seeds)' (5/13/09). In some respects, this post is a continuation of that one. Here I am going to concentrate on soil science.

The story of soil is the story of the earth, so I will begin with the cosmic view. After the big bang, the universe slowly formed into lots of space with giant 'clouds' of hydrogen (and a little bit of helium) floating about. As the hydrogen atoms began attracting each other, they began condensing and getting denser and denser, until the atoms in the center got so squished that they began fusing and giving off massive amounts of heat and forming stars. All elements we know, other than hydrogen and helium, have been formed in the fiery furnace at a star's core, and thus Joni Mitchell is right, we are all 'stardust'--and so is almost everything else on earth. When these stars went nova, they flung their contents out into space in giant explosions. Slowly these fragments formed new stars and planets (including earth).

Earth cooled to a huge mass of rock, with an atmosphere, and lots of water. Life emerged, and modified the atmosphere and the rock. (See my post on 'Gaia', 1/3/10, for more on how life modified the atmosphere.) The atmosphere and water also modified the rock, breaking it down into pebbles, and then sand and dust. The surface of the moon, and many of the planets, is like this.

But life crawled out of the oceans, and died. And more life crawled out, and died. And this happened again and again and again. And as more life crawled onto the shore, it began feeding on the remains of earlier life, and transforming it. Slowly, the debris of life became humus, the main component of soil.

Soil science is truly an interdisciplinary venture. It combines geology, chemistry, and many branches of biology: botany, zoology, microbiology, and ecology. The rock of the earth is buried in most places under the soil and called bedrock. Above that is a section of loose rock called 'regolith' or the 'parent material'. Above that is the subsoil and the topsoil. Soil is a mixture of three types of rock particle (in order of decreasing size: sand, silt, and clay) and humus which is the decomposed remains of plants and animals, now an amorphous, almost gell-like, substance. Sand, silt, and clay in the right proportions is called loam and loam plus humus create a healthy soil structure called tilth.

The chemistry of soil is where things get interesting. Rocks are made up of many elements combined into minerals. The earth's crust contains roughly 47% oxygen, 28% silicon, 8% aluminum, 5% iron, 4% calcium, 3% sodium, 3% potassium, 2% magnesium, and less than 2% everything else (combined). The chemical needs of plants (and really most living things) are (in roughly decending order): carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, potassium, nitrogen, sulfur, calcium, iron, magnesium, boron, manganese, copper, zinc, molybdenum, chlorine, nickel, and cobalt.

The first thing that seems to join these two lists is high placement of oxygen--but, as it turns out, plants don't get much of their oxygen from the soil. It's also obvious that although much of the rock, and indeed the soil, consists of what is called aluminosilicates (minerals made of silicon, oxygen, and aluminum), living things don't use silicon or aluminum (except in reconstructive surgery). (Okay, I take that back--I just found out that corn, as well as some other plants, benefit from silicon.)

Plants get their carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air, the hydrogen and oxygen from water, and the nitrogen from the atmosphere--but indirectly. It's everything else on the plant list that comes from the rock via the soil. The minerals--calcium, iron, potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, etc--come from the breakdown of rock due to weathering. This releases ions which are attracted to the clay and humus and passed on from there to the plant via its root system. For example, phosphorus comes from a mineral called apatite and magnesium comes from minerals like serpentine and dolomite--all part of the rocks.

But, as I mentioned in my previous post on soil, soil is more than just rocks and chemicals. It is more than even sand, silt, clay, and humus. It is a living entity, filled with living creatures. Take for example how plants get nitrogen. Unlike carbon dioxide and oxygen, which it can breath in directly, all the nitrogen in the atmosphere is not in a state that can be used by plants. However there are bacteria that can take nitrogen from the air and use it directly. Some of these bacteria (called rhizobia) live in a symbiotic relationship to certain plants, particularly the legumes, as part of their roots. Other bacteria change the nitrogen from protein to ammonia which other bacteria change to nitrite ions and still other bacteria change to nitrate ions. It's the nitrate ions that are absorbed by the plants after all the work of the bacteria.

Soil is just teaming with life, some of it microscopic (besides bacteria, there are algae, a specialized bacteria called actinomycetes, protozoa, and fungi with its microscopic mycelia), some of it worm-like (including the earthworms and the nematodes), some of it arthopod (including springtails, mites, and insects such as ants and termites), and some of it is full fledged mammals (like moles and mice and groundhogs).

At the end of my post 'Food (Soil and Seeds)', I closed with a quote from Elaine Ingham which I will repeat here: "Agricultural soil should have 600 million bacteria in a teaspoon. There should be approximately three miles of fungal hyphae in a teaspoon of soil. There should be 10,000 protozoa and 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes in a teaspoon of soil. ...
"There should be roughly 200,000 microarthopods in a square meter of soil to a 10-inch depth. All these organisms should be there in a healthy soil." When I used this quote, I had no idea who Elaine Ingham was. Elaine Ingham runs a group called Soil Foodweb Inc that may be the premier group looking at life in the soil. She wrote the Soil Biology Primer, which is an incredibly detailed overview of soil life and is available to read for free on the web courtesy of the Natural Resources Conservation Service. She also wrote the The Compost Tea Brewing Manual, a classic about how to add life to the soil.

This is just a tidbit of what soil is all about. Think of all that complexity the next time you garden--or even just walk on the earth.


Sources:
Milo Harpstead, Francis Hole, and William Bennett, Soil Science Simplified
David Lambert and the Diagram Group, The Field Guide to Geology
James Nardi, Life in the Soil
Elizabeth Stell, Secrets to Great Soil
and, of course, Wikipedia

Quote of the Day: "I've never outgrown a child's simple love of dirt. It has continued to fascinate me since those early days of mud pies and simple earthworks. After studying it at the university level I learned to respect its complexity and call it soil. Years of gardening work have taught me how resilient it is. The more I learn about soil, the more marvelous and magical it seems." - Elizabeth Stell

Food (Soil and Seeds)

I have already blogged several times on food, including a comprehensive post on Feeding Ourselves in the Future (7/24/08), which covered farmer's markets, Community Supported Agriculture,producer co-operatives, eating local, buying local, consumer co-ops, family run stores, growing your own food, container gardening, community gardens, and creating food systems. So what's left? Probably the most important and basic things you need to have in order to grow food: good soil and good seeds.

Soil is a living thing--filled with bacteria, protozoa, fungi, millipedes, and mites--not to mention earthworms and plant roots. Yet it's part of the earth, with sand, clay, and all sorts of minerals in it. And it is practically a chemical factory--filled with potassium, calcium, ammonium (a source of nitrogen), copper, zinc, manganese, phosphates, magnesium, and iron--mostly in the form of ions (positively charged particles).

Many people think the only difference between organic farmers and gardeners and conventional farmers and gardeners is that the organic ones don't use pesticides. But maybe the biggest difference is that conventional growers are concerned with growing plants; organic growers concentrate on growing good soil. Conventional growers see problems with the plants and pour in fertilizer. They think that they can outguess nature. They assume that the plant needs more nitrogen, or phosphates, and pour it on. Organic growers try to feed the soil.

There are several ways to feed the soil but two of the most basic are compost and mulch. Compost is 'waste' products, fallen leaves, rotting food, manure, etc. It is all mixed together and allowed to decay until it is a rich organic stew, known as humus, full of all sorts of minerals that support soil life. (The difference between the conventional and organic approaches is similar to trying to get your vitamins and minerals in a pill, versus getting them by eating whole foods.) Mulch is stuff (often organic) that lies on the soil, protecting it, keeping it moist, and cutting down on weeds. The best mulch often decays and thus turns into compost.

Another way to build soil is with 'cover crops'--some of which can be plowed back into the soil to feed it; while others (especially the legumes) host microbes which convert nitrogen into compounds (like ammonium) which then can be used by plants.

When you have good soil, the plants will come, but if you want to have more than a lovely looking forest--if you really want to feed the world, then you need the right seeds. Heirloom seeds are from old variety plants that have been around for more than fifty years (sometimes for thousands of years), many of which are in danger of being lost. Hybrid plants have been carefully cultivated, mostly for commercial success, and their seeds are useless and often sterile. This is why there is a movement emerging of people saving heirloom (and other useful plant) seeds.

Unsurprisingly, it's corporations that are trying to control the seeds, just as it's corporations that push fertilizer for the soil and pesticides for the plants. And when Michelle Obama planted an organic garden at the White House, she got a letter from an organization representing agribusinesses like Monsanto, Dow AgroSciences, and DuPont Crop Protection, expressing their 'concern' that she wasn't acknowledging "the role conventional agriculture plays in the U.S.".

I'm not going to go into all the corporate nastiness (which includes things like seed patenting, Roundup Ready seeds, and GMOs--Genetically Modified Organisms). It's enough to say that we need to take control of the use of soil and seeds, and take that control away from agribusiness.

One very creative, very noncorporate use of seeds is in making Seedballs (also known as Seedbombs). Seedballs are mixtures of clay, compost and seeds that can be used for Guerrilla Gardening. The Seedballs can be dropped or tossed anywhere there is dirt and don't need planting or watering. Vacant lots, abandoned land, and private lawns can all be reclaimed as green space--and possibly as food growing areas--although there is the need to be careful in case the soil is contaminated.

However, even if the soil is contaminated, there are methods of bringing it back--also known as bioremediation. With good soil and good seeds and a little gardening knowledge, almost anyone can feed themselves--and possibly others as well.

I'd like to conclude with Michael Pollan's advice on food: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." That is, real food, grown from seeds in the soil.


Resources:
Stu Campbell, The Mulch Book--Mulching is a great way to care for the soil--and plants
Eliot Coleman, Four Season Harvest and The Winter Harvest Handbook--How to grow foods right through the winter by a farmer in Maine
'Heavy Petal', How to make seedballs--Instructions for making Seedballs/Seedbombs
Todd Hemenway, Gaia's Garden--Good book on Permaculture and ecological design. Has an excellent chapter on 'Bringing the Soil to Life' that includes information on the biology and chemistry of soil, on composting, on sheet mulching, and on cover crops
John Jeavons, How to Grow More Vegetables--A book on Biointensive food growing which has a chapter on 'Building Soil, Building the Future' and another on 'Seed Propagation'--plus lots of good information on food gardening
Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew, Toolbox for Sustainable City Living--Has a chapter on 'Food' which includes tree crops, aquaculture, and mushroom cultivation; it also has a detailed chapter on 'Bioremediation'
Seed Savers Exchange--"...a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds."
Self Watering Container Instructions--How to make a container that holds water and slowly waters whatever is growing in it
Vandana Shiva, various books including Biopiracy, Stolen Harvest, Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed, and Soil not Oil--She has lots of information on how corporations are trying to control seeds and the soil
J Russell Smith, Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture--A classic from 1929 that was one of the sources of Permaculture. Has lots of information on acorns and nuts as food and includes a picture of muffins baked from acorn flour
Starhawk, The Earth Path--Contains a chapter on 'Earth' which includes The Cycle of Rock to Life and Seeds in Jeopardy as well as information on composting, sheet mulching, worms, and fungi; also has a chapter on 'Seeds and Weapons' which talks about corporate control of agriculture and features a story about Seedballs


Quote of the Day: "Agricultural soil should have 600 million bacteria in a teaspoon. There should be approximately three miles of fungal hyphae in a teaspoon of soil. There should be 10,000 protozoa and 20 to 30 beneficial nematodes in a teaspoon of soil. ...
"There should be roughly 200,000 microarthopods in a square meter of soil to a 10-inch depth. All these organisms should be there in a healthy soil." - Elaine Ingham