The problem I have with it is this idea that disturbing the soil damages the soil structure and its biota...especially the mycorrhizae. Those are fungi that grow in symbiosis with plant roots and help extract minerals from the organic matter in the soil.
In my garden, the dominant mycorrhizae are likely to be those associated with pine roots, which grow everywhere here. I don't want those in my planting beds...I'm trying to grow vegetables, not bigger pine trees. By digging the beds and remixing my potting soil, I distribute compost throughout the soil horizon and make it more available to the crop roots and THEIR mycorrhizae.
I know how fast fungi grow...they have no trouble recovering from soil disturbance as far as I've seen. In fact it seems to stimulate them to have compost mixed into the soil. So I suspect that many permaculture devotees are simply people who don't like to get all dirty and sweaty when they garden...to each his or her own.
I'll try to keep an open mind, but my methods work and I'm staying with them.
Currently I'm worried about brush fire season...so gardening dropped down a notch on my priority listing. This morning I cleared out a lot of deadwood and dry brush near my house to protect it. That will get shredded and composted, so in a way I'm still growing food when I'm clearing brush.
Recently Harvested Turnip...Ruler is 12 inch/30cm.
Lots of good things to harvest lately in the garden...mizuna, chives, and red romaine lettuce for salads, pole beans and mustard greens for stir fries and soups, loads of radishes and turnips. Tonight I think I'll dig another turnip and cook it up with some potato. I bought a few red potatoes in the supermarket the other day, I think I'll plant some in containers to see how things go. The red varieties seem to grow better for me. I hope they haven't treated these things with chemicals to suppress sprouting...maybe I'll plant the eyes in smaller pots to see if they grow before I put them in bigger pots. Usually I use organic potatoes, but they wanted something like seven dollars for a little bag of them in Target. And my local market didn't have any organic reds. So I'll see what happens.
And eggplant...got a lot of those coming along. They really seem to like that liquid feeding I give them every few days. These are the healthiest-looking eggplants I've ever grown. The hot peppers are doing well too...I'm growing Poblano, Jwala, and Serrano. Some kind of pepper disease hit me hard a couple of years ago and I haven't had luck with bell peppers ever since. It's ok, I like a little spiciness in my peppers...and hot peppers have more nutritional value than bell peppers anyway.
The air has been poor quality lately...lots of burning going on. That holds me back, I often cancel plans due to smoke. But those chemical odors are gone, pretty sure it was from somebody cooking meth...the cops were at that house recently and now the odors have stopped.
Things do get done around here...one way or another...air pollution notwithstanding.
No comments:
Post a Comment