Putting My Cards On The table....

I lived the middle third of my life living as an itinerant agricultural labourer, in that time I worked in many different farming environments from pullin spuds up with me bare hands to working as sole forester to 60 acres of ancient english woodlands.
In this diverse decade and a half I lived and worked on the land I was helping to destroy, argo-chemical monoculture is literally stealing the soil our children will need to eat from to drive waste, profit and greed at all levels. It is no exaggeration to say the agro-chemical industries have entire continents' governments in their payola.
It takes a thousand year under normal conditions to make an inch of soil, I watched 2-3 inches of classic english farmland washed out into the north sea every year in norfolk, not only stealing our irreplaceable alluvial clay but poisoning the sea at the same time.
On another farm in kent, known widely locally as a 'model farm' with regular visits from other local farmers marvelling at this farmers immense crop delivery mechanism. His 3 sons bore testament to the wonders of modern agriculture, the eldest born on the cusp of the 50's revolutionary agro-science a healthy kentish lad well over 6 ft tall, if his brothers stood next to him shoulder to shoulder their heights would draw a diagonal line straight down, so did their IQ's, the youngest being effectively a dribbling halfwit barely capable of speech. For my sins to the planet, my missus conceived our first child while working with me in those very fields, the toxic slug pellets we were being paid a pittance to deploy leaving my son with a cleft palate and hair lip.
For these and many other damn good reasons I have deeply researched biological systems and have been a staunch advocate for permaculture and biodynamic agriculture ever since. So if I ever appear to be being arsey and a bit stuck up about soil science, please excuse me but I am now old and loosing patience with a stubborn world.

freemanjack said:

I lived the middle third of my life living as an itinerant agricultural labourer, in that time I worked in many different farming environments from pullin spuds up with me bare hands to working as sole forester to 60 acres of ancient english woodlands.
In this diverse decade and a half I lived and worked on the land I was helping to destroy, argo-chemical monoculture is literally stealing the soil our children will need to eat from to drive waste, profit and greed at all levels. It is no exaggeration to say the agro-chemical industries have entire continents' governments in their payola.
It takes a thousand year under normal conditions to make an inch of soil, I watched 2-3 inches of classic english farmland washed out into the north sea every year in norfolk, not only stealing our irreplaceable alluvial clay but poisoning the sea at the same time.
On another farm in kent, known widely locally as a 'model farm' with regular visits from other local farmers marvelling at this farmers immense crop delivery mechanism. His 3 sons bore testament to the wonders of modern agriculture, the eldest born on the cusp of the 50's revolutionary agro-science a healthy kentish lad well over 6 ft tall, if his brothers stood next to him shoulder to shoulder their heights would draw a diagonal line straight down, so did their IQ's, the youngest being effectively a dribbling halfwit barely capable of speech. For my sins to the planet, my missus conceived our first child while working with me in those very fields, the toxic slug pellets we were being paid a pittance to deploy leaving my son with a cleft palate and hair lip.
For these and many other damn good reasons I have deeply researched biological systems and have been a staunch advocate for permaculture and biodynamic agriculture ever since. So if I ever appear to be being arsey and a bit stuck up about soil science, please excuse me but I am now old and loosing patience with a stubborn world.

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So what's the plan freemanjack. How can we make any difference? Sign me up. I get try to help people in the right direction as far as sustainable gardening goes. Most can't fathom not using pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

And most are emotionally involved in their secret recipe and procedure that talking growing styles, even if for the betterment of the planet and out health; is like talking politics. Well. I'm with you either way good sir. And thank you for sharing your words and story.

green_machine_two9er said:

So what's the plan freemanjack. How can we make any difference? Sign me up. I get try to help people in the right direction as far as sustainable gardening goes. Most can't fathom not using pesticides or chemical fertilizers.

And most are emotionally involved in their secret recipe and procedure that talking growing styles, even if for the betterment of the planet and out health; is like talking politics. Well. I'm with you either way good sir. And thank you for sharing your words and story.

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No quick easy answer to that question but 'organic growing' is NOT the answer. Organic simply means agro-chemical using biologically derived chemicals, it is so far from 'natural' it hurts. Does a woodland need kelp, manure, volcanic rockdust or magnesium salts?
Nature uses a number of cycles each of which broadly harmonise and interrelate. Most of us were taught the water and carbon cycles at school but even these may not be as we were taught them.
The carbon/oxygen cycle for instance and the widely repeated fallacy that forests are the 'lungs of the planet', it is true that land plants exhale oxygen during the day but they also respire carbon dioxide at night and any decaying plant material decays into CO2 and methane.
The oceanic blue green algae actually produce ALL the oxygen we breathe, they live a metre below the entire ocean surface and absorb dissolved gasses from the water for their biological functions exhaling oxygen during the day the same as the land fauna but in this case the exhaled oxygen is released as a gaseous bubble that rises and pops at the surface meaning it cannot be immediately recirculated by the algae.
I guess what I am trying to say is the textbooks are all flawed the experts are all on payola and cannot be trusted and so it is left to us that know and grow plants to act differently in accordance to a keen direct observation of nature and apply this deeper understanding of how the world really works to affect our choices and influence the choices those around us make.
Optimal Gradualism is natures way, the slow erosion of the detrimental and obsolete and the support and dissemination of the beneficial and the promotion of 'what works'.

I got a similar story out of the dakotas, once the most fertile land on the continent. My last sin was clearing 2145 acres of native wetlands so the friggen vegans can have there precious "edemame" aka soybeans. The ag chem 24D and the pesticide malathion did its damage to myself and progeny.
Have heart friend, natures no shrinking violet. She's wiped out far more prolific species than us in the blink of an eye.
We'll know suddenly and painfully when she's had her fill.

morgwar said:

I got a similar story out of the dakotas, once the most fertile land on the continent. My last sin was clearing 2145 acres of native wetlands so the friggen vegans can have there precious "edemame" aka soybeans. The ag chem 24D and the pesticide malathion did its damage to myself and progeny.
Have heart friend, natures no shrinking violet. She's wiped out far more prolific species than us in the blink of an eye.
We'll know suddenly and painfully when she's had her fill.

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I think everyone in this thread would appreciate the paper "Soil Sorcery; The secret to dark, rich, carbon capturing soil? Treat Our microbes well", and the TED Talk, "How to Stop Climate Change and Reverse Desertification". I may not have got the titles exactly right but they should do for a search term.

freemanjack said:

No quick easy answer to that question but 'organic growing' is NOT the answer. Organic simply means agro-chemical using biologically derived chemicals, it is so far from 'natural' it hurts. Does a woodland need kelp, manure, volcanic rockdust or magnesium salts?
Nature uses a number of cycles each of which broadly harmonise and interrelate. Most of us were taught the water and carbon cycles at school but even these may not be as we were taught them.
The carbon/oxygen cycle for instance and the widely repeated fallacy that forests are the 'lungs of the planet', it is true that land plants exhale oxygen during the day but they also respire carbon dioxide at night and any decaying plant material decays into CO2 and methane.
The oceanic blue green algae actually produce ALL the oxygen we breathe, they live a metre below the entire ocean surface and absorb dissolved gasses from the water for their biological functions exhaling oxygen during the day the same as the land fauna but in this case the exhaled oxygen is released as a gaseous bubble that rises and pops at the surface meaning it cannot be immediately recirculated by the algae.
I guess what I am trying to say is the textbooks are all flawed the experts are all on payola and cannot be trusted and so it is left to us that know and grow plants to act differently in accordance to a keen direct observation of nature and apply this deeper understanding of how the world really works to affect our choices and influence the choices those around us make.
Optimal Gradualism is natures way, the slow erosion of the detrimental and obsolete and the support and dissemination of the beneficial and the promotion of 'what works'.

Click to expand...

The ocean's are being acidified at a rate that could have them dead in our childrens lifetimes. The latest projections show that we're on course for 50% of species,world wide, to be extinct by the end of this century. We're pumping out greenhouse gases at least 10x faster than any of the known previous mass extinction events. Either people the world over realize our role as stewards of the planet, our most important asset/investment, or we're all doomed.

SchmoeJoe said:

I think everyone in this thread would appreciate the paper "Soil Sorcery; The secret to dark, rich, carbon capturing soil? Treat Our microbes well", and the TED Talk, "How to Stop Climate Change and Reverse Desertification". I may not have got the titles exactly right but they should do for a search term.

Click to expand...

Sorry but I do not believe in man made climate change and as far as CO, wot is that big tank of gas big growers pump in their grows? More CO2 = better (I might also point out it was estimated that mt st helens released more CO that all of mankind's activities since the industrial revolution) Google 'global greening'. As to reversing desertification Geoff Lawton is yer 'go to guy' as he managed to re-green a site 2 clicks down the road from the dead sea, the hottest driest place on earth AND desalinated the soil while he did it!