Soil First Farming
August 31, 2012
A note that I sent to our CSA program a few weeks ago. It really sums up what I've been thinking about this summer relating to soil health and our responsibility as producers and eaters. Hope you gain something from this.
Mike
Hello Dear CSA members,
It has been so much fun taking this culinary journey with you so far this season. In the garden, we've been learning a lot about production and we've been experimenting. We've tried a few new crops, such a collards, which I have really enjoyed growing and eating. We've also been experimenting with seeding density to find out the best balance between seeding very densely which can crowd out certain plants and create too much competition between plants for resources, but can have the advantage of creating a canopy which shades out weeds and helps to maintain moisture in the soil. I've been surprised by how densely we have successfully been able to seed certain crops such as salad greens and radishes.
I wanted to take a moment to remind you that we are farming completely chemical free. We do not use any chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Our choice to do this comes from a deep commitment to improving soil health, which I believe eventually improves human health. Using various chemical concoctions, it is simple to grow beautiful looking food that can be enormous. Generally, folks can use applications of marcronutrients NPK (Nitrogen - Phosphorous - Potassium) to grow food that looks good. Nitrogen is responsible for growing the green leafy part of the plants. Phosphorous helps plants like tomatoes flower and fruit. Potassium is responsible for pumping water and nutrients around the plant. But without the vital micronutrients such as calcium, iron, boron, magnesium etc, these beautiful looking plants are nutritionally compromised and cannot provide humans with what we need to be healthy.
The natural farming method is very different. When we prioritize soil health, our job is not simply to provide plants with what they need to grow, but to make sure that the soil is balanced and healthy. We add micronutrients and biological stimulants that help to wake up and add vitality to what has been named the "Soil Food Web" - the complex web of living beings in the soil. Once this soil food web is alive and vital, organisms such as bacteria and fungi are able to liberate and mobilize both macro and mirco nutrients in the soil and make them available to growing plants in the quantities that they need. Once the soil becomes balanced, plants have a greater chance of becoming balanced and they are better able to resist diseases and pests that would traditionally damage crops.
The practical upshoot of this is that once these plants are balanced, and we - as supporting members of a healing agriculture system - eat them, our bodies react much like the plants. With balanced level of micronutrients in our bodies, we become much more able to resist dis-eases than we would have been if we were eating a diet of plants that are essentially on "steriods".
The process of healing soil does not happen over night. It is long and involved. Sometimes it doesn't pay off immediately, and the produce doesn't look like it does in the grocery store. But so far, I have found that even when the produce doesn't look quite like we expect it to, the flavour is absolutely unmatched by anything that has been shipped from California, Mexico, China or Chile.
I really hope that you have been enjoying this experience so far, and I commend you for supporting a project and farmers that are dedicated to healing a broken food system.
Mike
Hello Dear CSA members,
It has been so much fun taking this culinary journey with you so far this season. In the garden, we've been learning a lot about production and we've been experimenting. We've tried a few new crops, such a collards, which I have really enjoyed growing and eating. We've also been experimenting with seeding density to find out the best balance between seeding very densely which can crowd out certain plants and create too much competition between plants for resources, but can have the advantage of creating a canopy which shades out weeds and helps to maintain moisture in the soil. I've been surprised by how densely we have successfully been able to seed certain crops such as salad greens and radishes.
I wanted to take a moment to remind you that we are farming completely chemical free. We do not use any chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides. Our choice to do this comes from a deep commitment to improving soil health, which I believe eventually improves human health. Using various chemical concoctions, it is simple to grow beautiful looking food that can be enormous. Generally, folks can use applications of marcronutrients NPK (Nitrogen - Phosphorous - Potassium) to grow food that looks good. Nitrogen is responsible for growing the green leafy part of the plants. Phosphorous helps plants like tomatoes flower and fruit. Potassium is responsible for pumping water and nutrients around the plant. But without the vital micronutrients such as calcium, iron, boron, magnesium etc, these beautiful looking plants are nutritionally compromised and cannot provide humans with what we need to be healthy.
The natural farming method is very different. When we prioritize soil health, our job is not simply to provide plants with what they need to grow, but to make sure that the soil is balanced and healthy. We add micronutrients and biological stimulants that help to wake up and add vitality to what has been named the "Soil Food Web" - the complex web of living beings in the soil. Once this soil food web is alive and vital, organisms such as bacteria and fungi are able to liberate and mobilize both macro and mirco nutrients in the soil and make them available to growing plants in the quantities that they need. Once the soil becomes balanced, plants have a greater chance of becoming balanced and they are better able to resist diseases and pests that would traditionally damage crops.
The practical upshoot of this is that once these plants are balanced, and we - as supporting members of a healing agriculture system - eat them, our bodies react much like the plants. With balanced level of micronutrients in our bodies, we become much more able to resist dis-eases than we would have been if we were eating a diet of plants that are essentially on "steriods".
The process of healing soil does not happen over night. It is long and involved. Sometimes it doesn't pay off immediately, and the produce doesn't look like it does in the grocery store. But so far, I have found that even when the produce doesn't look quite like we expect it to, the flavour is absolutely unmatched by anything that has been shipped from California, Mexico, China or Chile.
I really hope that you have been enjoying this experience so far, and I commend you for supporting a project and farmers that are dedicated to healing a broken food system.
Posted by Kristen Carlson.
