The Soil

Plants and animals are the same in terms of consciousness and awareness. Plants are very much aware and conscious of what is going on around them. They communicate with one another as well. You can literally develop a bond with them. Since the soil is a living thing too, then it too, with you, have this ability. If you need more about this let me know. I am assuming because of your spiritual adventures you know a bit about this already. We are all One after all. I can prove this using physics if needed. Give some more details, examples, what not.

The long haul is the focus here, just like a long term financial plan. Seven dollars saved now, is how much in ten years? Depends on the interest rate yes? I am assuming you will be living on your five acres for some time to come. One of my favorite garden sayings is, The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. Soil work is a minimum of five years, for noticeable results anyways, so the best time to have started was five years ago. This long term plan might make sense for you since you don’t have the time now for a full fledged garden. With this knowledge you can begin preparing for when you are ready.

You can easily begin investing in your soil, so that when you are ready, so is the soil, and you won’t have to spend a dime if you don’t want to getting it ready. A freshly chopped tree in the ground takes somewhere in the range of five years to decompose to the point of being fully useful to plants, minimum. I call gardening the soil itself the real miracle grow way, because when done right stuff grows like a miracle.  If one establishes their soil it will seem like Miracle Gro is being used. I’ve tested this by the way; Miracle Gro fed plants vs. not vs. compost pile fed plants.  Compost pile wins, so turning the soil itself into a fresh living thing is the ideal situation.

If you were to look around closely, you will find virtually no one doing this. I think you are like me though, in that we do not like to be like others. Because of this, I recommend applying the Golden Rule; Do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. Virtually no one does this! If the soil is a living being, then shouldn’t we treat it as we would ourselves; feeding it the best, never disrupting it, never treading upon it?

Another way to look at the soil is like it’s a bank. Let’s use a small 8x8 garden, or raised bed. I’d prefer a 3x14 hugelkultur mound though. So let’s say we are using this bed for our own personal use, but metaphorically looking at it like our bank account. The soil of this bed is now our checking account. Every time living matter leaves that garden bed, money has been withdrawn.  Every time something is added, money is deposited. You see where this is going? If all we do is take, it will eventually go dry.  This is one of the major downfalls of mass monoculture farming; every kernel of corn, every bean, withdraws from the soil and is never replaced. The chemicals they use to replenish the soil for their mass farming is no different than you or I going to McDonald's to replace needed nutrients in our bodies. The very reason their food is so devoid of nutrients is because it comes from greasy chemicals. It’s fast food at every level; a vicious circle.

I watched a TED talk by a scientist who asked his audience a question. It blew my mind. He asked them how much of a tree, which he had a photograph of, came from the soil. It was a good sized tree. Most people guessed a large part of the tree was from the soil, but this is not true; Most of the tree is from the air. I had never really thought of this before, so my whole view of growing food changed. The scientist even said most kids coming out of college with biology majors get the question totally wrong. He pointed out the obvious, that if the tree come from the soil, there would now be a hole in the ground where the tree is. My jaw dropped, why had I never thought of this before.

If you didn’t know this, let it sink in: most of the mass of a tree is from the air. Now relate this to purposefully allowing stuff to grow simply to compost it. If you are only gardening and tilling a small part of your lot, consider allowing a section to grow trees for no other reason than to bury them years later in hugelkultur mounds and for their leaves every year.  There is little work on your part allowing trees to grow on a single acre of your land. Consider of course planting trees that serve multiple purposes, but more on that later.

If it is true what you said about the land you live on being row cropped, carefully consider that tree roots is exactly what your soil needs. Lots of them. Actually it needs a lot of plants growing period, then being either trampled, or cut off at the ground like hay and left lying; leaving all the roots in the ground. The trees and plants will be acquiring the majority of their mass from the air and placing it directly into your soil. Just make sure the trees you grow never leave the land. This will be your way of depositing money in the bank free of charge, if you know what I mean.  Literally grow them to later bury in hugelkultur mounds.  

This is why acquiring as much organic material as possible is a main priority at all times. If you were to pay attention virtually no one does this either. It is why so many, have so many problems gardening and making money; they are perpetually making withdraws, and never depositing. Here in Springfield whenever I drive by a big commercial lot that is vacant I think to myself; if I were already set up I would be charging those people to clear that lot, then take it all back to my place and chip/shred it into a compost pile. You see, if I were selling food out of my gardens I would be constantly withdrawing ‘money’ from my soil. I would want to stay on the plus side of deposits by purposefully acquiring composting material.

Say you knew farmers with old hay they never used or sold, get that! Say your neighbors do not compost; get it all. Have everyone and anyone you know dumping their yard ‘trash’ at your place.

The one thing to avoid in this situation is obviously diseased plants. If you had walnut trees on your property, and say someone brought a diseased walnut tree over for composting that would potentially be a problem. One way around this is solarizing stuff, which amounts to buying a huge sheet of UV protected greenhouse plastic, then laying it out over shallow piles of compost. At my place I used a 20x20 sheet. The stuff is not overly expensive. In this summer heat, the sun will literally sterilize everything between the ground and the plastic. This is a good way to clear an area for future planting too, because it keeps one from having to till, or use chemicals, to clear away the living ‘weeds’ as they are called. It also kills seeds. It’s a relatively work free way of clearing ground for a future bed.

Anyways, anytime one is in doubt about diseased materials just add them to the solarize pile. There is a plethora of videos on Youtube about how to get a compost pile to 160 degrees. Another option is simply burning any questionable materials, then using the ashe like fertilizer.  I burned all weed seeds in my fire pit on a regular basis. I would clip the seed pods into the burn pile, and the rest of the plant into the compost.

Ultimately, the roots of plants, and the worms are the tiller. Scientists have shown that plant roots will literally grown down old worm tunnels and feed off of worm castings. Try to think of the soil like your skin. It has layers, and there are different things going on at each level. Over millions of years of evolving, plants have come to expect certain things from the soil. And just like us, if we are unhealthy, that is, not getting the things we need; we get sick. Any diseased or pest infested plant is a plant not getting what it needs. It is not healthy, even if it appears to be so on the outside. Can you tell which human has high blood pressure, or high cholesteral, just by looking at them? This is why pesticide and fertilizer was developed, so the work of soil gardening could be skipped. Why? Because doing it correctly isn’t profitable to any corporations. You know the drill. They sell chemicals to kill weeds, and it’s weeds that you need.  

There are a fair number of ‘weeds’ that make great living mulch in a garden and are also edible. Like I said earlier the sun should never actually shine on the soil. Dandelions are a perfect low growing, ground covering plant. They are beautiful too, and bees like them. There is a certain clover that works great too, the low growing white flowered one.  I say you need them all. Purslane, chickweed, deadnettle, are all edible low growing plants.  Marigolds are another; totally edible. I’ve heard it is really good for chickens to have marigold flowers in their diet. I put them in my salads. Just cut the base of the flower so all the petals are loose and toss. There are many levels of benefits to doing this. These plants keep pests down, are juiceable/edible, low growing, ground covering, living mulches. Just never uproot them; always cut them off at the ground. The soil and worms want those roots.

A garden maxim for you. Humans get only what grows above ground, except with the obvious; potatoes, radishes, beets, what not. All others should always be cut off right at the ground, disturbing the soil as little as possible. The soil needs those dead roots.

Leaves, leaves, more leaves. Leaves are like pennies, while a single leave is not much, an entire tree worth of pennies is something else. I even collected acorns, smashed them, and composted them. They were nickels, or dimes, perhaps. All those green skins off of walnuts; gold! I found so many people in Clinton that just throw it all away. I had people who bagged it for me, I just went and picked it up, then gave them their bags back. They loved me for it. Mountains and mountains of leaves turns into a very little dirt, but that dirt is gold. It is also perfect mulch cover to keep the dirt in the dark. Leaves are designed by nature to suffocate out any wannabe plants thinking they can compete with the living trees. I used leaf mulch in all my walk ways. I had problems with the leaves suffocating my stuff it does the job so well.  I keep my leaves separate from my main compost for this purpose of using it as mulch. Leaves mixed with wood chips are the best mulch available.

Another major benefit regarding leaves is that they are a preferred food for worms. That is, worms prefer them. A lot of worms surface and pull leaves back into their holes.  The only thing they love more than decomposing plants is poop. Most major worm farmers feed their worms poop. If you are not already, consider pooping in a hole in the yard, for a couple years, adding sawdust, or wood chips over it as you go, then plant a tree: start a new hole. It is much more righteous to squat over a hole in the ground than to shit in cleaned water. They say it is healthier to squat when pooping anyways. It’s a win win. Regardless, poop is second on the list after living plants.