Charlie wrote:
I still have, and read, an essay that you posted some years ago, that
summarizes my relationship with plants and the soil. It ain't simply
chemistry, no matter what Billy may claim. ;-) It's about mystery,
and magic and culture...getting your hands in the soil with the
organisms and receiving what they impart, both from contact and from
what they impart to the food we eat. Lots of other stuff that is
real, not the chimera of our "modern" world and modern food-like
products.


The way that I garden is fairly empirical and scientific but not entirely.
I use mainly organic methods because: it works, it is cost effective for
me and it is more sustainable.

But if it is a choice of the bugs get the crop or me I decide in my own
favour and spray but use the least toxic spray that will do the job. I use
potassium sulphate on my soil even though it is a purely synthetic substance
because I cannot add potassium easily and cheaply any other way. The fact
that it is (anomalously) an accepted input by most organic standards
concerns me not at all. I don't use ammonium nitrate, another purely
synthetic substance, not because the organic standard says I cannot but
because it can be harmful to the soil and because I can find nitrogen easily
and cheaply in several other ways which are not.

However why I garden is different. I garden because I enjoy the produce and
the activity, both are good for my body and mind.

The mind has two parts, the first is an analytic and constructive part.
That part says that compost tea works because it contains nutrients and
useful microorganisms not because Rudolf Steiner poured it through a cow's
horn and stirred it clockwise under a full moon and thus harnessed the flux
emanating from the navel of earth.

The other part is more mystical and instinctive, it is involved in
expression and appreciation and other things which cannot be measured. That
part tells me that if I eat the fruits of my labour directly instead of
employing a middle man I will feel good regardless of the difference in
health giving qualities (which the analytic part says are also there). The
instinctive part says that if I have a plot of earth to care for I will feel
better than if I don't - disregarding the practicality that the more I care
for it the more it will give back to me. Both parts need to be exercised
like the body or like the body they will diminish.


David