Charlie wrote:
On Fri, 12 Mar 2010 14:40:02 +1100, "David Hare-Scott"
wrote:

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

Well spoken, David.

"Primum non nocere"

"First, do no harm", is a maxim which I attempt to follow when it
comes to gardening, the soil and my relationship with our planet, to
the point of zealotry, as has been pointed out...an ideal which I
admittedly fall short of meeting when it comes to my interactions with
humans.

I only differ with you in that when it comes to critters that are
beating me out of produce, I try and discern alternatives or improve
or change conditions that are causing this.... or do without.


I wasn't clear. Spraying is the last resort. I pick 'em off by hand,
enclose in cages, hose away, use BT etc if I can get a reasonable yield that
way. If it gets to the point where the bugs are winning then I will spray
rather than do without.

D