Forest Gardening meets Deep and Personal Ecology

The book is repetitive in making its points. This is my key summary:

Plants secrete their excess colloidal minerals from the roots poisoning the soil to their own kind within 3 - 5 generations.

Sawdust mixed with soil kills all weeds for a year, after which it needs to be left undisturbed as it is then a prolific medium of weed growth. Put compost on top to smother weeds.

The poorer the soil the quicker the weeds go to seed and the smaller their leaf growth. The richer the soil the slower they go to seed and the bigger the plant. Thus the richer the soil to more humus is ultimately added back to the soil. Rich soil is rich in microbes and so eats (decays) and organic material lying on it faster.

Digging-in worked when labour is cheap and manure abundant because it greatly reduces the excess of nutrients available to plants.

Digging breaks up the soil's surface skin, reduces its fertility, lets it dry out quicker in dry weather, lets it stay wetter in wet weather, and brings weed seeds to the surface.

Soil heats from radiation of heat from below more than from solar heat from above. Digging opens up the earth allow ing this heat to dissipate, cooling the earth, and slowing the germination of seeds, especially in Spring. Compaction is needed to hold radiating heat in. By dispersing the dark surface humus layer digging also reduces the heat absorbed from the sun.

Weeds provide the nutrients plants need. A diversity of plants growing in healthy soil is usually disease free. Weeds are best grown amongst garden plants and harvested for compost. By raking and applying compost at the time of seeding plants such as lettuces, the lettuces will get ahead of the weeds, the few weeds that get as far as setting seed can be removed, the crop can be harvested, and the crop residue and weeds processed together as green material.

Weeds will not grow readily unless the soil suits them more than your crop. Grow the weeds to increase fertility, to increase subsequent crops, and to have less weeds.

A weed is simply a "plant out of place" in the gardener's desired plan.

The easiest soil to plant in is mulched soil. A wooden rake will clear the mulch material exposing a fine seed bed.

Weeds keep soil covered. Covered soil is healthy and moist.

Without aeration, cultivation, and/or addition of nitrogen dug in or smother mulched turf will take several years to break down.

Acids produced by microbes acting on humus, such as humic acid, act on inorganic minerals in the soil, making them into the colloidal form which plants can absorb.

To learn more about forest gardening, organic gardening, and permaculture herevolunteer and study at Harmony.

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Love,

David

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