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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You live beside a mountain of love
What do you aspire to climb?

You live beside a sea of love
In what do you choose to swim?

You live amongst all beings
Whom do you love?

Do you accept love, arms outstretched?
Do you let love in to all parts of your being?

Does love then radiate from you
Seeking out others?

Do everything for love
Do all things as gifts of love

Then you are
Living in Love


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Love,

David


Click here for the opportunity to volunteer and study forest gardening, earth building, and permaculture at Harmony.

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Permaculture is about reducing pressure on remaining forests by bringing productive gardens and nature to where the people live. We minimise soil loss and build multifuntional food forests. We maximise our productivity and ability to supply our own needs and take care of our own wastes locally.

In harmony with Harmony we design and create forest garden systems that imitate nature as found in Harmony's mature native forest. We aim to increase Harmony forests's ability to grow food for humans, while keeping its own inherent integrity.

We utilise self-renewing natural systems of food production: Self-seeding annuals, perennials, trees and herbs and self seeding annuals; choosing species high in nutrition and medicinal value, for those who live at and visit Harmony.

Permaculture reduces waste and disharmony by integrating more people into the natural world on which their survival depends. "It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order." Mollison 1988

We do this consciously with All Beings present.

It is this loving relationship with All Beings which is our greatest gift and our greatest sustenance.

For more special experiences and insights on living with respect for All Beings Subscribe here for Harmony's free quarterly e-zine sharing enchanting personal experiences not published elsewhere.


From “Theosophical Siftings” Volume - 1 - 1888

" Elementals" is a term applied to the nature spirits, the living existences which belong peculiarly to the elements they inhabit; " Matter is connected with Spirit by an intermediate principle which it receives from this Spirit . . . Each living being is connected with the Macrocosmos and Microcosmos by means of this intermediate element or Soul, belonging to the Mysterium [Page 16] Magnum from whence it has been received, and whose form and qualities are determined by the quality and quantity of the spiritual and material elements". . . . From this we may infer that the "Elementals", properly speaking, are the "Soul-forms" of the elements they inhabit — the activities and energies of the World-Soul differentiated into forms, endowed with more or less consciousness, and capacities for "feeling", and hours of enjoyment, or pain.

But these, never, or rarely, entering any more deeply into dense matter than enabled so to do by their aerial invisible bodies, do not appear upon our gross physical plane otherwise than as forces, energies, or influences. Their Soul-forms are the intermediate link between matter and spirit, resembling the Soul-forms of animals and men, which also form this intermediate link. The difference being that the souls of animals and men have enveloped themselves in a casing of dense matter for the purposes of existence upon the more external planes of life."

Symbiosis is "a condition which arises among a group of organisms permitting them to live together in harmony to their mutual benefit" p. 14, The Weed Problem: A New Approach by F.C. King.

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Love,

David

Click here for the opportunity to volunteer and study forest gardening, earth building, and permaculture at Harmony.

Please forward, distribute, and publish every article in this blog anywhere you wish, as long as the ENTIRE article, footnotes, and any banners, are left as is, and all links remain active. Exception: Photos may be left out, though we prefer they stay.