Kitchen Garden Forum

Topsoil used to be 3 - 4 ft deep, now thanks to intensive farming methods it is barely a foot, like our skin soil has functions for the huge organism called earth, so that it can support diversity. We don't strip our skin and interfere with what is happening underneath, if we did it woulld cease to function for our benefit. Intensive use of the soil and failure to return what is left after eating the crops ,and use of chemicals leaves the soil sterile and depletes depth. Monoculture, where all the roots in the field are at the same level strips nutrients from one level,and fails to recover those building up at deepr levels to recirculate them as usually the whole crop including roots is removed, having plants at different levels helps to recirculate nurtients, plants with deep roots like comfrey and trees recover nutrients from subsoil and bring them to the surface to recycle
80% + of plants have a symbiotic relationshp with fungi, in which both plants and fungi benefit in an exchange enabling both to flourish , tilling and digging interferes with this process, fungi move nutrients to where they are needed by plants, Soil will be needed by future generations we are guardians of the soil, for them. Take the trouble to read these like I did.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul ... world.html
http://soilquality.org/functions/biodiversity.html
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/attadale/merr ... l-symb.pdf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugFd1JdFaE0

Fungi/ plant symbiosis may play a role in bio fuels, clearing pollution, and carbon sequestration
http://news.mongabay.com/bioenergy/2008 ... plant.html

Hi N'sB

I have not read all your links yet, but promise I will try to.

If you will permit me a respectful initial comment: the earth is not a living organism; it is a planet which has life in/on it. The analogy with the human body and skin is at best fallacious, and at worst dangerously deluded (and unscientific).

I am sure that Johnboy will reply at greater and more informed length than I am able to.

Alan

It seems to me that a forest floor and a field are quite different. The forest floor is part of a pretty much closed system. It is fertilised by the animals that defecate and die there, as well as the plant material that decays there. It is dug to an extent by burrowing animals that live there too.

A field has a crop taken off it. Dead plant material and animals are typically not left to rot there. So it must be fertilised in some way. We also want to grow vegetables of completely unnatural proportions in it. And we - contrary to nature - want to keep them entirely our own consumption rather than share them with the wildlife (at least I do !).

I weary of talk of organics being about working in harmony with nature. Harmony ? with the fencing to keep the deer and rabbits out, netting to keep the birds off, environmesh to keep the butterflies off the cabbage - the plot's starting to look like a scene from a war film; all it needs is some coils of razor wire ...

Who says topsoil was three to four feet deep and on what evidence?

In soils untouched by agriculture the topsoil is pretty much the same as those carefully cultivated.to avoid wind or water erosion.
The only truly deep top layers I have heard of are leaf litter, sand dunes and peat bogs.

Hi NB,
Thank you for your reply. I have printed off a copy of your posting to study. This may take a little time but I shall reply asap.
JB.

Tony when you fight a battle with natural processes , it is a war zone. This is not about organics it is about natural processes, science has not identified all the mycelium yet, there is potential for their use in clearing pollution, in bio fuels, and in medicine and pest control, more effectively than chemicals that pollute and we are destroying them. Organics and conventional farming are both responsible for the depletion of soil depth.
You are all condemning this without trying it, I have tried it and it works for me. When flat earthers heard that the world was round they also ridiculed it.
Mycelium is a gateway species that made the diversity of all life possible and we are destroying it - before we fully understand it.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/paul ... world.html

PS i am increasing depth of topsoil where I use this method and that can only benefit plants.

John boy why not try a test bed, give it time and study it practically as well as read about it. I always have to test things out as well as read, it has to have practical application, the only drawback I have found is that at first you have to be one step ahead of the slugs but maybe in time if nematodes flourish in the soil that may not be such a problem.
Benefits are no digging, easier weeding, less over tiime if not seeding,greater water retention, better acces to nutrients, no fertiliser costs, increased soil depth for plant roots, I aim to convert more of my garden , but it takes time.

Alan, ah so it is like the moon, no life ? It is symbiosis extended, into a diverse, interconnected interdependent whole and we are so busy trying to unravel what we depend on - we could not live on the moon.unless perhaps we used the gateway mycelium to pave the way for life, apparently there is some water there, and lichens can survive in space and still live apparently.

Nature's Babe wrote:Alan, ah so it is like the moon, no life ? It is symbiosis extended, into a diverse, interconnected interdependent whole and we are busy trying to unravel what we depend on we could not live on the moon.

Hi N'sB

With respect again: you know well that that is not what I implied. I actually said: "the earth is not a living organism; it is a planet which has life in/on it.
Not very different from your "It is symbiosis extended, into a diverse, interconnected interdependent whole", but a great deal less fanciful.

With regard to your unsubstantiated opening statement; "Topsoil used to be 3 - 4 ft deep, now thanks to intensive farming methods it is barely a foot", I would echo Peter's implied question: "Where? Who says so?"
Our field, which to my knowledge has never been cultivated, apart from the small section I grow in, has barely four inches - and that goes for most of the land round here.

Alan, I can't remember where I learned that. but here are a few relevant links to the problem of soil erosion, it is definitely happening and some countries have problems, it is possible to reverse the trend, mycelium have a role to play here, and surely better to prevent it in the first place and think positively.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk

http://www.soilsworldwide.net/index.php/Soil_Erosion

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/fe ... nvironment

http://www.china.org.cn/english/null/125554.htm

http://www.sustainablelivingmagazine.or ... al-warming

NB, soil erosion is a definite issue, especially on fragile soils recently denuded of forest cover, however that does not answer my question.
I agree that increasing the depth of topsoil is a worthy aim for a gardener , indeed double-digging incorporating manure does exactly that, as do other techniques.
However basing a logical argument on a vague "something you heard and can't remember where" is misguided at best, indeed for example I myself could start some very strange logical arguments based on snippets of conversations I have overheard on public transport.

I garden organically by choice.

Perhaps the organic supporters will use the bodies of the 3 billion humans for fertiliser.... the 3 billion who will die from starvation if agriiculture did not use artificial fertilisers..

And all the honey bees would die from not using non-organic treatments for various pests. And most cows milk would be full of brucellosis. And of course chicken prices would treble.. Modern battery farming feeds the world..

I weary of people who PREACH - and then ignore the impact of what they are advocating...

If they made a serious - and I mean seriously thought out - case for changing farming in a way we could still feed the world.. But they do not.

So I treat most of them with the contempt they deserve...

I learn more by keeping an open mind listening to others and hopefully not treating anyone with contempt. The problems are not just this or that farming method, but our population density is far higher than many countries, in the top quartile and still spiralling up there is a limit to what our country can produce. Modern farming practise relies heavily on oil, which is in decline , we just wasted a lot in the gulf, if oil lasts 2 or 10 years longer we have to prepare for that, oil is used for machinery and a lot of the chemicals we spread on the land, also the food industry
I also did have the up to date population density figures, it was on the governments HM Treasury spending challenge website, but unfortunately can't access them as the site is down at the moment,while moderators clean it up, due a minority treating the site with malicious contempt, which is a shame because there were a lot of constructive ideas being shared.
When oil runs out we will be forced to rethink, better to prepare for when it does, we may need to look at many options to keep the world fed. conventional,organic and even GM farms are all heavily dependent on oil

A farm for the future You tube 1-5

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xShCEKL-mQ8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0X25hML ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJQhRIKo ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2fLtTsf ... re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RJT39DD ... re=related

I think it might be best to publish the letter that I wrote to Nature's Babe
under the heading LIME in General Chatter which prompted her return to me. I suggest that we take it from there.

Re: LIME Copied from General Chatter
Hi NB,
I write this with great respect but I am afraid that you say 'what limes a forest' may well be true but we on this forum are vegetable growers and vegetables do not and would not grow on a forest floor so I suspect that your comments have very little bearing on the subject. A forest floor is an ecosystem all to itself and would not and does not need help from anybody. I do not know what you achieve by likening any vegetable growing with such an ecosystem because even with your no dig it bears no similarity with such an ecosystem. Certainly you have a no dig system and a forest floor is not dug but there I see the end of any similarity.
NB I an not trying to be awkward or nasty I am just trying very hard to understand what you mean by it all. I very much want to understand what you actually mean.
JB.

Nature's Babe's reply has taken a little by surprise and at present I am a little bit under the weather but I intend to reply to her letter as soon as I possibly can.
JB.