Natural Organics.

Jack · Natural Organics.

Gidday

I know I am probably a funny old bugger and have been known to be a bit of a non-conformist so here I go again.

Now be warned, this is a long post.

In my distant past we lost our family farm because of parasites in our stock. (Another story)

Years latter I had a similar thing happening with stud sheep on my smallholding and I found that resistance to drenches wasn’t working for me. http://www.spah.co.nz/dyn_documents/anthelminitic_resistance_in_nz.pdf

Vets didn’t help either. I had the vet do a P.M. on a lamb that was dying and it showed an overwhelming infestation of Ostertagia circumcincta. I asked for a written P.M. Report which he agreed to but then I also mentioned I wanted to sue the drench company and I then could not even get a bill for what he did because he would have had to give the P.M. Report too.

I finally overcome the problem myself by drenching with trace elements, mainly cobalt and iron. Later still, I found that many diseases including internal parasites where banished from my property by changing over to Sabbatical Fallow system of farming. (Yet another story)

Around about then, the wife of one of my wife’s workmates was always sick and the doctors could not seem to even diagnose what was wrong, let alone cure her. I asked what the symptoms were and when I was told I simply said she has cobalt deficiency.
Of course I was laughed at but I went and got my veterinary book out which had maps of areas in New Zealand that were deficient in cobalt and showed that these people lived right smack in the middle and a highly deficient area. I then turned over the pages to show the symptoms of cobalt deficiency in sheep and they were identical to what this woman had.

I then heard about this here Yankee joker who was a vet then turned doctor who really slagged of the medical professions with his talks headed “Dead Doctors Don’t Lie.”
http://www.deaddoctors.com/
He talked about some USDA report back in the 30’s or 40’s saying that almost all of America’s soils were then depleted of minerals and trace elements. He also claims that over 90% of all humans die of deficiency diseases and wants to sell everyone a trace element supplement at huge dollars. Of course he didn’t have any answers as to how the fix the soils though, possibly because if he did he wouldn’t sell any of his magic mixture.

Now all this got this old rough country boy a thinkin.

And as those friends of my wife were very strictly organic people who grew all their own vegies, so that meant that organic growing could not put minerals into soil either.
If my sheep got badly effected by internal parasites and trace elements fixed them then that’s the way to go. But if that was the case, why the hell did my stock problems disappear when I started Sabbatical Fallow farming. Now that has been a question that has puzzled me for years.

Then I heard some fancy soil scientist on our radio spouting off about how our soils were so deficient in selenium, something that I was also aware of. But then he turned and said that Australian soils were not as deficient as ours. That was O.K. but then he added that both soils came from a similar origin, and it was just that the Australian soils had aged more than ours.

From that I figured that with the Sabbatical Fallow, it must be something in the composting on the soil that aged the soil or something. But somehow that didn’t help me much so I always religiously added trace elements to the soil in my vege garden so that I would not be eating deficient food. I can’t see the point of buying stuff in bottles when you can grow it in your food.

Not only am I a rough country boy, I am normally a bloody untidy one too, especially in my vege garden. I also always believed that the Good Lord could do things better than me so why make compost, just throw the bloody stuff back on the garden and let it just happen naturally.

Now a few years ago when I moved down here to this place, the vege garden had such bloody terrible clay soil I had to do something fast and improve it so I started making compost. And yes it seemed to work good too.

Recently, like a few weeks ago, I read a book that I have had for about 30 years.

Yep, I don’t read very much.

The book was called “Ploughman’s Folly” and was written in 1943, I think. When I read it, not just one but bloody bucket loads of pennies dropped, on my head I think. In this here book, mentioned only about three times in three separate parts of it was what I had been looking for years.

Eureka or what!

It said, decomposing organic matter in the top couple of inches of the soil produces carbon dioxide, and as organic matter held several times it’s own weight of water, the carbon dioxide would dissolve in the water to produce carbonic acid. And that carbonic acid was one of the best acids to dissolve rock and that mineral soil was just small particles of rock. And that rock consists of many minerals and trace elements. I have researched this a bit since and caint dispute it.

Sooo… that is how Sabbatical Fallow farming released trace elements into the soil in an area where our soils were deficient in those very same trace elements. Deficiency is normally only that something is unavailable to the plants even though in most cases it is really there anyway.

And what’s more, you will never see any official research done into this because it would prove that the whole chemical industry, which funds most research, is not only useless but also bloody down right dangerous. And governments wouldn’t want these facts to get out either because if the multi-national chemical industry collapsed the world economies would go around the “S” bend as well.

The whole purpose of the Ploughman’s Folly book was to try to get farmers not to plough and turn the organic matter under too deeply but to disc and incorporate it into the surface area of the soil and then plants that are planted into this before the organic matter had decomposed, would allow the plant roots to capture the trace elements that had been release by that carbonic acid before it leached out of reach of the plant roots and be lost forever. It seems to be written more for getting the plants healthy without the use of chemicals rather than the people who consume them.

My poor little brain has now been working overtime. If you are gardening like normal organic gardening, your produce will have no more of life’s essential trace elements than any other produce, because chances are you are never adding un-decomposed organic matter to you soil. Of course your vegies wouldn’t have all that other crap that is in modern farmed produce. And what is more, you are probably adding lime to your soil, which destroys that carbonic acid, which is the vital missing link in most of our horticulture and agriculture. You must have organic decomposition going on in the top couple of inches of your soil and it must be in the presence of the roots of growing plants.

NOW MY CONCLUSION IS:

Always grow as much of your own food as you can.

Always make sure you have something that is still decomposing within the root zone of your vege plants.

Don’t let anything like manure age before adding it to your soil. But with the likes of pig or chook poop you will need to make sure when it rains or you water that droplets don’t splash the crap onto the plant leaves as that will burn them, so cover it with a mulch and don’t worry about under the soil cos that is where you want things to get all acidy and burn the trace elements outa the mineral particles of the soil. If you don’t believe me about animal poop not causing and harm, go out into a paddock where some is and give it a bloody good kick and see if any of the grass under it is burnt. Remember that dropped down there when it was still hot, not just fresh. The grass may be a little yellowed if the poop has been there a few days but that is only from the lack of sunshine.

But by the way, it is probably not a good idea to put the poop around your lettuces or other salad plants, cos what splashes onto your lettuce might not be very good for you if you don’t wash it all off before eating it.

And finally, don’t use any chemicals or even lime on your soil because you and the Good Lord can build a bloody side better soil without them. If your soil is too acid put on some fine river sand sos there more mineral particles for the acid to work on.

I told you I was a bit different.

quarryman

Excellent stuff Jack. I think I will start your form of composting for next years veggie crop. I am starting to prepare the soil in the beds so I think I will spread my home grown compost on the surface and leave it. Thanks for the tips.

I was looking at North Otago on Google Earth. Fantastic country. We have been talking about moving to a milder, dryer climate in a few years and were looking at South Island. Beautiful place.

blowin

Really interesting post there , Jack , many thanks for sharing your research with us . I will definitely give your method a go .

Jack

Gidday

Yeah Quarry Man, it is dry. Even though we live on an island, down here we get a continental type climate because of the Southern Alps running right up north south. As we are smack in the middle of the roaring forties the prevailing wind hits the Alps and as it goes over it creates a foehn wind. http://www.answers.com/f%C3%B6ehn%20wind

Biggest trouble like yesterday the temperature can rise or drop very quickly, when it dropped from 60 to 40 degrees in an hour or two.

quarryman

Thanks for the info Jack. Here it is mostly damp and it rarely dries out fully. We are on the West coast and get mild air from the Atlantic, this is great for growing trees but not if, like me, your joints ache for most of the year.

Cleared most of the veggie beds today and will be trying the system of composting you mentioned. I will still use the old system for the spuds for the deeper roots.

Where is the nearest town to you so I can try to spot your area on Google Earth.

Michael

Jack

Gidday

If you search for "Duntroon, New Zealand" you will land there.

I don't know if those pins stay in the map but our place is under a pin "56"

quarryman

No pins Jack but the area looks great. That is some river bed, does it flood in Winter?

Blowin, Jacks not too far from the ocean, just think of the sea fishing. Wink

Jack

Gidday

That's the Waitaki River, the South Island's second biggest river. It is one of several of our braided rivers:-http://www.answers.com/braided%20river

If you look on Google Earth at the Rakaia river you will see one that is wider with more braiding but runs less water.

quarryman

Jack, if you put in Tobercurry, on Google Earth that is the town nearest to Blowin and myself. Blowin is to the West and North in the mountains and I am to the East just north of Doocastle. As you will see they didn't bother doing our area in high def, but North of us is Sligo town which is a bit better def.

wayland

Interesting read Jack. I wonder if your lack of rain may be contributing to the apparent lack of minerals etc. Rain being acid acid of course. I have just taken over a bit of rank pasture that needs some work and I will see if your suggestions are the way to go. Cheers.

Jack

Gidday

Actually Wayland, that was when I lived up in the North Isdland which has a climate similar to what you have I believe, although it may be a bit warmer.

The Sabbatical Fallow I mentioned is where you lock up one seventh of the property for an entire year and let the grass just grow and fall down and grow up through it. It is sometimes refered to as sheet composting. You work it out, say you get grass growth of 12000 kg. per ha. and all of that weight of drymatter in the form of good compost.

Perhaps I should post about that on a different thread.