How to Grow More Vegetables : And Fruits, Nuts ... - Shroomery

The Need for up to “99%” Sustainability
At Ecology Action, we are looking for the quickest, most
effective, most resource-conserving, and most ecologically
sound ways to replenish and balance soil nutrients. Once the
soil’s nutrient base has been properly built and balanced, we
need to learn how best to maintain those nutrients in our gardens
and mini-farms. One promising approach is to grow all of
our own compost materials in sufficient quantities so that the
cured compost we add to the soil contains as many of the
nutrients the crops removed from the soil as possible, as well as
enough humus to feed the soil microbes and prevent nutrient
leaching. In this way, our food-raising area becomes
a source—rather than a sink—of carbon, nutrients, and fertility.
(The net loss of carbon dioxide, or “leakage,” from the system
is a key concern. Worldwide, the loss of carbon from our
soils—and plants in the form of harvested trees and their use
for fuel—is a situation causing increasing problems.)
Keeping the nutrients within the mini-farm, as well as
learning how to minimize the amount of nutrients we need to
bring in from the outside, are important tasks if we are to grow
all of our food, clothing, and building materials on the 9,000
square feet (or about 1 ⁄ 5 of an acre) that may soon be all that is
available to each man, woman, and child living in developing
nations (see “A Perspective for the Future”). Soon we simply
will not have the luxury of taking nutrients from one soil to
feed another.
With about 42 to 84 years’ worth of topsoil remaining in the
world, learning how to enrich, improve, and maintain soil—
in a way that is sustainable—is of vital importance if we, as a
species, are to survive. If they can only provide food for about a
century before they deplete the soil, the agricultural systems
that have brought us to where we are now are clearly not
sustainable. Ancient civilizations sustained their soils to feed
large populations for lengthy periods of time. China’s soils, for
example, remained productive for 4,000 years or more until the
adoption of mechanized chemical agricultural techniques that
have been responsible, in part, for the destruction of 15% to 33%
of China’s agricultural soil since the late 1950s. Many of the
world’s great civilizations have disappeared when their soil’s
fertility was not maintained. Northern Africa, for example, used
to be the granary for Rome until overfarming converted it into
a desert, and much of the Sahara Desert was forested until it
was overcut.
Ecology Action’s Pursuit of Sustainability
When Ecology Action began the Common Ground Mini-
Farm in Willits, California, the soil was so infertile that many
carbonaceous compost crops did not grow well. In an effort to
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