Thoughts on "The New Organic Grower"
Over this past winter I've been reading a lot of books related to sustainable/organic farming and animal husbandry. One recent book I can highly recommend is The New Organic Grower by Eliot Coleman.
The book is chock full of dense, useable information, much of it applicable for even the backyard gardener with a small plot. Coleman focuses on the amount of land that can be readily maintained by a couple or small family, usually 5 acres or less. He is also a big proponent of using good hand tools and small garden tractors rather than buying a lot of specialized equipment that must be depreciated and cost capitalized before the farmer is making money off the equipment. In this sense, he would probably share a lot of views with Joel Salatin.
There are too many ideas to mention, so I'll just throw out a few highlights that really stuck with me.
- There is still a lot of innovation in small organic farming techniques in certain parts of Europe, where small farms still account for much of the local food supply. Coleman has visited a lot of farms in Europe and in the rest of the world and has lots of tidbits learned from those farmers. In addition, he points out a lot of resources anyone can use to keep up with the latest techniques from these farmers. Also, farming is still considered a high art here and the farmer is considered a professional, a technician, a highly educated person who takes his job seriously and really has to be good at a lot of things to succeed. Contrast that with many modern North American farmers, where government interference, the incompetence of the USDA, the encroachment of chemical companies hawking fertilizers and pesticides as best practice and the loss of a relationship between grower and consumer has left them downtrodden, lacking passion and vision and barely scraping by.
- Crop rotation is your friend. Coleman talks a lot about crop rotation and provides a lot of practical examples and schemes, lots of hints on what plants best follow other plants, the soil impact of various plants and so forth. This used to be standard operating procedure back in the day, but now on today's giant mono-crop farms this idea has been thrown away along with much other practical knowledge. Instead, the soil is treated as nothing more than a growing medium with no value of its own while a vicious cycle of pesticides and herbicides are required for growth. This leaves the soil more and more destitute of nutrients, while impacting the surrounding land and wildlife as well. Not to mention the food just isn't good for you. Instead, Coleman encourages the grower to think of the soil as the most valuable asset you have, one you need to nurture with plenty of organic material and educated care.
- Weak plants attract pests. This was a very interesting concept to me. Coleman says that once you get healthy soil with the right balance of pH, organic matter, minerals, etc. and your plants are healthy, pests tend to be less of a problem. Pests typically attack plants that are already on an unhealthy trend. I'm curious to see if experience bears this out some day. It makes sense though, as much of the rest of nature works that way as well. Coleman doesn't say this will completely end the pest problem, but it goes a long way. Part of the reason as well is due to healthy soil with all the good organisms, as well as a micro-culture in the way you grow that attracts birds and other natural predators to help you keep pests under control. One thing I'm still not clear on, what do you do while you get to this state with your soil and environment. Typically you don't start with the best soil (unless you buy a working organic farm potentially) and it takes at least several years to get to where you want to be.
All in all, I quite liked this book and it gave me a lot of food for thought. It will be one I'm sure I'll return to when the time comes that I actually can put some of these principles into practice. In the meantime, I'm going to try some of the suggestions in our small back porch growing area. One thing we noticed last year is we bought some "cured" manure and it made a huge difference in our plants. This year we also hope to use some of our worm compost and "worm tea", as well as experimenting with some soil amendments if we get a chance.