Comments on: Weedy and Wonderful

By: Kriss

Kriss — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 02:52:36 +0000

Oh,now you’ve got me thinking. Especially as I heard a fabulous teaching on the value of Sabbath today. Can you tell that one of my life weeds is busy-ness? I was especially smitten today by this Carl Jung quote: “Hurry isn’t of the devil. It is the devil.” More on this soon, Brad. Let me know what you unearth…

By: Brad

Brad — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 13:20:59 +0000

I find myself pondering your reassessment of weeds not in agricultural terms, but spiritual ones. What role do the weeds of my mind fill? Is there a way to make peace with these weeds too?

By: Dora

Dora — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 16:12:51 +0000

I was surprised to read that Jon has knowledge on dirt, but should I expect he’s read something on any subject?

Interesting ideas to ponder about disturbing the soil (no-till) and weeding. Perhaps I’ve been too hard on weeds, when they could be my friends! Maybe I should borrow Dirt (I can’t underline that—command u brings up some programming page!) when you’re done with it, Kriss. Or I could deliver it when I see you next weekend at the kid exchange. What do you think about taking Porter back with you? Is Jake around?

By: kriss

kriss — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:49:27 +0000

Jon, I’d love to borrow the book. I’ve been meaning to get the Plowman’s Folly, too, having only read quotes from it in multiple places. The tillage thing is such a puzzle, especially for large-scale organic market farms. I’ve got so many choices at my size, and can experiment with so many things. The problem with the no-till people is they are primarily achieving this through drill planting into herbicided fields.

Thanks for your help on the post mechanics. I’ve tried a few different things and haven’t been able to make it work.

By: Jon

Jon — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 13:11:42 +0000

I don’t know anything first-hand about this, but in an excellent book I recently read (and reviewed, for the forthcoming issue of The Common Review) by David Montgomery, Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, he talks about new advocates of “no-till agriculture,” where you literally don’t till at all. This is good for all kinds of things, apparently — not just weed-control (as you talking about here) but erosion control, soil formation, fertilizing, and even reducing green-house-gas emissions, too. Two figures known for advocating it are Edward Faulkner (see his Plowman’s Folly) and Wes Jackson (of the Land Institute, Salinas, Kansas).

I recommend the whole book, Dirt, to you, Kriss. Most of it is a long-term history of the impact of agriculture on soil quality, from prehistoric times through classical Rome to the present. You can borrow my copy, if you’re interested.

(By the way: there’s something funky about this particular post that’s causing the “more” tag to break it. I’ve been troubleshooting it, but can’t find a fix. That’s why I’ve left it un-split on the homepage, so people can read your beautiful writing here, especially the second paragraph.)