“Gardening from the Ground Up,” a recent three-part Master Gardener Workshop series, focused on gardening practices that use natural methods and systems to create healthy soils and beautiful plants grown in an environment without using chemical pesticides. Presented by Master Gardener Cheryl Cozad, the workshops explored three basic principles of Regenerative Agriculture: 1) Minimize Disruption; 2) No Bare Soil; and 3) Diversity. (This series of workshops, along with others offered this Fall are available for viewing on the Master Gardener YouTube channel which is also linked on our webpage).
Ten to twelve thousand years ago, the Agricultural Revolution was the new kid on the block. For eons prior to that, humans had lived primarily as nomadic hunters and gatherers, nourishing our bodies with seasonally available plants and animals. The sudden (in evolutionary terms) shift to staying put geographically and cultivating and storing food fundamentally changed the way many humans perceived, treated, and interacted with the ecosystems that sustained them. Living in one place throughout the year enabled an “ownership” mentality (both of land and dwellings); and humans learned to manipulate the natural world that surrounded them.
At the time, these chemicals seemed like answers to farmers' and consumers' prayers. Imagine the miracle of pesticides when your crop was not destroyed by pests and consumers received blemish-free produce. The miracle of herbicides provided relief from the backbreaking labor of hoeing and weeding. Anecdotal evidence abounds of farm children running behind the truck spraying DDT, and rural residents and towns had the sheer delight of a few hours' freedom from the torment of mosquitos.
Since then we've recognized the dangers of chemical substances to our health and to our environment. The first generation of broad spectrum agricultural chemicals in use through the 1970s have been replaced by much more environmentally sensitive products that control pests selectively while preserving beneficial insects. Different classes of materials in use in agriculture are now rotated to prevent resistance and are used at rates of ounces per acre instead of pounds per acre as were the early pesticides. We now know that cancers have been linked to many chemicals in our environment; from some used in agriculture, to moth balls protecting clothes in our closets, to fire retardants on household fabrics, and including the gasoline that fuels our cars! Chemical use has changed significantly as our knowledge of these products has improved. Although cancer occurrence has increased in our lifetime, our life expectancy has also increased as other diseases that shortened life have been controlled by vaccines and pharmaceutical chemicals.
So -- how do we return to a method of gardening that works to regenerate soil and create healthy and nutritious food, while minimizing the use of pesticides and protecting our environment? Cozad's research into Regenerative Agriculture, presented in her workshops, supplies many answers.
In Part Two, “No Bare Soil,” Cozad looked at the role compost plays in keeping soil and plants healthy. Starting with two questions: “What does compost do?” and “Is all compost created equal?” she dove into the differences between and benefits of bacterial- and fungal- dominant compost; discussed the principle of keeping live roots in the soil; and offered examples of succession planting to utilize this Fall and year-round. By composting, gardeners can effectively reduce all of the following: the loss of microbial life in the soil; erosion caused by wind and water; soil compaction; and soil temperatures (critical to us, given the hot summers we experience here in Butte County).
Cozad peppered her review of the academic research and emerging body of knowledge about regenerative agricultural practices with examples of successes and failures from her own experiences. Throughout her talk, her passion for putting theory into practice in her own garden, and her sincere desire to make our world a better place for all flora and fauna, was clear. This passion was especially apparent at the end of the third workshop, where she included the intriguing concept of Quorum Sensing. This is the ability of bacteria, including those that reside in humans, to create a large enough quorum of beneficial cells, micro-biomes, systems, and environments to suppress disease. She ended her presentation with an invitation and invocation to us all: “You have become a part of the quorum to protect earth's surface.” Hear, hear! Please watch her entire series to learn how.
UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu (preferred) or call (530) 538-7201.
Imagine a healthy garden that grows, blooms, and produces food for you, your family and your neighbors, a garden that costs you very little money because everything it needs is already provided. Welcome to the sustainable garden! The Cambridge Dictionary defines sustainable as “causing little or no damage to the environment and therefore able to continue for a long time.” Sustainable gardens are resource efficient and able to perform their intended functions indefinitely with minimal negative impact on the environment. A garden that grows and produces well, doesn't drain resources and money, and has a positive impact on the environment: this sounds like any gardener's dream, right? But it's not difficult to achieve. You can create a sustainable garden in your own yard by following some simple techniques.
Placer County Master Gardener Elaine Kelly Applebaum has put together a helpful document that outlines the principles and practices of sustainable gardening (What is Sustainable Landscaping?). She writes “What we do in our home gardens can greatly impact the environment, for better or worse. By making the right choices of what to grow and how to care for our landscapes, we can make a positive difference, not only in the health of the environment, but in our own health as well, now and into the future.”
One simple example of a sustainable gardening practice is to select the right plant for the right area of your yard, making sure that the plant will get the correct amount of sunlight and have adequate space to grow. Every yard has different “zones” that are appropriate for different kinds of plants: places that are sunnier or shadier, areas that have better or less good growing conditions for particular plants. You can observe hours of sunlight throughout the day for each season of the year and select plants accordingly. You can also make sure that when plants get larger they will not be cramped for space. This may seem like a “no brainer,” but the truth is that people often fail to place plants in locations where they will thrive.
Compost is dug into the soil or laid on the surface, where it continues to decompose and release nutrients into the soil. A sustainable practice that goes hand in hand with composting is mulching, which involves laying organic material in a thick layer (four to six inches) on top of the ground around your plants. Wood chips, sawdust, chopped leaves and straw are examples of organic materials useful for this purpose. Mulch breaks down slowly over six to ten months, suppressing weeds and conserving water as it does so.
Growing your own manure is an easy way to feed your soil; and no, you don't have to fill your front yard with goats! Cover cropping, a sustainable cultural practice in use for over 3,000 years, involves growing a crop specifically to cover and protect the soil from erosion; a cover crop that is chopped up and turned back into or onto the soil is referred to as “green manure.” Since ancient times, cover crops such as legumes, clover, mustards and grasses like wheat or rye have been grown specifically to protect and enrich the soil. Green manure feeds your soil (by increasing soil organic material and nitrogen), aerates (by penetrating compacted soil and improving soil structure), improves water infiltration and retention, and provides food and habitat for soil microorganisms, beneficial insects and pollinators. Best of all, if you grow your own green manure, you will reduce or eliminate the need to buy fertilizer! For details on cover cropping see Choosing & Using Cover Crops in the Home Garden & Orchard and Improve Your Garden Soil: Grow a Cover Crop.
You may be thinking that your tiny garden is not big enough for cover cropping, or your year-round vegetable garden has no empty space for this practice, but consider the fact that a low-growing cover crop like Dutch white clover can be sown in between the rows of your fall or winter garden crops. In the spring, you can cut the clover, compost the tops or use them as mulch, and plant your summer garden among the roots, which you leave in the ground. Plant clover again in the empty rows after you remove your winter garden, as white clover tolerates summer heat with minimal irrigation. Clovers, like other legumes, add nitrogen to the soil through a symbiotic relationship with bacteria that inhabit nodules on their roots, Rhizobium spp. Rhizobial bacteria “fix” or “grab” nitrogen from air in the soil and convert it into a form (ammonium) that plants can use. Once the clover plant dies, the root nodules release their nitrogen into the soil, so it is important to leave the roots in the ground. One additional note: make sure that the clover seed you buy is inoculated with the bacteria Rhizobium spp.
Feeding your soil and choosing the right plant for the right spot in your garden are two sustainable gardening practices, but there are many more! For additional information, go to What is Sustainable Gardening…. and why it is important? Sustainable gardening practices support the effort to work with nature rather than against it, right at home in your own garden. In the words of author Michael Pollan, “The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.”
The UC Master Gardeners of Butte County are part of the University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) system. To learn more about us and our upcoming events, and for help with gardening in our area, visit our website. If you have a gardening question or problem, email the Hotline at mgbutte@ucanr.edu (preferred) or call (530) 538-7201.