This time last year I wrote the following piece. I have been wanting to revisit it because of a two powerful lessons. One is in failure, another in optimism. Sometimes, great intentions flop. Often, these mistakes go unnoticed publicly or are kept secret. Yet, we are made of our mistakes and valuing them brings about refreshed positivity.
Through errors come true and deliberate growth. In practicing regenerative agriculture we are inherently farming on the known edges. Regenerative farmers take risks to improve soil, food, communities, and the world. Risks that directly affect their bottom line, families, crops, and markets.
The additions to the piece will be noted through the use of italics.
The Answers are in the Soil
I have been reflecting on how life comes from soil. Every living thing. You, me, dogs, trees, birds, all come from and end up in the soil. The Earth we walk on is truly everything, the foundation of life.
It is startling to learn that the nutritional content of our food has decreased sharply over the past 100 years. When you compare an orange from the 1920s to today’s orange they almost seem to be different crops. To get the same nutrient load from one orange in the 20s you need to eat 8 today. How has this happened?
When we grow crops and do not return organic material (leaves, roots, ect.) to the soil there is a net loss of nutrients. Successional withdrawals from our soil bank leaves the ground taxed and starved of nutrients. Chemical fertilizers have fought this problem, providing short term fertility solutions. These fossil-fuel based fertilizers focus mainly on NPK, neglecting to add essential vitamins and minerals back to our ground. This shortage fuels rapid plant growth, but wreaks havoc on the fungal and microbial communities performing the alchemizing of minerals made available to plants. Without these essential nutrients, our plants are growing empty of their full health potential. One cause of obesity has been speculated that people are consuming more food because of lacking quality. Simple carbohydrates and sugars that have been processed and refined to a point of no longer carrying any nutritional value leaving our bodies perpetually starved.
I know few people not taking daily supplements or medications. Our bodies no longer have access to these essential building blocks of life that once came from the food we ate. We have taken an industrial route of “healing”. Fertilizing our bodies with pills to keep them running.
So if we come from soil, and our soil is depleted, leaving us lacking the necessary nutrients to thrive what can we do? The amazing thing about nature is its capability to heal. I remember the early days of pandemic lockdown when fewer cars were driving. The skies shone a tremendous blue free of smog! Soil can heal in the same way. By giving soil diverse root systems of cover crops intended to be turned into the soil or left to decompose we let our ground rest and the microbial communities rebound.
We have been busy this week planting a cover crop on an acre of the farm. A cover crop is a selection of plants intended to be given to the earth. A five course meal for all manner of soil biota. Sowing legumes, grasses, and flowers we hope to establish a diverse stand of biomass to be incorporated into our soil. The timing could not be better for these reasons:
The soil was dry enough to be lightly turned and support the weight of a tractor
Constant freezing and thawing of winter left the surface cracked and ready to accept seeds
Rain and snow in the forecast means we won’t need to use irrigation water to grow this crop
Friday is a full moon meaning there is strong cosmic energy aiding in germination
We have 2 months before we can irrigate this section of the farm. Now instead of bare dirt and weeds, we will hopefully have a diverse pasture
Plants perform this amazing function where they collect energy from the sun and exchange that energy with microorganisms in the soil. These microorganisms then provide access to minerals and nutrients previously locked in the soil. As we grow cover crops we build an ecosystem of exchange. As more nutrients are available to the plants they become available to those who eat the plants. The cover crop we planted will be alchemized in our fall crops including lettuce, greens, bok choi, carrots, beets, turnips, radishes, and rutabaga. All charged with increased nutrition.
Our world is complex and it feels like we have to make compromises to live. It isn’t, currently, possible for everyone to access a locally-sourced diet of nutrient charged food. Hopefully though by changing a few minds at a time we can elevate our well-being and reverberate those good feelings outward to others in our ecosystem.
The Revisiting
What actually happened?
I remember spreading the seed and using a drag harrow to rake the seed into the soil. However, the harrow was not aggressive enough in covering the seeds leaving much still visible on the soil surface. We now use a disc to rough up more soil, followed by the harrow to smooth.
The “rain” we were expecting barely amounted to any moisture at all. Combined with not being planted deep enough, most of the planting remained dormant.
The seed sat, the cover crop never filled in, and the ground remained bare. In May we came into this part of the farm with our 2022 onion crop. After getting the starts in and watered, all those dormant cover crop seeds sprouted creating a nightmare of wheat in our onions. We spent days weeding this plot only to find that once we finished a whole new flush of cover crop had already sprouted. The onion crop could not compete with the vigorous wheat and vetch and was effectively ruined for the season.
I am sharing this because the only way the regenerative agriculture movement can flourish is by being open and honest about our mistakes. We are farming to perpetuate radical change in the food we eat and how it is grown. The intention was there, but the practice in building soil is much more complex.
The process of growth and soil regeneration takes place on a geologic scale, requiring patience especially when dealing with cover crops in an arid environment. This planting would have gone way differently if the wheat was planted in the fall, covered deeper, and irrigated using the last days of ditch water. Getting the stand better established would have:
Allowed more time for the cover crop to photosynthesize and keep the soil growing.
Reduced to seed bank
Built more biomass in the soil
We followed this recipe with Winter Rye last fall and currently have glowing green stands of grass that have provided forage, cover, soil structure, and sequestered carbon throughout the winter. These beds will be terminated with ample time leading up to the planting of the next crops.
Learning in agriculture happens over the course of a lifetime. Bearing witness to trials, paying attention to the results, and creative problem solving throughout the process make the radical practices of today normalized for tomorrow. Collaboration and honestly are key ingredients this movement needs to create radical change throughout global agro-ecological ecosystems.
The answers are still in the soil, and day by day we can learn how to better listen to the lessons Mother Nature is trying to teach us if we pay attention.