A Question...

Only enthusiastic gardeners read here, I imagine.


19 months ago I was just about the happiest person you could hope to find. We had landed a home rental on three acres of heritage land...which hadn't been plowed for decades.

More than that, the water supply was from a sweet water well and a year-round irrigation ditch formed from an original creek...for the water supply use of all the small growing properties abutting on it.

The whole property was not far above the water table.

Two experimental 'organic' growers had rented the majority of the property for their own purposes.


A few days before we moved in, all the growing area was plowed. Then coated with dessicated (dried) cow manure.

I didn't yet realize how important no-till growing would become to me, but my eyes were beginning to open. I had heard of some of the best principles...and they made sense to me.


When I said the term no-till to one of the friendly experimental growers, he immediately bridled and told me that method creates 'turf' that is nearly impossible to grow through. (This man had been born on a farm that was tended by machines.)


Long story short, about one third of the growing soil was covered by black ground cloth, with open areas left for growing vegetables...mostly one kind per area. In between were large areas of cloth where people walked, compacting the soil beneath.

That grower worked hard, doing all the planting himself, and constructing supports for all the food plants that needed it, plus specialized areas for the tree seedlings he was producing...each in its own tube.

Harvest was very difficult for him, however, for he relied on friends and acquaintances, and he had no buyers for his produce, and not enough friends.

If any of you have seen the harvesting work of friends and acquaintances, you'll know how discouraged he felt by autumn.


The other grower also worked very hard, though he didn't put down ground cloth. He worked the soil laboriously, and put in nice rows of veggies, and constructed growing frames for the tall growers, pole beans and the like.

One thing he didn't get the hang of was watering. Instead of drip lines, or trenching, he came every afternoon, all during the hottest days, and stood with the hose, row by row...and he watered only directly on the plant centers, feeling that watering further out was a waste of effort.

I felt that any watering was best done super early in the a.m...but I could only speak to my husband who was helping. Dh did water some about 7 a.m., and he wasn't so focused on the centers of the plants.


One thing the fellows did, that I admired, was collect water bottles that had small holes in them...the castoffs of water home-delivery companies.

They drilled more small holes in the bottoms, sat one each beside each squash and Watermelon plant, and filled them with water most every day. This leaked out the bottom holes fairly rapidly, but spread the water a little more widely and slowly than direct from the hose. It also kept the leaves fairly dry in the heat of noon and afternoon.


Watching all this, spring and summer, and into the autumn, I kept my mouth shut. The rebuff I had received over the subjects of no-till, soil micro organisms, and so on, was painful enough, thank you very much. It just wasn't my project, I understood.


Another surprise they got was that they couldn't get 'organic' certification because the fence already surrounding the property was wire strung on treated wood posts...a no-no.

There was also a large pile of trash at one side of the property, a hardened path where cars drove to the far end, and a few other things.

The landlord had told us we could live there forever (we are seniors who know how to take care of a home cheaply), but within a year we were evicted, because his wife was ill and had decided this area was warmer than where she had insisted she wanted to live, back east.

So much for the promises of landlords!


We moved to another house, on a city lot, where there had been only organic gardening, all over the lot, for 35 years. Most everything was permanent plantings...flowers/bulbs and bushes, nearly every herbal you can name, vines, canes, and fruit trees...and almost all of it torn up by the new owners.

More than that, the new owners had rented out the house for one year, and shown up at all hours to wreck the yard into their preference of 'plainness', aggressively. So annoyed with opening the blinds in the morning and seeing the landlords hard at it in the yard, were the tenants, that they reported the landlords to the local rentalsman.

A letter was issued to the landlords that they must give 24-hour notice to the tenants before stepping on the property.

However, that didn't stop them with us...they hoped we hadn't heard about the law, and continued the aggression, and so on.

We were also told, flat out, that the landlords DIDN'T want to have to chase the tenants (us) for their money, while asking top dollar. They haven't had to.

Their edicts about what should grow, where, and what shouldn't, amounted to our non-use of the land portion of the property.

More, their ideas of 'gardening' were so restrictive that I was thoroughly disheartened, and stopped all my efforts...right when I had decided to garden with regard to soil micro organism preservation...for my own health.

One tiny example...we had brought with us a two-year-old plant of Golden Oregano. During one of the landlords' 'helpful' unannounced visits, to rake leaves, the oregano plant disappeared. He had ripped it up for a 'weed'...but he missed our thyme plant nearby! Silly ass!



I am determined to move to acreage served by sweet well water, and begin my project, no-till, for many people...the sooner the better.



So, here is my question...

...How may I find people of like mind...garden-wise? ...Or, at least, open-minded?



One site, online, seemed to be a loose association of seven growers around the globe who try to protect soil micro organisms, but each in their own way.

Seven isn't many, but they may have joined together in loneliness, I think.


I once read a beautiful little book on the history of gardening.

The author had concluded that there were three things that shouldn't be discussed in polite company...religion, politics, and gardening. ...Because these could lead to fist-fights.

I remember one example he gave...where one neighbor was adamant that sweetpeas should be trenched to three feet.

Oh, how I dislike adamant!


Still, I think the preservation of soil micro organisms (and water), by weeds and grasses, and no plowing, is key to good health, worldwide. And I agree with the Japanese gentleman who said that we must 'green' the land, for oxygen.


It used to be that 70% of our oxygen came from the green-growing things in the oceans...not so after we began to pollute.

Could pollution of the oceans have signalled the onset of global warming? Could our current illnesses and hostilities be a result of limited oxygen supply and stressed plants unserved by micro organisms...and dehydrated?


Gad! We burn up oxygen every time we put our foot on the gas. Oxygen is our most expensive fuel...NOT gasoline!

And, the effect of burning oxygen in automobiles, even just one press of a foot on a gas pedal, lasts 50 years!

How many green things must we tend and grow to counter just one trip to the store for a loaf of ('depleted') bread?

Methinks more and more every day.

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