MY FARM

it's the latest, it's the greatest: it's my farm!
i had coffee this morning with my friend dan (who i know from punta mona, the farm i worked on in CR) & Z, the girlfriend of the guy that started this rediculously brilliant project. it's only been ten weeks since the project started and they already have a heafty waiting list. dan is their first hire and they are working every day installing gardens, maintenancing, and harvesting. i checked up on a site with them this morning and am now at the library doing organic pest control research to help them out. in the spirit of getting ahead of myself--if you can't beat it, celebrate it!--i really want to do this. it's urban farming, it's a csa, it's riding your bike every day, it's investing in your community, it's getting everyone excited; it's coming to philadelphia if i have anything to do with it! after my apprenticeship at green oaks creek, i might just spend the winter in sf planting (because you can do that year-round here) and after awhile with these guys i can start the philadelphia chapter! i guess by then the word will have spread that far. i mean, they are already getting more responses than they can handle, celebs in malibu wanting my farm in their backyard. WHO'S WITH ME??

--worth repeating--
from 'out of the earth: civilization and the life of the soil'
the chapter entitled "the tenuous balance"
(for an abridged version, just read the first and last paragraphs of this excerpt)

it follows that the very nature of life on earth requires every individual and species to adjust constantly, in order to reconcile innate capacity and urge for growth with the opportunities and constraints that arise in interactions with the environment and with other beings sharing the same habitat. a simple analogy is that of a single species of bacteria introduced in a nutrient-rich medium in a petri dish. an initial period of vigorous growth occurs, but as the colony fills the limited space and uses up the available nutrients, and as its waste products accumulate, the initial bloom in bacteria is inevitably followed by stagnation and then by decline and death. if other species are present and are able to recycle the waste products, regenerating the nutrients needed by the first species, then a symbiotic steady state may develop, leading to a stable population of the two (or more) species. the stability of such a steady state would depend on the mutually complementary or competitive relationship among the coexisting species, and on the maintenance of stable environmental conditions. in any case, none of the species would be able to continue proliferating without disrupting the stability of the community as a whole (the biome), thus ultimately destroying the basis for its own survival.
our human species seems to have transcended those constraints as it has ranged over the entire earth and as it has learned to manipulate the environment everywhere so as to create conditions more advantageous to itself. so far, our success has been phenomenal. but the story is not ended, and what has so far seemed like success may yet set the stage for ultimate failure.
the chief agent of anthropogenic (man-influenced) transformation of the land has been agriculture. by its very nature, it is an intrusion and hence a disruption of the environment,a s it replaces a natural ecosystem with an artificial one, established and maintained by man. the moment a farmer delineates a tract of land, separating it form the contiguous area by arbitrary boundaries and establishing it has h is field, he is in effect declaring war on the pre-existing environmental order. wishing to grow a particular crop (which may be of a species or a type not indigenous to the area, and therefore incapable of establishing itself here on its own), the farmer must now treat all the native species as noxious weeds or pests, to be eradicated by all possible means. however, in an open environment the wild species continue to re-invade their stolen domain, so the farmer's war is never finally won.
the constant effort to prepare the field for seasonal planting and to eradicate weeds has traditionally involved repeated cultivations of the soil, often leading to excessive pulverization and compaction. such mechanical manipulation tends to destroy the soil's natural aggregated structure and to render the soil surface particularly vulnerable to erosion.
besides using mechanical means, farmers in recent decades have been relying increasingly on chemical pesticides to control weeds, pests, and diseases. this involves the application of a bewildering variety of both natural and--to an increasing extent--synthetic chemicals, and it charges the soil with potential and actual pollutants. some of these substances are immobilized or degraded in the soil, but other toxic substances or their derivatives persist and eventually find their way into the biological chain. they may migrate by runoff and transported sediment to surface water reservoirs, b leaching through the soil to the groundwater, or by absorption into plants that are later consumed by animals (including humans).
all plants in general, and crop plants in particular, require certain essential mineral nutrients. the major elements as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. various additional "minor" elements such as sulfur, calcium, magnesium, and iron are required in smaller quantities. in natural ecosystems, the soil supplies nutrients to plants and thus sustains new growth by continuously recycling the residues of antecedent plant and animal life, including leaf litter, dead roots, and animal wastes.
in agricultural fields, some of the products of each season are harvested and removed from the field, rather than left to decay and return their nutrients to the soil. if left without proper replenishment, a cultivated soil tends to use up its initial reserves and to be depleted of readily available nutrients after a number of years, so a gradual loss of fertility typically follows the practice of cropping. fertility can be maintained, however, by the regular addition of organic manures or of balanced mineral fertilizers. modern agriculture relies on massive applications of chemical fertilizers to boost yields. as with pesticides, some of the residues of these fertilizers may migrate beyond the field and concentrate in groundwater or in surface water bodies, where they tend to cause eutrophication--a condition in which nutrient-rich waters induce the proliferation of algae and the consequent depletion of dissolved oxygen, much to the detriment of fish and other aquatic animals.
as long as agriculture was confined to small enclaves or limited tracts of land, while the greater continental area of the world remained undisturbed, the earth's environment as a whole was not seriously threatened. degraded lands could be abandoned and new frontiers conquered, and still the earth's resources seemed limitless. but no more. population growth has nearly filled all the empty spaces. loss of natural fertility, erosion, waterlogging, salinization, polution, and the annihilation of numerous species of plants and animals--such as the initially unforseen but new global consequences of man's injudicious management of soil and water, in his unrestrained exploitation of the earth's resources.

pardon me because this might seem like a high horse, but i assure you i'm no preacher :
"god yahweh formed man out of the soil of the earth and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. and god yahweh planted a garden in eden in the east and placed the man therein. god yahweh took the man and put him in the garden of eden to serve and preserve it."