Tuesday 23, 2009

Parts of this have been edited so it makes more sense as a blog. i.e. the reference to my stats at the end.

I’m writing this on Tuesday 23 of June. It’s almost 10 P.M. and I just got back from a Permaculture/ organic gardening Meet-Up at the Half Price Book Store in Dallas. For those who might not know a 'Meet-Up' is where a bunch of folks with similar interests who've met each other online through this meet up web site get together face to face and talk about the interests they share. Two guesses what interests I share with these folks.

Yep, these are folks who also tend to agree with me about sustainable life styles as well as sustainable gardening and agriculture. Now, if only this meet up wasn't so far away that going to it totally blows any eco friendly points I might have earned going to it by polluting the air all the way to Dallas and back.

I keep finding my self wishing that I could meet with local folks who felt the same. Folks whose first answer to any bug infestation in the garden was NOT some chemical bug killer, or who did NOT firmly believe that the only way to get anything to grow was with some oil based fertilizer. You know, someone who was at least willing to try to grow food without bowing to the chemical companies or the big time seed companies.

Why do I want to avoid both of those? Well, basic economics if nothing else. With the big time seed companies you have to buy their seeds year after year. If you even attempt to grow the same plants from seeds saved from the previous year you get either a whopping big law suit or some scraggly looking whatzis that looks nothing like whatever you grew last year. As for the chemical companies. Well, chemicals are an important part of our life today, but really now, why go to the expense of buying chemical fertilizers when most of us out here in the country have all the fertilizer we really need in our horse barns, cow barns, chicken coops and most importantly in our compost piles.

Yes, yes, I know. "That stuff in the barns is animal poop! It’s nasty, smelly and full of germs!!!" That's where composting comes in. I have a huge pile of horse manure and if I had a way to turn it at least once a month I'd have some of the cleanest, best smelling high grade DIRT you ever want to see. Fact is, even now, if I dig down to just the right place in the unturned pile I have, I can find nice moist, rich, black stuff that smells not at all like horse poo but more like something dug out of a rich garden.

And about those germs everyone is so fearful of now days. I believe that problem has more to do with so few people ever really bumping into those germs any more. Everyone is so paranoid about germs that they insist on killing them off with antibiotics, and other chemicals. Therefore,we and our kids, never come into contact with them. So instead of anyone building up an immunity to these germs they curl up and nearly die when ever they do meet a germ. They get sick because their immune systems have forgotten how to work. The really bad part is that while we were letting our immune systems get weak, and lazy, by never letting them be used we have also forced the germs to evolve into something that antibiotics can't help us against.

So basically we are screwed unless we start rebuilding our immune systems, possibly by playing in the dirt and eating a varied organic diet.

Anybody out there want to get together and talk about Permaculture, organic gardening or sustainable farming or such? Contact me by the e-mail address in my stats.