a man and his hoe

every day is a good day

Category: How Things Grow

No Brain Required

Here are a few of the huge army of workers I have toiling away in the rows of growing produce. The produce beds are fenced in so the earthworms are safe from the chickens. One of the many helpful things the earthworms do is fertilize the growing vegetables. I find the most earthworms right next to the roots of plants. There, they eat the bacteria, protozoa, rotifers, nematodes and fungi that the plants are cultivating with the cakes and cookies (in the form of sugars, fats, and proteins) the plants are exuding into the soil through their roots. As the earthworms feast around the roots, they leave behind nutritious wastes the plants need. It’s a complicated system of “I feed you – you feed me”, involving millions and billions of organisms. And it falls apart when we humans interfere by adding our chemical fertilizers, fungicides, herbicides and pesticides.

Plants are not helpless organisms. By controlling which sugars and proteins they exude out their roots, and there are millions of varieties of sugars and proteins, they cultivate the mix of bacteria and fungi which will serve them the best. Amazing work by organisms without a brain. Which shows you don’t need a brain to be successful and smart.

May 11, 2015
Bee Food

The bees have no shortage of food. There are plants and trees in bloom all over the place. Having plenty of food for the bees from early spring through fall is very helpful for growing crops which need pollinating. You can’t just put out a “help wanted” sign and expect the bees to arrive. They need to be fed all season long. They can’t hang out in their dens waiting for your crops to bloom. They have their lives to live. Have plenty of flowers all the time, and you can guarantee a healthy population of bees to pollinate your crops.

May 8, 2015
Fallen Beauty

The peony petals have fallen. There is a haunting beauty to fallen petals. A last farewell before the memory of their flowers melts away.

May 6, 2015
With Open Arms

The shallots are reaching out of the ground with open arms, welcoming as much sunshine as possible. As high as they lift their green arms, shallots stretch their white roots deep into the ground, oozing out sugars and carbohydrates and fats and proteins to feed a host of bacteria and fungi. Dr. Elaine Ingham describes plants as setting out cakes and cookies for these microorganisms. As these bacteria and fungi feed on the cakes and cookies the plants provide them, protozoa and nematodes feed on the bacteria and fungi, and after gorging themselves, leave behind waste at the plants’ roots, full of the nutrition plants need to thrive.

According to Dr. Ingham, put lime or nitrogen fertilizer on the soil, and you destroy these colonies of microorganisms the plants depend on to feed them. Lime and nitrogen fertilizers are salts, and so they bind up the water in the ground, depriving the microorganisms of the water they need to live. And it’s all unnecessary. The sand, the pebbles, rocks, clay particles in your ground have all the minerals your plants will need for a million years. According to Dr. Ingham, a single grain of sand has all the minerals to supply an entire acre of crops. You don’t need to add any minerals to your gardens. You have an infinite supply in your ground. You will never run out of nitrogen, phosphorus, calcium, boron, any of the minerals your plants need. The key to having a thriving garden is getting the correct mix of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes in your soil. Plants figured out how to do this millions and millions of years ago. It’s our job as gardeners, to make sure the biology plants need, thrives.

May 4, 2015
Maximizing Happiness

Maximizing happiness, it’s one of the maxims here at a man and his hoe®. What will make the chickens happier? What will make the plants grow better? What will make the dogs jump for joy? For little chicks, their mothers know how to maximize their happiness.

Finding the eggs of Cognac (the darkest egg), Lucky (the lighter brown egg), and Jacqueline (the white egg) in the nest this afternoon, that maximizes happiness. These three hens have taken to using the same nest. Lucky is always the first, laying her egg early in the morning. Later, Cognac and Jacqueline want to us the nest, and Cognac can cackle up a storm if Jacqueline is in the nest when she wants to use it, even though there are empty nests on either side.

In the garden there is the first pound of many ShiroHana-Mame (White Flower Beans) to plant. Some of the stray beans which fell to the ground from last year’s harvest are sprouting, so I know these will do well. Watching beans grow maximizes happiness.

The chickens are going nuts over the duck weed I hauled out of the pond. It is full of water bugs and tadpoles and other pond bugs. They like the duck weed too. Duck weed maximizes chicken happiness.

Bringing in a basket of eggs and asparagus for supper maximizes happiness. A basket taken out to the garden never comes back inside empty.

May 3, 2015