Starve.Org White Noise Usenet Archive: "Grant Steven, an Apologist for Chemical Fertiliser"

Grant replies - well worth a read

Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 11:13 AM
Subject: Grant Steven, an Apologist for Chemical Fertiliser

Lawrence,
Thanks for your email, I found it extremely interesting. Just want to list a few points.
I believe we are facing extreme danger in the near future, the financial system is collapsing fast.
There could be 20% unemployment by next year i.e. Great Depression levels
Modern life will go on, but many people will be alienated from it by lack of money and jobs.
Chemical fertilsers are getting very expensive for farmers, but are still relatively cheap for home gardeners
They are highly concentrated and give enormous bang for your buck.
Yes they damage the biology of the soil but not so badly if you use them in small amounts i.e. a little and often, and buffer the detrimental effects by adding large quantities of organic matter to the soil.
The chemical fertilisers I have recommended are the ones used by the "Biological Farming" movement and are advocated by Dr Arden Anderson and Graeme Sait. They are the least damaging out of a bad bunch.
Remineralisation is our first imperative and the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to do it is with chemical fertilser.
I am prepared to do some damage to the "biology" in the beginning with these ferts and on top of that I give the soil a good thrashing to get a fine tilth and thoroughly mix in the Ag Lime and Rock Phosphate so that they are evenly and finely dispersed in the soil which will make them more immediately available. I can always bring back the "biology", but if I need the minerals at a later date they may not be so easily and cheaply available.
If you thoroughly recycle everything in your garden, some of these chemical applications could be "one offs"
Most soils are chronically short of phosphate and potassium, and you simply can not grow "nutrient dense food" without them.
The concept of "nutrient dense food " came from the Biological Farming movement and how ironic it is that they use chemical fertilisers to achieve it. And now apparently Kay Baxter has adopted another idea from the Biological Farmers [also Weston-Price, Atkins], the consumption of a high protein and a high animal food based diet. I do not recommend that, it is totally going in the wrong direction but this is another debate.
My ultimate goal is no-dig permanent mulch raised bed gardening, but I have to say most examples of this, that I have seen, have been failures.
Most people do not have the resources and skills to do things 100% organic from the beginning. We have to hit the ground running !
Not wait for fertility to build up over 3 years.
Many people in the near future will not be able to afford to run cars. Accumulating organic materials often relies on having access to a car and trailer. By having the sacks of fertiliser that I recommend you have an insurance policy that could last a year or two.
I have literally used tons of blood and bone in my growing career and although I think it is an excellent fertilser, now just the mere thought of it makes me feel sick. The same with chook manure from a battery hen operation or pig manure from a pig factory.
It is very difficult to maintain soil fertility, most people do not have a clue how difficult. You need skills, knowledge and lots of hard physical labour.
Nitrogen Management is the key to successful organic farming. Nitrogen in Biodynamics is associated with "consciousness".
You are going to need all the "consciousness" you can muster to manage this one.
Grant Steven [Zen Farmer]

On Tue, Jul 29, 2008 at 11:56 PM, Laurence Boomert <laurenceboomert@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

a conversation following me posting yours on my local TT food group - her outraged response is below mine - keen on your cooments. Cheers laurence

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----- Original Message -----
From: Laurence Boomert
To: swfoodgroup@googlegroups.com
Sent: Friday, July 25, 2008 9:35 AM
Subject: SW Food How to start Raise Bed Gardening immediately

Hey thanks Lisa for that feedback
I actually read the first half and thought that looks good and its from
Grant Stevens so I should pass it on. I didn't see just how much articificial
fertiliser he was prescribing. Having said that the number one imperative I
see for the food group is food security which Grant also subscribes too and
as such likes to challenge organics a bit in his push to get systems that
produce up and running sooner than later, (he like people to get results immediatly so they get hooked not knocked back by poor first attemtps). Myself I have never relied on chemical salt fertilisers even when working commercial hothouses, but I did
rely on lots of chicken shit to get the phosphate. Phosphate is a non
negotiable element but is of course far more available in a good organic soil. Grant
is supposed to be coming to Whanganui to run a 4 day workshop on his raised
bed systems which he studied in Cuba. Its a good time to look at all
options and discussion is needed which I wish I had more time for now.

Cheers
Laurence

----- Original Message -----
From: "Conscious Lisa" <info@conscious.org.nz>
To: "SW Food Group" <swfoodgroup@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2008 10:02 AM
Subject: SW Food Re: How to start Raise Bed Gardening immediately !

Laurence, have you been inhaling chemical fertilizers?? What are you
talking about? Are you taking commissions from multinational chemical
fertilizer companies all of a sudden? There are several suggestions
in your instant garden email that I simply cannot let slide past
without correcting. Firstly if I was a beginner gardener reading that
I would give up before I started as what you described looks way too
hard, too complicated, too much work and too expensive.
In my hunble opinion we need to be showing people that you can start a
small garden easily, with no expensive tools or ingredients (free
resources are all around us) and very little time. I do agree that
time is of the essense but short cuts that compromise the life in the
soil and the intentions of the gardener are to be nipped in the butt
straight away if sustainability and optimum nutrition are our goals.
The number one rule of producing organic food in an organic garden is
to look after the life in your soil. Why do all that digging when
there are billions of microbes happy to do it for you? The first
thing I teach people about soil is a) Don't do anything that will
destroy the soil life (for example using chenical fertilizers and
'digging over' your very complex soil profile and food web) and b) do
everything you can to feed and encourage the life in your soil.
"go organic later as time is of the essence" ????? It would take alot
longer to build a living sustainable soil if you had committed
genocide on it in the first place, this is not a good place to
start. The best and most common tools in the world are convieniently
hanging right off the end of your arms. They are called hands and
humans have had them and used them for food production for thousands
of years. If you don't like/can't bend over then any stick will do,
you don't need special tools. If you like tools then I reckon the
best ones are to be found in second hand tools where you can still
find tools that were designed and made to last for generations.
Raised beds are good and useful but driftwood is freely available, so
are stones, tree trimmings, old bricks etc. Sheet mulching is a
fantastic way of creating soil and I am offering to run a free 1 hour
workshop for anyone who wants to learn how, down at the community
garden in Te Mana Park, sometime before the end of August.
I have just spent two weeks working with Kay Baxter of Koanga Garden
fame and she is now working on a method called 'nutrient dense
gardening' She has made a radical difference to her new house plot in
only 6 months - raising the brix levels of her food from 4 - 17 (while
also maintaining a healthy and living soil) which is amazing, she is
really onto something.
I have her new booklet (cost $3) about nutrient dense food production
on its way to me and will be selling this and her other books at the
market from this weekend (unless its hosing down - not wanting to ruin
the books with rain)
to help get me to my internship in Aus and Vietnam at the end of
August.
That is my rant for the morning over
Arohanui
Lisa

On Jul 23, 2:00 pm, "Laurence Boomert" <laurenceboom...@xtra.co.nz>
wrote:
> Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 1:18 PM
> Subject: How to start Raise Bed Gardening immediately !

> I am sure most people are already aware of the many benefits of Raised Bed
Gardening and those of you who are still unconvinced look out your window
right now.
> The reality is that saturated, cold, anaerobic, compacted soils just do
not grow good vegetables.
> Another reality is that we really have to start doing this Right Now,
because food prices, petrol prices and economic conditions are not going to
wait for us to get going..
> So go get a spade or a shovel and begin removing the sod off your lawn.
Just remove the top few inches and make it into a pile so it can breakdown
and turn into compost.
> Next get a long handled digging spade or shovel, you can get digging
shovels from Warehouse for $10 that have a LONG HANDLE, never use a short
handled spade to dig your garden which requires you to work bent over and
will quickly tire you out.
> Dig over the whole area you have cleared to a depth of about six inches.
> Now borrow or hire a rotary hoe and cultivate the soil till it is a fine
texture and has no big lumps.
> If you can not afford a rotary hoe buy a large heavy long handled hoe
called a mattock, this is the most widely used farming tool in the world.
> Use the mattock to cultivate the soil.
> Next measure out 60cm pathways and 120cm beds. Use some sticks and strings
to mark out the beds and paths.
> Throw the soil from the paths onto the beds and rake the bed level, but
allow a slight shoulder where the bed meets the path.
> Now go buy from FruitFed, Horti-Centre or Ballance some bags of
fertiliser.
> I recommend you start with chemical fertiliser and go organic later as
time is of the essence.
> So buy a sack each of Ammonium Sulphate, Potassium Sulphate,
Superphosphate, Ag Lime and Dolomite.
> If you can get Limeflour which is also called XtraCal from Rd1 it will
produce immediately available calcium and quickly raise soil ph.
> Rock Phosphate will provide long term phosphate availabilty. The best Rock
Phosphate comes from Quinphos and is low in cadmium.
> Apply a small handful of Ammonium Sulphate, Potassium Sulphate and
Superphosphate to every square metre of garden bed
> Apply a large handful of Lime, Dolomite and Rock Phosphate to every square
metre of garden bed.
> Rake and shovel the fertilisers into the soil.
> You now have a basic Raised Bed Garden from which you can feed your
family.
> It is really simple. Is it not ?

--
Grant Steven
Kiwi Organoponico
www.organoponico.com