Post by Perry on Aug 7, 2011 1:46:34 GMT -5
Having been fortunate enough to be brought up by a green party member and with easy access to the countryside, I've always loved nature and been fascinated by eco-systems.
My father would open the window when it was muck spreading season and bellow “Aaahh, The smell of the country”, and my mother would encourage me to take long walks, go fishing and always point out the cute furry lamb that had been marked as next up for the chopping block.
Such frankness lead to a 6 year abstainance from meat at an early juncture. Now renounced. However, reaching adulthood and moving to the grey and smoggy city of Stoke, I got somewhat lost and sucked in by modern life.
Coming to Japan 10 years ago helped to cure that. Just the inavoidability of nature here was enough to rekindle my curiosity for the cycle of life and it's many forms.
Not until I moved in to the countryside about 5 years ago though, and following a chance meeting with a man who recommended Michael Pollan's ‘The Omnivore's Dilemma' did I endeavour to add to the bio-mass.
Inspired by Pollan and his expose of the thoroughly inorganic methods of the organic food industry, the outright scandal of corporate farming and his rude awakening at the hands of a rural hero who tended a vast plot of land from gravelly outpost to a lush and productive agricultural marvel, through a mixture of biological knowledge and the maintenance of a fully functioning eco system, I decided it was about time I did something to enrich the soil and add to the soil.
I figured that, much like the air-con syndrome, there must have been a good way to produce veges whthout the use of modern tech. as humans have been around much longer then such enhancers.
Incidentally, I was shocked to find out that many locals considered this an impossibility! Firstly I decided to burn nothing. If mulching was the Eureka discovery of plant cultivation, it was good enough for me.
So I cut my grasses and creepers and just left them where they fell, or chucked them on a pile of unsalted, unwanted, natural products, including kitchen waste, wood shavings, brown leaves and paper.
This mass grave of soon to be insect fecal matter provided new soil within about 6 months and the continuous process of adding to the top whilst taking from the bottom meant I had a consistant production line, and being made from the most local of ingredients, I was sure it would work well in the climatic conditions.
But soil being the engine, it needed some fuel, and my pure vegetable compost was not broken down yet, so I planted beans and peanuts. Apart from being almost perfectly nutritionally balanced food, they also add nitrogen to the soil as they grow. Then by harvest time, the compost would be ready and I could grow whatever the season allowed.
The beans and peanuts were juicy and delicious, and due to the health of the soil, untouched by bugs and insects, who had easier targets in my nearby compost heaps and buckets. Insects generally prefer dead or dying targets.
In as many places as possible, I also set up washing lines, from which birds could drop their mini nitrogen bombs (incidentally, the whole mess of a food prod. system we have now is a hangover from leftover bomb fuels being used as fertiliser).
This I felt, made a complete eco system. Even the Tanuki currently redesigning my vege. beds on a nightly basis has it's plus points. I've never had such well tilled soil.
When the compost was ready it absolutely reeked. Like cow dung with a citrus twang.
I didn't want to buy seeds though, so just flung a few old veges around, such as pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes potatoes and tsuru murasaki, and let them germinate and compete in the bed of foul smelling home made soil. To my surprise, it worked, and ever since then I've followed such patterns and the once gravelly patch at the back of my house provides joy and flavour in equal measures. Not to mention saving on ingredients for the cafe.
If you don't have a garden, why not try just burying all your unsalted vege waste in a planter. It works yo.
-Paul Bengston
My father would open the window when it was muck spreading season and bellow “Aaahh, The smell of the country”, and my mother would encourage me to take long walks, go fishing and always point out the cute furry lamb that had been marked as next up for the chopping block.
Such frankness lead to a 6 year abstainance from meat at an early juncture. Now renounced. However, reaching adulthood and moving to the grey and smoggy city of Stoke, I got somewhat lost and sucked in by modern life.
Coming to Japan 10 years ago helped to cure that. Just the inavoidability of nature here was enough to rekindle my curiosity for the cycle of life and it's many forms.
Not until I moved in to the countryside about 5 years ago though, and following a chance meeting with a man who recommended Michael Pollan's ‘The Omnivore's Dilemma' did I endeavour to add to the bio-mass.
Inspired by Pollan and his expose of the thoroughly inorganic methods of the organic food industry, the outright scandal of corporate farming and his rude awakening at the hands of a rural hero who tended a vast plot of land from gravelly outpost to a lush and productive agricultural marvel, through a mixture of biological knowledge and the maintenance of a fully functioning eco system, I decided it was about time I did something to enrich the soil and add to the soil.
I figured that, much like the air-con syndrome, there must have been a good way to produce veges whthout the use of modern tech. as humans have been around much longer then such enhancers.
Incidentally, I was shocked to find out that many locals considered this an impossibility! Firstly I decided to burn nothing. If mulching was the Eureka discovery of plant cultivation, it was good enough for me.
So I cut my grasses and creepers and just left them where they fell, or chucked them on a pile of unsalted, unwanted, natural products, including kitchen waste, wood shavings, brown leaves and paper.
This mass grave of soon to be insect fecal matter provided new soil within about 6 months and the continuous process of adding to the top whilst taking from the bottom meant I had a consistant production line, and being made from the most local of ingredients, I was sure it would work well in the climatic conditions.
But soil being the engine, it needed some fuel, and my pure vegetable compost was not broken down yet, so I planted beans and peanuts. Apart from being almost perfectly nutritionally balanced food, they also add nitrogen to the soil as they grow. Then by harvest time, the compost would be ready and I could grow whatever the season allowed.
The beans and peanuts were juicy and delicious, and due to the health of the soil, untouched by bugs and insects, who had easier targets in my nearby compost heaps and buckets. Insects generally prefer dead or dying targets.
In as many places as possible, I also set up washing lines, from which birds could drop their mini nitrogen bombs (incidentally, the whole mess of a food prod. system we have now is a hangover from leftover bomb fuels being used as fertiliser).
This I felt, made a complete eco system. Even the Tanuki currently redesigning my vege. beds on a nightly basis has it's plus points. I've never had such well tilled soil.
When the compost was ready it absolutely reeked. Like cow dung with a citrus twang.
I didn't want to buy seeds though, so just flung a few old veges around, such as pumpkins, peppers, tomatoes potatoes and tsuru murasaki, and let them germinate and compete in the bed of foul smelling home made soil. To my surprise, it worked, and ever since then I've followed such patterns and the once gravelly patch at the back of my house provides joy and flavour in equal measures. Not to mention saving on ingredients for the cafe.
If you don't have a garden, why not try just burying all your unsalted vege waste in a planter. It works yo.
-Paul Bengston