Yes not everyone understands what im saying and some dont agree at all. It’s as simple as blueberries grow in acidic soil but the majority of people refuse to believe it. Crop rotation needs to incorporate in pear trees, oaks, hickory, walnuts, pecans, and we need to start thinking in terms of 100 years rotation instead of 1 year crop rotation. Imagine if people didn’t strip 25 feet off the soil in Kansas in the last 100 years due to irrosion from poor farming practices. That’s likely a low number by the way. The Dust bowl likely had much more irrosion from wind. The water irrosion came later. Imagine if the landscape was covered in autumn olives in a 100 year rotation with that much dirt blowing around. Its likely the farm could have caught 1 foot of soil in a day had they had those planted on a bad day back then.
Yes we have been depleting our topsoils for hundreds of years. There are many places in the Great Plains in which a natural park is next to a farm, and you can see that the level of the soil is literally several feet lower than in the park. It only happens a little every year, but over centuries, we are destroying ourselves. Every civilization in history that has destroyed its soil has crumbled. Look at what’s happening to us now. We end up with more pests, less nutrition, and now we’ve gotten to where we have ten times the amount of diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer, autoimmune disease, and autism. We can reverse this, but we need to stop tilling, we need to add mulch, and we need to have diverse farms and gardens. Some farmers like Gabe Brown in N Dakota, Mark Shepherd in Wisconsin and Will Harris in Georgia are making good money using these techniques.
John S
PDX OR
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Yes keep spreading the word eventually everyone will realize our food nutrients from our fields are being washed into our rivers from our creeks into the Mississippi and out to the gulf of Mexico. Rivers or waterways may change but modern farming practices still cause erosion in all locations where it’s done unless care is taken to prevent it.
Clark I just posted about my sheep sorrel patch in another thread. The description given for its original home is fairly accurate. It was next to a mine drainage treatment pond and most definitely in poor soil. I will say it’s doing just fine in my mulched garden beds, but it makes me wonder if I need to add nitrogen to my beds!
I’ve got two places, one is sand over red clay – low in certain nutrients (calcium), with some acidic spots. The other is a clay loam over sandy caliche. The plant communities have some overlap, especially on the edges, but the predominant weeds for each (top 5 or so) seem to “follow” the guidelines. I would take it as that if you don’t have a soil sample, and look at the aggregate of all weeds rather than one specific weed.
Yes the weeds are an accurate way to determine soil type at a glance. In many cases when I’ve identified soil in my area people were shocked I could find a former barn lot or poor soil. The soil tests will support it every time.
Sure, often a quick assessment can be made by an experienced person by looking at the weeds.
But, the presence of a certain weed species doesn’t always mean this or that.
Some of us may get in dirt from several states in bags or in potted plants…and seeds get scattered…and do come up, even if they’re not “supposed” to grow in some places.
So, there are too many exceptions to this rule about a certain plant equals a certain soil … to be all but useless except to the expert.
my blueberries arent as vigorous than they should be and not very green so i gave them some fish emulsion mixed into some skim milk diluted with water. something my father and grandfather used to do. milk gives nutrients and calcium without raising ph.
When you see hundreds of elderberries there is water or lambsquarter is rich soil like barn yard type soil or hundreds of mullein is poor soil. It’s not the presence of one weed it’s the many that mean something. If you and I go out on any land there is no question I can tell you what a large population of weeds like that means. Keep in mind I found water on many properties by elderberries they love it.
You didn’t try peeing on them?
havent had to go when i was in that part of the yard yet.
Thankfully there were people like Louis Bromfield
Ruth Stout
Ed and Carolyn Robison
These small home Gardners and authors changed the face of Agriculture as we know it. Much of the great depression would not have been as bad had the soil not have been destroyed with modern Agriculture. Big Ag seems destined to repeat their mistakes. The land is telling us exactly what’s going on. Do those fields look healthy to someone else? If you stopped farming them the weeds would grow in large numbers of some type indicating and attempting to correct the many problems there are. The movement really started earlier by Steiner Biodynamic agriculture - Wikipedia. Agriculture was in big trouble in the early 1900s as people could not raise enough food. Fritz haber solved the problem of the world not having enough fertilizer Fritz Haber - Wikipedia
I’ll give a point on that one…have seen elderberries growing many times in the drip line of a barn roof…in an otherwise arid area.
there’s one area in my patch I know it’s low calcium, and yeah the weeds match. as in there’s more than one kind of “low calc” weed and multiple plants of it in that area. I’ll have to try milk in my mix there to top dress it this year, didn’t even think of that. I’ve put oyster shell there but it likely takes a long time to break down.
disc4tw: Sheep sorrel is edible and an important part of the Native American (Ojibwe?) anti-cancer medicine “Essiac”: sheep sorrel, turkey rhubarb, slippery elm and burdock root.
John S
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Thanks John! Always good to know stuff like that. I just like it because it has a nice acidic kick!
Yes that is a native American remedy for cancer. I’ve known about essiac many years as I read about after searching part of the ingredients I knew about separately. Enjoy the flavor myself but do not have cancer. It cannot be taken all the time so don’t drink that tea to much. My body feels very soothed after drinking it. Much more could be said.
Essiac is Caisse spelled backwards
https://www.essiacinfo.org/caisse.html
See this link https://healyeatsreal.com/essiac-tea-benefits/ and it gives a recipe but there are several
Essiac tea is a blend of different health-supporting herbs including…
- Blessed Thistle
- Burdock Root
- Kelp
- Red Clover
- Sheep Sorrel Root
- Slippery Elm Bark
- Turkey Rhubarb Root
- Watercress
Flor essence or essiac is the question and does it matter? Read on What Is Essiac Tea | Organic Facts
The thing that bothered me about the formula was the backwards spelling of her name as there are groups who spell things backwards not associated with natives but frequently use native herbal blends.
got a question for you Clark. burdock is considered a serious weed here but in the 11 yrs ive been here ive never saw any on this property or anywhere nearby. so far, this spring i found 5 small plants of it in different areas of my property. where did it come from and why is it growing here now? most of it was found in my steep ditch near the road but found some in my mulched planted rows. maybe my mulching/ fertilizing made the soil better for it to grow? usually its found growing on wet poor soil around here.
Yes a soil change you made is likely or introdution of seed. The seed was likely always there. Burdock seed is viable for 10 years https://www.farmprogress.com/story-controlling-burdock-pastures-pays-off-9-132486