Soil Fertility

Okay so soil fertility as an entry is just another attempt to talk about compost, kinda, sorta. Bear with me, I'm sure to get past this phase sooner or later. There have been some good articles of late in the Capitol Press, our regional agricultural newspaper. One article titled " Soil fertility aids in battle against global warming" was really interesting. Angela Black quotes from Australian Allan Yeomans book "Priority One" Mr. Yeoman is knowledgeable on farming practices and the degradation of our farmland soil. He states that soil has a very significant role in climate change. The breakdown of soil organic matter ultimately releases carbon in the atmosphere in the form of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. He goes on to say that the release of cabon dioxide from the destruction of the world's farmed soils is similar in quantitiy to all that released from the burning of fossils fuels! The farming practices of monocropping, inversion tilling and agricultural chemicals have led to soil infertility ( a loss of soil life). Remedies are addressed, ways to reverse the damaging trend and ideas that educate you and get you thinking. I think this book would be great reading for the homesteader at heart. More of Yeomans' refreshing ideas can be found on at his website. I think you can download the entire book free from this site. I am really encouraged to continue to compost and uppen our little patch of earth God has so richly blessed us with, I hope you will too.

In Oregon, if you want more sun, you grow it!