2024-03-09
It's been a while since I've written one of these! I had meant to write about one or two a week, to allow me to practise my writing. Of course, that has fallen by the wayside, as have many things. I will not promise to write these on any specific timescale, but would like to do them more regularly... That said, they are challenging for me. I get about halfway, and then struggle to make up the thousand words. It is because I am not used to writing at length, and instead try to be extremely brief with what I say. In doing so, I likely neglect topics which to me are intuitive, and thereby cause the explanation to be of poor quality and difficult for others to follow. This is really what I want to remedy in writing these slightly longer-form entries.
The topic today is about gardening. There is a study published earlier in the year by the University of Michigan, which claims that home/urban gardening pollutes six times more than industrial agriculture. It's likely true: industrial agriculture is frighteningly efficient. I don't think this takes into account externalities: there are other things in life more important than just reducing our carbon footprint, such as the actual biodiversity (in a monoculture field of carrots, we lose a lot of good that isn't just carbon), the use of pesticides and fertilisers that may leach and contaminate far away from where they were originally used, the divorce of citydwellers from where their food comes from (most acute in animal agriculture: animal lovers who decry a cat being kicked but see no issue with systematic slaughter on terrific scales: I am reminded of that one quote from Stalin), and so on. But if we are thinking just in terms of carbon output, it is probably correct that home gardening is less "good".
The study does detail (I haven't read it, I've just read the news articles) the potential reasons why. It states that the primary cause is infrastructure: urban gardens which use new infrastructure that only lasts for several years do not offset the total carbon output of producing that infrastructure. In this way, the best solution to this is to reuse old infrastructure. I try to do this on my allotment: I use bits of old wood, including some from old cupboards, etc. that would have been thrown away, to create my borders. So for me, this is not really an issue.
Another issue, however, is compost. I buy a lot of compost: I practise a form of no-dig, though I certainly do not adhere too closely to the idea. For instance, if I want to set up a new bed, often instead of cardboarding over it, I will simply dig it out, and heavily manure/compost it. Going forward, I am not doing the annual dig, but instead am adding compost and removing any weeds that may have come up.
The problem is, all this compost is, firstly, expensive, and secondly, not very good from an environmental point of view. I do not know how the compost is made, but given it is so black, I imagine it is from animal manure and some various other things thrown in. There are also slow release fertiliser pellets in it, for which I do not know where the fertiliser comes from. The major issue though, is that it comes in a bit plastic packet. I'm still going plastic-luwe at the moment, but I still buy in compost, and quite a lot of it, for my beds, which is a lot of plastic. I don't really have much use for it, to be honest, so I end up just throwing away all the packaging. It is single use plastic, exactly what I want to avoid.
The question is, does the soil really need compost? We have a rhubarb plant that has not been fertilised with compost for god knows how many years now, and it is still going strong, and providing us a good harvest. Traditionally too, people were able to get a good harvest out of just tilling over the ground and sticking seeds in. They never needed to fertilise with shop-bought compost, because there wasn't any! How is it that traditionally, people could grow crops without issue (well, the occasional famine, but that can still happen) and not need compost? Does it genuinely help out the beds?
There are of course some plants that are worth growing that help with the soil fertility, legumes for instance that fix nitrogen. I think of the soil as a kind of reserve of resources: when we harvest, we take out nutrients from that reserve, and so we must, as gardeners, act to replenish anything we have taken from the soil. When we compost, we take a small part of what we took from the soil, and add it back, thereby replenishing it. When we fertilise with manures, etc. that are bought from outside, we are adding to our soils. Now, we need to make sure that what is from outside is not a net "take". Store-bought compost, as a mass produced branded product, probably is. I can't say for certain though.
There is also the issue of this nutrients model. I think, similarly to the model of the body as a vehicle which requires fuel (food) and will gain or lose weight in proportion to the amount it moves, I think of the soil as a store which either gains or loses in "nutrients" (which I generally think of vaguely, and really only N, P, and K), I need to think of the soil as a form of balance. If certain nutrients increase, they can cause deficiencies in others. Additionally, a bigger number is not necessarily better, as some nutrients are harmful in too high amounts. Acidity of the soil, and presence of salts, etc. can also all play a factor in soil health. I am not sure if it is possible to juggle in all in the head, or if instead a more general approach is best to take.
I am also not sure if the idea of nutrients being "taken" from the soil is correct or not. Certainly, when a crop grows, it contains within itself a certain amount of nutrients. When I harvest and consume the crop, those nutrients, in that form, are lost from the soil and become either a part of me, or the sewage system. The questions are: are there other ways (apart from my intervention) in which these nutrients can be restored; to what degree are nutrients lost; is it even necessarily bad that those nutrients are lost? And, will it recover naturally? It may well.
I think, for this year, I will continue with compost. I will not buy much, but will buy a little still just to help the beds that I have just begun. However, in terms of the established beds, I will, instead of re-composting every year, instead potentially just mulch the beds with what I can find, and leave out any third party compost. This will mean that for 2025 I will aim not to buy any third-party compost. I can use that which I produce myself, though.
I think that makes some sense. I will definitely need to revisit this, as I am terribly confused on the specifics of gardening, and am always learning a lot about it. That said, reducing my dependency on third-parties is always a good thing: in fact, it is the reason why I got into gardening in the first place. Hopefully over the coming years, I can make some sense of it all.
I should also stop buying so much... It would be good to work with what I have, and find ways to source what I don't, instead of constantly buying. That said, I think a lot of these purchases that I make now will last me a long time, so in that sense it might be ok?
That's all for today. Have a good one.