About 14 months ago when I came back from vacation, my partner
Allan informed me that he and his wife would need to exit the partnership of
Microbial Earth Farms, as they were moving far out of town. That meant no small change for me, as Allan
was responsible for much of the physical operation of the business. It has taken a while for that change to
result in a new direction. The first
step was to deal with the difficult tasks of downsizing and figuring out all of
the things I previously didn’t have to do, as well as discovering what was not
going to work. After a while, the
opportunity to start moving forward again presents itself.
Luckily for me, Microbial Earth has a sister company called
Sunergie which received a contract to complete a study of a new soil amendment
technology called Biochar. That work
began last May and has been proceeding through the slower garden months. You will see more about that below.
My wife and I are also looking at our schooling options for our
five year old boy. We have identified
numerous parallels between conventional schooling options and the current state
of the environment, as well as parallels between ideal conditions for home
schooling and ideal conditions for restoring the environment.
This morning we read a blog post which nicely
summed things up regarding how we should work with our soil, as well as with our
kids. A key excerpt reads:
“Give
them what they need to thrive, and then get out of their way. Our role as
parents and educators is to be there to offer support, but not to do it for
them.” http://www.altedaustin.com/blog/
Substitute “parents and educators” for gardeners/property
owners, and “them” for microbes. In all
of the fears about the expense or effort required to re-build our environment,
we forget that we should let microbes do the job of creating humus and
releasing biologically available minerals and nutrients (i.e. composting). It is our job to make sure that the soil has
the right nutrients (carbon, minerals – including trace elements –, food
scraps) and water and then to get out of the way. Monitor the situation every year with a soil
test and then let the soil do its thing.
Getting out of the way means not compacting the soil, cutting the
grasses too short, adding the wrong things, or adding things when they are not
needed.
For those reasons,
the new purpose of Microbial Earth Farms is to provide tools/materials needed
to help your soil achieve the most efficient water cycling, carbon cycling,
nutrient cycling, and mineral cycling, and to support the greatest community of
diverse life. We will be re-organizing
our product lines, introducing new products, and helping you and your soil get
to a magic number: 3.9% That is the magic number for soil organic
matter, where your soil is naturally releasing enough Nitrogen to support the
growth of your whole yard without added fertilizers – neither organic nor
synthetic.
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