That is so beautiful. Thank you, Barb. I really feel that today! And weirdly enough Charlotte Gil's "Dirt" has been very much on my mind the last couple of weeks. I was even telling my trail crew about it. (In addition to a woman who'd never even been camping before, we had a former Forest Service ranger whose district for 10 years was the area we were in. He'd also spent time working as a tree-planter in the southeast.)
Nice essay. I have found no-tilling works best for my soil. Something to consider. My beets struggle as well, but their struggles are due to grubs. Ugh
We're definitely going to do no-till! We just have to spend a couple years working compost into the clay first, and then let it rest and start to build more. No-till seems very effective. Sorry about the grubs :( I guess if ours ever grow, I'll have to look out for those, too!
This made me LOL: "It actually looks like a garden instead of a thistle haven where some peas and onions grow and you might find a potato if you’re willing to fight for it."
I might have shared this with you before but I'm doing it again because it's a favorite:
THE BEST. Sometimes I berate myself for not making an effort to read more poetry but then remember that I have friends who send me the good stuff 🧡 Although Francisco X. Alarcon came to me through my copy editing--5th-grade unit on poetry--and knocked my socks off, especially these two:
I cannot tell you how much I love this. It actually brought tears to my eyes. Interesting how well it intersects with the quote that Chris put on his post yesterday. I'm sure you already read it but just in case: “The world, which is the private property of a few, suffers from amnesia. It is not an innocent amnesia. The owners prefer not to remember that the world was born yearning to be a home for everyone.” — Eduardo Galeano
"Every day, I get these stabby eyestrain headaches and people advise me to use Flux and I patiently explain that I can’t when copy editing because it washes out some of the editing marks, and I long for the days of printed page proofs and erasable red pens and know they’re never coming back"
BIG screen - BIG fonts. Completely damn oversized fonts, make you feel like an elderly granny. Works for eyestrain.
"I think of how many times Ukraine, with its fertile, rich black earth, has been forced into subjugation as the breadbasket enabling some warmongering autocrat."
For about 5-6 thousand years, since domesticated horses reached the area - which is why they've never been an independent country, unlike Switzerland (which has lousy soil, but great terrain for military defence).
"(Something I learned this year: produce stickers don’t seem to compost at all, and a lot of them end up in the compost pile due to grocery store produce “waste.”) "
Yeah, because the labels are clay-coated. Twigs don't compost well either - basically anything woody. (Newspaper takes forever to break down, even though it's totally microscopically broken down.)
"The beets are definitely struggling and none of us can figure out why. (Low boron might be a culprit, but the advice I’ve found says to add household borax but be careful because it can be poisonous so I’m going to hold off on that. Other possibility is the clay soil; either way, I’m taking advice to get the soil tested.)"
It's the soil. I'm having the same problem with a blueberry bush. (I screwed up - I was thinking about acidity too much and basically blanked out on soil looseness. I can fix it, though, and will, not that I've realized what was messed up.)
"A light, rich, well-draining soil with a slightly acidic to neutral pH is best. Rocks, clay, weeds, and anything else that can interfere with root development should be removed. Moreover, beets need boron in the soil to prevent black heart, a condition that causes deformed leaves and corky black spots on the roots. You can provide boron by using compost or seaweed extract as a soil amendment. "
If they're getting black spots that's the boron, but if they're not and they're just not growing well, it's the clay. HOWEVER! You can redo some ground for autumn! And plant a fall crop starting right... now, actually. Shooting blind here, what I'd do would be to trench out a foot deep over an area as large as you need/have enough compost for. Then mix a bunch of sand and some compost into the clay at the bottom of the trench, and then part sand, mostly compost plus whatever loam you can find somewhere to fill in the foot-deep trench. (Bonus: the trenched area should be good for growing for more or less forever, as long as it doesn't wash away.) The compost will fix the boron problem and provide the needed mild acidity, and the sand should loosen up the compost. Beet roots are *shallow*, so going deeper than that isn't strictly necessary.
(Doing it as trench lets the clay buffer water drainage, so ideally water that quickly seeps through sand/compost will take a while to drain from the bottom. Clay just sucks for gardening; if you could, covering the entire area to a two foot depth with compost and just starting from there would go quicker. (It would go better for me too!)
If you wanted to do cabbage or squash in the beet area, the mix would be great, but you need to trench out twice as deep or mound an entire extra foot of sand/compost on top to make it go.)
elm
sometimes i got nuthin' useful to say and sometimes it's like this
"sometimes i got nuthin' useful to say and sometimes it's like this"
This is more than useful! I am going to be camping this week but am going to try this strategy next week. I asked our friend who's helping us turn this into an actual garden, and what he said is pretty much what you're saying: "Your soil doesn't yet merit the name" and reminded me that this is only the second year of a long project creating this garden soil. I think I'm going to get it tested anyway just out of curiosity and also because I think a previous resident used that area to fix cars and change oil.
Also I hadn't thought of doing a fall crop, though I read you can. Beets and potatoes are how my grandmother and her kids and mother-in-law survived being refugees during the Siege of Leningrad. I need to work harder.
I did not know that the stickers were clay-coated. That's really interesting.
Weird how we never think of places with good soil as somewhat cursed in the same way we think of places with gold or coal or oil.
Ah soil and dirt as inspiration. I am finally going to return to writing soon enough and I found inspiration in this post about soil and dirt. I am roughing out a three part post about the things we've introduced into the environment on an industrial scale. One of them is all about the manipulation of soil and dirt so your writing, as always, was wonderful Thanks for the nudge.
It's such an interesting subject, especially when you think about moving it around, and as you said all the stuff that's been introduced on an industrial scale. Water, too, but people tend to think less about soil.
I enjoyed a small compost pile. This exchange could be a long one b/c there are so many factors at play. I think people shut down when something is discussed that is either hard to explain, technically difficult, or threatens their life as they live it right now.
True, though judging by, say, the popularity of Mike Sowden's Everything Is Amazing newsletter, there is a lot of craving out there to learn about difficult and interesting things!
But yes, also, identity is involved. Can't remember who said that you can't get people to believe in something when their job (or identity) is dependent on them not believing it.
I read Everything is Amazing for a while. It was a casualty as I withdrew a bit. Perhaps I will return to it. Starting to read other things again has become the seeds for creating new stuff for me. I will undoubtedly write about soil now from a different angle. Thanks.
I think your comment about identity is spot on. Quite a while ago I wrote about the three forms of truth. You stated the role of identity much better than I did. I should probably edit and refine. https://markdolan.substack.com/p/truth
Over a year later I still think about this essay whenever I encounter something about soil. Today I read this poem by Sharon Olds that fits here. https://www.loc.gov/programs/poetry-and-literature/poet-laureate/poet-laureate-projects/poetry-180/all-poems/item/poetry-180-134/ode-to-dirt/
"Ode to Dirt"
Dear dirt, I am sorry I slighted you,
I thought that you were only the background
for the leading characters—the plants
and animals and human animals.
It’s as if I had loved only the stars
and not the sky which gave them space
in which to shine. Subtle, various,
sensitive, you are the skin of our terrain,
you’re our democracy. When I understood
I had never honored you as a living
equal, I was ashamed of myself,
as if I had not recognized
a character who looked so different from me,
but now I can see us all, made of the
same basic materials—
cousins of that first exploding from nothing—
in our intricate equation together. O dirt,
help us find ways to serve your life,
you who have brought us forth, and fed us,
and who at the end will take us in
and rotate with us, and wobble, and orbit.
-- Sharon Olds
That is so beautiful. Thank you, Barb. I really feel that today! And weirdly enough Charlotte Gil's "Dirt" has been very much on my mind the last couple of weeks. I was even telling my trail crew about it. (In addition to a woman who'd never even been camping before, we had a former Forest Service ranger whose district for 10 years was the area we were in. He'd also spent time working as a tree-planter in the southeast.)
Nice essay. I have found no-tilling works best for my soil. Something to consider. My beets struggle as well, but their struggles are due to grubs. Ugh
We're definitely going to do no-till! We just have to spend a couple years working compost into the clay first, and then let it rest and start to build more. No-till seems very effective. Sorry about the grubs :( I guess if ours ever grow, I'll have to look out for those, too!
Enjoy the recalibration and we'll all see you on the other side.
This made me LOL: "It actually looks like a garden instead of a thistle haven where some peas and onions grow and you might find a potato if you’re willing to fight for it."
I might have shared this with you before but I'm doing it again because it's a favorite:
soil
by Irene Mathieu
the way you say soil
sounds like soul, as in
after we walked through the woods
my feet were covered in soul
when it rains
the soul turns to mud
the soul is made of decomposed
plant and animal matter;
edaphology is the study of the soul’s
influence on living things
while pedology is the study of how
soul is formed, its particular granularity.
you are rooted in a certain red patch
of soul that bled you and your
hundred cousins to life, a slow
warm river you call home.
maybe there is soul under everything,
even when we strike rock first.
the way you say soil you make
a poem out of every speck of dirt.
I love this so much! In particular:
"you are rooted in a certain red patch
of soul that bled you and your
hundred cousins to life"
Isn't it just the best?
THE BEST. Sometimes I berate myself for not making an effort to read more poetry but then remember that I have friends who send me the good stuff 🧡 Although Francisco X. Alarcon came to me through my copy editing--5th-grade unit on poetry--and knocked my socks off, especially these two:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53880/prayer-56d2339a65102
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53881/to-those-who-have-lost-everything
I had read this yesterday, then this morning read a wonderful poem I had to come back to share.
"Patriotism"
By Ellie Schoenfeld.
My country is this dirt
that gathers under my fingernails
when I am in the garden.
The quiet bacteria and fungi,
all the little insects and bugs
are my compatriots. They are
idealistic, always working together
for the common good.
I kneel on the earth
and pledge my allegiance
to all the dirt of the world,
to all of that soil which grows
flowers and food
for the just and unjust alike.
The soil does not care
what we think about or who we love.
It knows our true substance,
of what we are really made.
I stand my ground on this ground,
this ground which will
ultimately
recruit us all
to its side.
https://www.ayearofbeinghere.com/2013/07/ellie-schoenfeld-patriotism.html
I cannot tell you how much I love this. It actually brought tears to my eyes. Interesting how well it intersects with the quote that Chris put on his post yesterday. I'm sure you already read it but just in case: “The world, which is the private property of a few, suffers from amnesia. It is not an innocent amnesia. The owners prefer not to remember that the world was born yearning to be a home for everyone.” — Eduardo Galeano
(One of those 'dinged the service bell' posts)
"Every day, I get these stabby eyestrain headaches and people advise me to use Flux and I patiently explain that I can’t when copy editing because it washes out some of the editing marks, and I long for the days of printed page proofs and erasable red pens and know they’re never coming back"
BIG screen - BIG fonts. Completely damn oversized fonts, make you feel like an elderly granny. Works for eyestrain.
"I think of how many times Ukraine, with its fertile, rich black earth, has been forced into subjugation as the breadbasket enabling some warmongering autocrat."
For about 5-6 thousand years, since domesticated horses reached the area - which is why they've never been an independent country, unlike Switzerland (which has lousy soil, but great terrain for military defence).
"(Something I learned this year: produce stickers don’t seem to compost at all, and a lot of them end up in the compost pile due to grocery store produce “waste.”) "
Yeah, because the labels are clay-coated. Twigs don't compost well either - basically anything woody. (Newspaper takes forever to break down, even though it's totally microscopically broken down.)
"The beets are definitely struggling and none of us can figure out why. (Low boron might be a culprit, but the advice I’ve found says to add household borax but be careful because it can be poisonous so I’m going to hold off on that. Other possibility is the clay soil; either way, I’m taking advice to get the soil tested.)"
It's the soil. I'm having the same problem with a blueberry bush. (I screwed up - I was thinking about acidity too much and basically blanked out on soil looseness. I can fix it, though, and will, not that I've realized what was messed up.)
"A light, rich, well-draining soil with a slightly acidic to neutral pH is best. Rocks, clay, weeds, and anything else that can interfere with root development should be removed. Moreover, beets need boron in the soil to prevent black heart, a condition that causes deformed leaves and corky black spots on the roots. You can provide boron by using compost or seaweed extract as a soil amendment. "
If they're getting black spots that's the boron, but if they're not and they're just not growing well, it's the clay. HOWEVER! You can redo some ground for autumn! And plant a fall crop starting right... now, actually. Shooting blind here, what I'd do would be to trench out a foot deep over an area as large as you need/have enough compost for. Then mix a bunch of sand and some compost into the clay at the bottom of the trench, and then part sand, mostly compost plus whatever loam you can find somewhere to fill in the foot-deep trench. (Bonus: the trenched area should be good for growing for more or less forever, as long as it doesn't wash away.) The compost will fix the boron problem and provide the needed mild acidity, and the sand should loosen up the compost. Beet roots are *shallow*, so going deeper than that isn't strictly necessary.
(Doing it as trench lets the clay buffer water drainage, so ideally water that quickly seeps through sand/compost will take a while to drain from the bottom. Clay just sucks for gardening; if you could, covering the entire area to a two foot depth with compost and just starting from there would go quicker. (It would go better for me too!)
If you wanted to do cabbage or squash in the beet area, the mix would be great, but you need to trench out twice as deep or mound an entire extra foot of sand/compost on top to make it go.)
elm
sometimes i got nuthin' useful to say and sometimes it's like this
"sometimes i got nuthin' useful to say and sometimes it's like this"
This is more than useful! I am going to be camping this week but am going to try this strategy next week. I asked our friend who's helping us turn this into an actual garden, and what he said is pretty much what you're saying: "Your soil doesn't yet merit the name" and reminded me that this is only the second year of a long project creating this garden soil. I think I'm going to get it tested anyway just out of curiosity and also because I think a previous resident used that area to fix cars and change oil.
Also I hadn't thought of doing a fall crop, though I read you can. Beets and potatoes are how my grandmother and her kids and mother-in-law survived being refugees during the Siege of Leningrad. I need to work harder.
I did not know that the stickers were clay-coated. That's really interesting.
Weird how we never think of places with good soil as somewhat cursed in the same way we think of places with gold or coal or oil.
Ah soil and dirt as inspiration. I am finally going to return to writing soon enough and I found inspiration in this post about soil and dirt. I am roughing out a three part post about the things we've introduced into the environment on an industrial scale. One of them is all about the manipulation of soil and dirt so your writing, as always, was wonderful Thanks for the nudge.
It's such an interesting subject, especially when you think about moving it around, and as you said all the stuff that's been introduced on an industrial scale. Water, too, but people tend to think less about soil.
I enjoyed a small compost pile. This exchange could be a long one b/c there are so many factors at play. I think people shut down when something is discussed that is either hard to explain, technically difficult, or threatens their life as they live it right now.
True, though judging by, say, the popularity of Mike Sowden's Everything Is Amazing newsletter, there is a lot of craving out there to learn about difficult and interesting things!
But yes, also, identity is involved. Can't remember who said that you can't get people to believe in something when their job (or identity) is dependent on them not believing it.
I read Everything is Amazing for a while. It was a casualty as I withdrew a bit. Perhaps I will return to it. Starting to read other things again has become the seeds for creating new stuff for me. I will undoubtedly write about soil now from a different angle. Thanks.
I think your comment about identity is spot on. Quite a while ago I wrote about the three forms of truth. You stated the role of identity much better than I did. I should probably edit and refine. https://markdolan.substack.com/p/truth