Pensamiento Sistémico para la Sostenibilidad Más allá de cultivar un huerto orgánico

¿Sabía usted que los pies arriba del suelo tiene más 7 a 50 veces más vida que la próxima 3 1/2 pies? (Fuente: Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape Naturally por Robert Kourik, Metamorphic Press 1986). Cuando el suelo se labra o de labranza, too much air is introduced all at once.

Life thrives in a zone of ‘enoughness’. Now I realize this is a foreign concept to most people, que por regla general quieren más, más, más of everything and then some. (This proclivity has led to such pop culture aphorisms like, “Too much of a good thing is just about right.”) Piénsalo bien: more consumerism leads to more waste and more waste leads to more plastic waste as a proportion of that overall waste stream. More plastic waste leads to larger oceanic garbage patch gyres, of which there are currently five. Pero, Estoy divagando. More oxygen in the soil introduced like a shot of steroids does not lead to more life but to less. You may think you’re taking care of one problem – say for instance a pest outbreak – but you’re unintentionally creating a lot of new problems for yourself. You’re also destroying the soil’s structure, especially if you are tilling over and over from year to year. (There are techniques to aerate the soil less violently, but those may be introduced in later posts.)

Imagine taking a whole block of any given urban development – New York, París, London, Scottdale, Tokio, Los Angeles – and upending that entire block, buildings, calles, y todo. What used to be the tops of buildings are now underground and beneath everything else that used to be above them. Don’t you think that would be quite disruptive, por decir lo menos?

Turning the soil is no less deadly. Soil flora and fauna tend to live in specific strata in the soil and tillage disrupts this order. Por ejemplo, there are some native California earthworms (yes, existen! – echa un vistazo a este artículo (http://www NULL.treesearch NULL.fs NULL.negrita NULL.us/pubs/24154)) that tend to tunnel deeply and other species that live closer to the surface. If you’re smart and letting nature do the heavy lifting for you, the only creatures that are turning the soil the vast majority of the time are earthworms and other ground dwelling animals that tend to tunnel. You may not like the affect these creatures have on the visual appearance of your landscape or your plants, but the truth of the matter is that tunneling mammals have their roles to play in nature. They introduce all-important organic matter, for one thing.

For those of you who grow edibles, especially produce that commonly graces our tables, usted tiene un sentido de humus. This is organic matter that has been consumed and altered by soil fungi and bacteria into large amorphous molecules that tend to resist further decomposition. El humus se descompone pero lo hace muy lentamente. The introduction of too much oxygen through tillage burns up organic matter quickly and most of the nutrient value is lost. If you’re a gardener, why would you want to engage in a practice that is counterproductive and against your own interests?

(http://cdn NULL.SocialTwist NULL.com/0000000000/script NULL.js)

Did you ever stop to consider the legacy of the lawn and its origin? What does having a lawn mean to you personally? Would you keep your lawn even if you didn’t have pets or children? Brown has invariably become the new “verde”, not by choice but by mandate in Southern CA as lawns that were never drought resistant in the first place manifest the inevitable dieback that is the consequence of only being able to water once or twice a week.

Lo creas o no, deterioro no es inevitable para todos los céspedes. Para una, que necesita la especie de pasto derecho. There are some lovely CA natives that work well for smaller patches of lawn. Por otra, the lawn has to be “trained” to become drought resistant by slowly diminishing the amount of irrigation it receives. Not all species of grass are going to be appropriate for this training, which is not for wimps!

Change offers the valuable opportunity to reconsider what is valuable and necessary as we sift through the detritus of habit. I for one am voting for end of the era of ornamental lawns.

(http://cdn NULL.SocialTwist NULL.com/0000000000/script NULL.js)