Archive of Past News of the Farm:
A Talisman Made of Mud February 4, 2010 |
A Talisman Made of Mud
February 4, 2010
Greetings Friends of the Farm,
I've
kept a "ball" of mud for over ten years. A rather odd talisman, but I
think it has brought a bit of luck, as well as educational moments....
That
day, in the last century, I casually asked Larry, during a slow moment
in the course of the farm stand market, if he thought the soil was too
wet to work. It was a winter of cold, and steady moist dreariness, much
like we are currently experiencing. Of course, like now, we rejoiced in
the background, thinking of rain water percolating down through the
soil to replenish the aquifer, upon which depended our well, upon which
depended our crops. Upon which depended everything.
(Above the front field and baby lettuce on raised beds.
The water in the foot paths will make its way down to the aquifer, eventually.)
But foremost in my mind were the flats of transplants waiting in the greenhouse, and on the farm house's front porch, all yearning to be planted. We like to plant "starts" before the roots get out of hand and wind around and around inside the cells.
Today, in the continuing light rain, I planted some pansies, who had spent so much of their lives in the cells that each soil block was white with roots banding together like fabric, in the effort to grow. They met not fertile field soil, but only the plastic cell sides' resistance, and would have to be “torn up” a little to disturb their circling paths. (We sow seeds into recycled plastic 4-packs; they wear out over three or four years' use, but at least they perform longer than usual.) Packed roots that need to be pried apart may be ok with pansies, but our vegetables must possess only enough roots to hold the soil together, but not be so crowded that they lose momentum, when they eventually connect directly and without hesitation to the soil in the field.
(Above: Pansy, left and Radicchio, right)
Larry, ten years ago, looked at me as if I were crazy, and headed wordlessly to the front field. This is the part of the farm that has the best drainage. It achieved this status a few decades ago when efforts to tame Boggy Creek resulted in federal aid to cleanse (stimulate?) the creek bottom of its sloping sides and angled bottom, it's various classes of soil, and its infinite types of debris, which can be broken down into categories: Glass particles and objects, leather shoes and belts, clothing, credit cards from 1970, concrete curbs and blobs, bottle caps and can pop-offs, bed springs, wires and curious pieces of metal, toy parts, tool parts, and lots of rocks. Along with other properties on this side of Lyons Road, the material was dumped on the front field of this farm, burying for several feet the original fertile bottom land soil. The worst of the debris collection, on the far side of the front field, and not interfering with crop production, is a partially submerged tire that cannot be lifted out of its grave. I've tried. However, all of this debris and rocks that (even though we've gleaned a great deal of it) still emerge with every heavy rain, and benevolently help the soil drain and keep it a couple of degrees warmer in the winter. So it's not all bad out there.
Except that the creek is now paved with a concrete floor that prevents any water from joining the aquifer below it. Sigh.
(Above, Boggy Creek, into which lesser creeks drain.
All the water goes to the Colorado River, and thence, to the Gulf of Mexico.)
Only somehow and sometime this past year (no one is admitting blame) it apparently free-fell off its ledge onto the ground and broke in half. Like a geode. After all this time. And, there was no toy tire inside it.
(Above: The Talisman made of mud...see, no tiny tire within it.)
"The soil," he confirmed years ago, in his best professorial voice, "is too wet to work."
Of course, I was a bit stunned at the "show and tell." I hadn't intended to work the soil that hard! I was fantasizing opening up a root-sized hole, maybe with a desert fork, or some other small anemic tool that couldn't possibly do too much damage, and then insert the little plant roots and tidy up the surrounding (ok, mud) to tuck them in. But obviously, that would have been an error of magnitude that the farm would not survive.
"What do you think John would say? " he furthered my rehabilitation. He was referring to the central Texas organic gardening guru, John Dromgoole, who has a weekend gardening show on the radio. I paled at the thought of him even suggesting to John that I was contemplating ruining the soil on the farm.
So, you see, the truth was illuminated by an extreme example, but I learned it so thoroughly that I -- even today -- cringe as I violate it, by, for example, planting the danged pansies today. While the front porch sags with flats and flats of vegetable transplants. But no, I certainly won't plant the radicchio! And, to mitigate my proposed pansy error, I even called Don Lupe well before dawn to ask him to stay at home as he won't be able to plant anything for a couple of days at least. For he is one to push the envelope too. And it's up to me, the one with the desert fork, to tell him "no."
By the way, the pansies look fine; their soil contains so much small pebble debri that the drainage is superior. Just don't tell Larry I planted anything in the rain. He'll think I've regressed.
Carol Ann
PS: Of course, Larry was right. The proof is the split-open ball of dried mud. Hard as concrete. That's the way your soil will look when it dries out, if you work it wet. Don't say I didn't tell you. Back