Water

         Welcome back! Last week we talked about ways anyone and everyone can and must build soils, whether at home, on the farm, or even on the patio. This week in light of drought across the world as a result anthropogenic climate destabilization, and in following a two part blog on soil and soil health, were going to talk about water, drought, and what it means for us, along with ways to manage water more effectively. We'll start off with natural systems like water and drought cycles, transition to unnatural cycles caused by human activity and the problems we face, then move on to things we can do to increase water in the soil and actively recharge aquifers.

         Some would argue that water shortage is more important than soil health and preservation, I argue that it's of equal importance, they both exist within the same interconnected cyclical system. Where one fails, the other is sure to follow. That is without adequate water, soil dies and without deep healthy soils, less water can be stored in the ground and cycled in local ecosystems. When we hear about the drought in California, which is really an analog for drought in the entire Western US; the drought in Sao Paulo, which is an analog for drought across most of Brazil; or drought in Asia, Australia, and Europe, we're being told a story about the water cycle and drought cycles, both natural an unnatural. Drought cycles across the world, generally speaking, are natural. This does not mean they aren't dangerous or bad for us, simply that they are part of normal planetary cycles. When we disrupt the water cycle, as in the case of deforestation and soil degradation in Brazil and the Midwestern U.S., intensive irrigation in California, mega-cities preventing local evapotranspiration the world over and so on, we create artificial and prolonged droughts that lead to desertification. Likewise, we prolong and intensify natural drought cycles which also leads to desertification.

The Water Cycle.

Image Credit: http://www.hydrologicdata.com/water-cycle.html

          The forests and grasslands are the major pumps of the water cycle and at any one time trap up to 3/4 of the worlds liquid fresh water. Likewise, at any given point in time only 3% of the worlds water is fresh water and most of that is in the form of glacial ice. So when we clear cut forests or convert fragile prairies and grasslands to seasonal monoculture agricultural land, we lessen or destroy the infiltration, percolation, groundwater movement, plant uptake, and land based evapotranspiration aspects of the water cycle. Thus we leave runoff and surface flow as the primary form of land based water movement. This makes water availability seasonally fleeting and becomes a positive feedback loop that perpetuates and exacerbates drought conditions. In California, and much of the Southwestern U.S. this is what we've done, think back to last week where we talked about the importance of mulch and living ground cover for protecting soils.

         For example, much of the desert of the Southwestern U.S. was once fragile prairie and grassland with marginal pine and juniper forests. The prairies were burned and used for growing cotton for sheeting planes in WWI and have never been replanted, no attempt at ecological repair has been made. Likewise, the pine and juniper forests that once covered most  of the Colorado Plateau were clear cut over about a 700 year period by the native inhabitants who lived there from roughly CE 500 to 1200. Have you ever been to Chaco Canyon? It's one of my favorite places in the entire world and one of the few places in this world that speaks to directly to my soul. What I find amazing is just 1500 years ago Chaco and the surrounding area were mostly covered in forests and could sustain moderate agriculture, where today there are no forests and only marginal scrub in and around the canyon. Imagine how much more stable and moist the Colorado Plateau and surrounding areas would be if we made the effort to repair and replant all the forests and grassland prairies. Imagine how productive and useful the area would be, even if only for wildlife and a small or low density human population, we could build a biodiversity powerhouse out of an extremely damaged ecosystem.

Chaco canyon and most of the Southwest went from looking like this,

Utah portion of Colorado Plateau forest landscape.

Photo Credit: http://4cornershikesbridges.blogspot.com/2008/10/cathedral-arch-and-angel-arch.html

and this,

Arizona grassland similar to what most of the prairies of the Southwest U.S. once looked like.

Photo credit: https://arizonahighways.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/friday-fotos-arizona-boasts-some-very-pretty-grasslands/

to looking like this.

Chaco Canyon from above Pueblo Bonito facing The North Road. This is during a wet season, much greener than I've ever seen it there.

Photo Credit: http://theslideprojector.com/art9/art9lecturepresentations/art9lecture19.html

          History is filled with examples of societies that destroyed their local ecosystems, depleted their water resources, desertified their lands, expanded their population too fast, and ultimately collapsed. California and Sao Paulo are no exception; our modern and seemingly infallible societies are no exception. Within a month or two Sao Paulo is expected to run out of water and as agriculture fails, water rations become scarce and the choice between life and death more pressing, either more expensive and ecologically damaging and short sighted measures that undermine long term sustainability like ocean desalinization will be implemented, or emigration driven collapse will follow.

         By this time next year, California is expected to run out of water and will be wholly reliant on fossil water, which takes thousands to millions of years to replace. At best we can expect another 50 years of fossil water before there is none left, its an emergency savings account that were spending without making new deposits. Meanwhile the land above ground is becoming ever more desertified, agriculture in the central valley is beginning to fail, we are pumping so much water that its contributing to sea level rise and salinization of aquifers, and the only plan for repairing this won't come into full effect for almost 30 years. The scariest part is a sizable portion of the U.S. food supply comes from California.

         The entire Western U.S. is following closely behind California's trend and collapse is eminent. This pattern is being mirrored worldwide. Global ecological and societal collapse are what we are faced with, and instead of being on regionally localized levels like the Roman Empire, the Maya, the Anasazi, the Norse and so on, were facing collapse on a global scale for the first time ever. All of this is due to the rapid destabilization of climates in relation to global warming, and the mismanagement and abuse of water resources and soil.

         However, permaculture and holistic farming offer several low tech and easy to implement ways of capturing and using water for both ecological repair and food production. This is not a matter of modernity vs. primitive living, this is about taking responsibility for ourselves, living sustainably, and creating abundance for all lifeforms on this planet, not just our species. We can do this by thinking ecologically; using wastes as a resource for something else, stacking functions, and being mindful that there are consequences for every action we take.

         Nutrients and sunlight aside, one of the best ways to guarantee fast and vigorous plant growth is to have plenty of available water in the root zone. With this in mind, a logical answer is to increase the water being made available to the plants in the form of irrigation. However artificial irrigation can and usually does lead or contribute to soil salinization, water reserve depletion, and erosion. I argue that to increase available water we need more reservoirs of water, however not open air bodies of water that contribute more to water shortage problems than they help to prevent. To be clear I don't argue against them either, they do serve purposes and fill vital functions. The reservoirs I argue for are ground water storage systems, usually swales and their variations and high soil organic matter content. The last two weeks we talked a lot about soil health and moisture holding capacity, so I'll only mention here in brief that deep soils rich in organic matter are a great way to hold and keep the water that falls on your site.

Enter: the swale.

 Lost of good swale information at Temperate Climate Permaculture.

http://tcpermaculture.blogspot.com/2011/06/permaculture-projects-swales.html 

         A swale is basically a ditch dug level on contour to the land with the removed soil bermed up on the downhill side. The basic Idea here is to slow or stop any water flowing downhill and force it to percolate into the ground and travel underground instead of over the landscape. This creates a well watered root zone around and downhill from the swale, and once established usually only needs seasonal rainfall to remain hydrated. As well, the water slowly percolates down to and recharges aquifers. That is to say, swales by design actively help recharge aquifers by directing water into the ground and by reducing our dependence on fossil water. Another benefit is the downhill berm increases the plantable area and creates distinct microclimates on its top, sides, and base.

         A rain garden is a depression meant to slow and collect water at a certain point, allowing it to settle and percolate into the soil much in the same way as with swales. The main difference is rain gardens aren't necessarily ditches, on contour, or uniformly shaped. They can be put pretty much anywhere the site calls for and in a myriad of shapes and depths. Because of these benefits, swales and rain gardens are a staple in permaculture and ecological land management design. Check out the folks at Midwest Permaculture, they have created some of the best home integrated rain gardens Ive seen.

         Two important drawbacks that are not often mentioned about swales are downhill soil salinization if the water table is too high, and mudslides on steep slopes (which ironically happen to be where swales are most beneficial). The way to handle both of these problems is to plant water loving tap rooted and heart rooted trees (such as boxelder, mulberry, chestnut, persimmon, and the dreaded silver maple) and shrubs on the downhill side of the berm, and on top of the berm in the case of really steep slopes. A thick, fibrous community of roots is vitally important for holding soil in place in any situation, especially on sloped land. Water loving trees like boxelder are great for keeping the water table created by the swale low enough that evaporation driven salinization does not become an issue. On really steep slopes the obnoxious silver maple turns all of its otherwise negative aspects (it has a monstrous heart root system and is a water pig) into a powerhouse of soil holding and stabilizing benefits, especially if coppiced regularly to add mulch to the surrounding area. Recall in the soil posts how heavy mulching with dead organic matter or thick living mulches mitigates evaporation while promoting soil stability and health.

         A slight modification that I love and recommend is to build a Hugelkultur mound as the downhill berm. Though I think the word itself is made up, as Ive not found any etymology for it prior to Sep Holzer, it means wood mound agriculture. The basic principle is as the wood breaks down it absorbes water, becoming a drought resistant sponge, and slowly releases its nutrient load over the course of its life. When well built they can last from 20 to 100 years before needing rebuilt and even then what you'll remove is thick healthy humus that can be spread anywhere you need high quality organic matter to amend the soil. Like anything, hugelkultur is not all positives. There are two major drawbacks to hugel mounds, nutrient lockup and water lockup, both problematic for the first two to five years depending on local climate and materials used. Wood can hold up to ten times its own dry weight in water and as it starts breaking down, it absorbs all the water around it until fully saturated. Depending on local rainfall or water avaiability, this can take quite a while. Though once saturated, a hugel is almost drought proof. Because wood has a high carbon to nitrogen ration, it also locks up all of the available nitrogen in the surrounding soil until the composting process starts and biological activity begins breaking down the wood.

         Personally I can't stand the thought of wasting potable water to flush nitrogen and phosphorus rich urine down the drain to be then treated with chemicals that are very harmful to the environment, while simultaneously paying lots of money for petroleum based nitrogen and resource intensive mined phosphorus. It's your choice to make, however I use urine to fertilize hugels for the first couple years and have never had a problem with nutrient lockup while gardening on them. Though I do warn that if you do use this method of free fertilizer, any medications you may be taking will end up in your hugel and thus your crops.

 

 Hugelkultur explained.

 http://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/many-benefits-hugelkultur

Swale with hugelkultur berm, design adapted by Midwest Permaculture. 

 http://midwestpermaculture.com/2012/07/hugelkultured-swale-with-linear-food-forest/

          The process that I have come up with and works for me is as follows. Keep in mind I have modified and adapted my process from those of others and you should modify it to fit your need and your specific site, there is no one size fits all when building hugelkultur mounds. 

1. Dig a shallow contoured ditch where you want the berm to be.
2. Fill it with enough logs for the above ground portion to equal about 1/3 of the expected final mass of the berm. This is somewhat standardized, you dont want more than 35% of your mound mass to be wood.
3. Pile the removed soil on top of the logs and level it out.
4. Cover with six to nine inches of wood chips inoculated with king stropharia mushroom mycelium, cover this with cardboard, and let it colonize for a year.
5. The following year dig your swale uphill of the berm and pile the soil on top of the berm.
6. Cover with about three inches of well aged compost, then mulch with wood chips again. As the king stropharia mycelium colonizes the wood, it will begin sending mushrooms up through the roughly six inches of soil and mulch.
7. At this point you're ready to plant out the berm and as long as you feed the mycelium a good mulch every year, you'll continue to collect mushrooms for a decade or more. 

This a longer and more involved process, it usually takes me three years to build a 4' high by 4' wide hugel, however it also helps ensure proper establishment of a healthy fungal community that increases water holding capacity, provides an additional yield, adds to the site biodiversity, and has been documented to increase vegetable yields.

         Though systems like drip irrigation, sub irrigated raised beds, and olla irrigation have serious water saving potential, they're not exactly within the scope of this post. They are techniques for conserving water use, while what this article is describing are methods for keeping the water that arrives naturally. The only caveat to this is when rain barrels are used to collect roof runoff and then are the only source of water for the irrigation systems. However keep in mind that water is then diverted away from swales, rain gardens, and hugel mounds. As well rain barrels are subject to local laws and regulations where swales and rain gardens are not. Where I live in Colorado residential rain collection is illegal though not well enforced, while swales, rain gardens, and hugels are merely landscape decoration.

         This post has run a bit longer than I had planned, however the point I want to drive home is that water availability is paramount to the continuation of our daily lives. I like to look at available fresh water like personal finances, its not about how much money you make or how much water you get, its about how much you keep. Here in Colorado, I get about 14 inches of water on average and I keep most of it in my soil and in my plants. In parts of the southwest they get maybe 10 inches per year and I have seen many lush gardens that center around keeping all the water they get. At the same time, many tropical and subtropical areas of the world get over 30 inches of rain per year and keep almost none of it. So think of these water capturing and storage methods I've covered in brief as investments that collect and store your water, increase water availability, and make more efficient and better use of it as time goes on. Next week I'm going to talk about aquaponics, however with a twist. Ive read a few articles recently that hail aquaponics as the revolution in agriculture that will save the world, I'm going to counter that argument with a reality check. I love aquaponics, however sensationalizing a new technology or process is a recipe for disaster. Have a great week and tune in to find out more.

Soil Buiding 101

          Welcome back. Last week we talked a bit about the importance of soil, soil health, and how soil relates to climate stability, climate change, and water availability. We touched on some of the implications of soil degradation for societies worldwide, however focusing more on the U.S. as this where I live and know the most about. This week I want to cover ways of actively building soil while making the case that anybody, regardless of income, has the resources available to build healthy, biologically active, and highly productive soils. I argue that soil stewardship is more than an ability of all, it is the responsibility and obligation of all citizens of planet Earth. So lets take what we discussed last week and put it all together, lets cover some ways of actively building soil and using biological processes to speed up soil building to a few years or decades as opposed to the millennia of natural processes alone.

          To start with, Mulch, Mulch, Mulch. Mulch is the soils best friend. It creates a barrier that prevents evaporation of moisture from the soil, protects the soil from the harsh sun and wind, prevents soil compaction, insulates the soil, acts as a slow release fertilizer, creates a wonderful habitat for soil biology, and substantially builds organic matter directly on site. Earthworms will move mulch into the root zone in the form castings rich in nutrients and beneficial bacteria while red wigglers, pill bugs, and millipedes will break mulch materials down at varying surface levels. Disease has a harder time spreading through mulched soil, with noted exceptions, while beneficial fungi will run rampant. This is because biologically diverse ecosystems provide fewer vectors for disease and parasites while providing habitat for a wide variety of predatory species.

          From my own experience bringing in some fifty cubic yards of mulched wood and just under one hundred cubic yards of unmulched leaves, the biological activity on site absolutely exploded in just a few weeks and this was over the winter. Though I will caution that when bringing in so much raw organic matter from many sites, mine came from several locations near my house, you do increase the probability of introducing an unwanted disease or pathogen. For example, with the wood mulch came an aggressive mold that is no danger to my veggies or tree crops, however because of its tenacity I've had a very difficult time establishing the fungi species I want in that same wood mulch because they come in pure culture and the mold is already well established. This is a gamble you make when urban freesourcing raw materials, arborist companies wont do business with you if you pick and choose. If they bring it for free, then it's as is. I find the gamble worth the benefit of increased organic matter however, especially when with patience I can acclimate more aggressive fungi like oyster mushroom or king stropharia to out compete the mold for niche dominance and then transition to establishing more finicky mushroom species.

Making leaf mulch with the lawnmower in the driveway.

          Second to and in combination with mulching, if you already have a garden or are farming stop tilling your soil. At first this may seem counter intuitive, after all plowing or rototilling loosens compacted soil, allows for better root and water penetration, and increases yields. However this is short lived because the complex network of fungi, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes (tiny worms), and so on is delicate and easily disturbed or destroyed. This is also a false sense of security because it fails to address the real issue, depleted soil health and fertility. This is a lesson I learned the hard way. After several years of deep tilling to increase my yields, I effectively killed off most of my soil organisms, desertified my entire yard, and invited disease into my once backyard oasis. The only way I was able to grow anything at that point was by using synthetic fertilizers to replace what the soil biology did naturally. I replaced a free and low input, high output biological system with an expensive and high input, medium output synthetic system. A complex soil community is what gives healthy soil its loose and friable texture and nutrient holding capacity, without which my clay dominated soil was easily compacted, depleted of nutrients, and rendered useless.

          There are two primary, though not exclusive, solutions for no till systems. The first is to dedicate beds to intensively growing crops that never have heavy machinery or anything else that could compact the soil on them and to deliberately plant where you intend each plant to grow. This is more labor intensive and most appropriate for a home scale garden or urban farm, however by preserving and promoting biological activity and healthy soil structure while actively managing pests and disease as they appear, you hedge the labor costs with having no fertilizer or machinery costs. The second is more appropriate for commercial scale farming, though can be and is used for home gardening. This is a no till system with mixed species seasonal cover crops. Normally most farm fields are left bare for half the year or more, which leaves fields exposed to dessication, oxidation, an erosion from intense winter sun and winds, exposed to freezing winter temperatures that damage or destroy soil organism communities among many other negative impacts. Likewise, the already discussed effects tilling has on soil organisms. The idea behind cover cropping is to grow your own mulch on site with the added benefits of keeping the soil covered with a protective layer throughout the winter and spring, collecting sunlight and carbon while locking up valuable nitrogen and phosphorus, and feeding a mixed diet to the soil biology while dramatically increasing soil organic matter content. Annual crops are then seeded into the residues of the cover crops and benefit from the slow release of nutrients as the cover crop residues decompose.

Typical no till cover crop system with annual crop directly seeded in residues.

Photo credit and info: http://precisionagricultu.re/tag/no-till/

          The perfect companion to mixed species cover cropping is Allan Savory's intensive grazing concept, aka mob grazing. The idea here is again to mimic natural biological systems. Conventional grazing practices say to turn your livestock out on the whole acreage of your pasture, however this leads to uneven grazing due to preference, overgrazing, uneven distribution of manure, lowered productivity, and generally poor soil and pasture health. With intensive grazing, the entire pasture is separated on average into half acre paddocks where the livestock are cycled through two half acres per day. One half acre in the in the morning and the second in the evening. However there are many variations on this and you should look into what will work best for your site. The goal with paddocks is to graze the entire half acre paddock to no more than 50% and not graze it again for at minimum 60 days. In turn the entire paddock is well manured and not overgrazed while allowing ample time for the pasture crops to recover before being grazed again. This dramatically increases pasture productivity, soil organic matter, and animal health. Even better, you can have mixed species herds to increase the diversity in manure type and animal contributed soil biology while more effectively grazing different pasture crops. With a well planned out system, you could even rotate annual crops in for more diverse streams of income. I wonder if I could do this with my chickens on such a small scale as a 1/5 acre lot, hmmm.

Intensive/paddock grazing example.

Photo credit and more info: http://transterraform.com/permaculture-strategies-intensive-rotational-grazing/

Simple example of Allan Savory's concept.

Photo credit and more info: http://permaculturenews.org/2010/05/07/holistic-management-herbivores-hats-and-hope/

 

          And of course, no soil article is complete without discussing compost. I believe no home should be without a composting system of some sort. From a simple compost pile; to vermicomposting (worm composting); to deep bedding in the chicken coop; to all the crazy tumblers, bins, and barrels, there is a composting system for you. The best part is you're using a resource that otherwise would go to the landfill to become contaminated and unrecoverable while adding to methane emissions. Composting is as easy as putting your green and brown kitchen scraps in a pile and letting it rot over winter. As well, composting and especially vermicompost is by far one of the best ways to increase biological activity in the soil. My favorite form of composting is anaerobic digestion because you get the carbon rich humus out of it with the added benefit of capturing methane for later use. With digestion you double the productivity of the composting process with no extra inputs and because of how anaerobic bacteria work you can safely compost human, dog, and cat manure as well. However the initial cost and land needed are limiting factors for digestive composting, as such on the home scale I recommend sticking with tower style vermicomposting or standard composting bins.

          Currently, I fill my chicken run with deep bedding of kitchen scraps and wood mulch and I keep a giant hot pile of composting wood mulch, horse manure, kitchen scraps, brewery waste, and coffee grounds. All of these things are freesourced from my local area. Until I get more of my home infrastructure set up this will work just fine for me. Though there are serious drawbacks, namely having constantly changing available area to turn the pile in order to keep it hot, and the chickens kick the pile all over my work area. Ultimately I intend on building a three bin system to make turning hot compost easier, and a worm tower for keeping in the kitchen in place of the gross bucket that we use for collecting daily refuse.

         The hot compost pile with wheelbarrow on left, chicken coop and shed on the right, mulch madness along back fence.

          Well that in a nutshell is my Soil Building 101. It's by far not exhaustive as there are many ways to build soil that I'm sure I don't know about. I would love to go into greater detail on several of these because they are all worthy of a blog all in themselves. So in the future I will cover some or all of these. I did not go into soil amendments like biochar or rock dust, however I plan on dedicating an entire blog post to each of them as well. Next week, in light of Sao Paulo running out of water within the next month or two, California in a drought and running out of water within the year, the entire U.S. Southwest running dry within the next two to three years, and the U.S. Midwest following closely behind, I going to talk about water, drought, and some permaculture solutions. Have a great week and I look forward to sharing with you then.

Lets Talk About Dirt

          Welcome back. To recap, last week I shared a bit of my experience and knowledge base as it relates to renewable forms of energy, organic urban farming, ecology, and social influences on these subjects. Today I want to share what I know about dirt, specifically soil and why dirt is not soil, why that's an important distinction to make, and why soil is so important for all terrestrial life. I'm going to cover in brief the current state of soils worldwide and the effects soil health has on global warming, water availability, and regional climate stability. Because this is a dense topic and even with simplifying most of its content this blog will run long, I'm splitting it in half and next week I'll cover the most effective, simple, and easy things that everyone, regardless of income or resources, can and should do to build soils.

          While I believe most everybody knows that in general things are not looking good for our planet and our species and that our future is bleak, I believe most people willfully look away from the problem because it's so overwhelming and it's easier to not face reality, this is a form of cognitive dissonance. If this is you don't feel ashamed, like any skill it takes time to develop the ability to face these kinds of problems on a daily basis and take action in spite of the overwhelming feelings they generate. Some of the following paragraphs are grim and spell out our future in no uncertain terms, however I don't care for shock doctrine and fear mongering. My intent here is to educate, offer simple solutions, and inspire you to take action. With this in mind, lets begin.

          Soil is a living organism. While there is no scientific founding to that statement, as in it is my belief and not necessarily fact, it's accurate to say soil is biological organic matter comprised of and home to an incalculable number of biological organisms that by their presence or absence determine soil health and viability. Dirt on the other hand is not alive and does not support life. Comprised of inorganic mineral compounds, dirt is inert. Rhyme intended a as mnemonic device to help remember why dirt, though a component of soil, is not soil. The reverse however is true, soil is a form of dirt. This is an important point to make because without adequate water in the form of moisture and without a healthy and diverse community of soil biota, soil rich in organic matter is just dirt and dirt cannot support complex forms of life, where soil can and inevitably will.

SOIL.

Photo credit: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ourchangingworld/20141030

DIRT.

Photo credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/22/ne-quittez-pas-dirt-menu_n_2526088.html

          Plants are primary producers. This means that plants take inorganic compounds (dirt) and convert them into organic compounds, most often by means of photosynthesis. However, it's not exactly that simple. If it were, there would be no deserts because plants of all kinds could and would establish themselves and convert lifeless desert expanses into lush paradises without much effort. One of the keys to making it possible for plants to establish and flourish, especially more complex and food producing plants, is a bare minimum of three percent organic matter in the soil and the accompanying soil biota that make soil and facilitate nutrient cycling. Another key to healthy viable soils is moisture, which is held in the soil by both high levels of organic matter and a complex community of soil organism. If soil moisture is depleted, then biota die off and soil formation and nutrient cycling slow, then less or no plant life can survive. If organic matter is depleted, then less moisture can be held in the soil and soil biota die off, then nutrient cycling and soil formation slow or stop and almost no plant life can survive without irrigation and fertilization. If biota are killed off, then soil formation slows or stops, nutrient cycling stops, pathogens and disease rise in number and plant life can only survive with added fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides while no new healthy beneficial biota can establish because chemicals meant to kill pathogenic life forms also effectively kill off the beneficials. I hope you are starting to see the connectivity and cyclicity here. Everything stems from healthy soil.

          In the U.S. alone, since the 1950's we have depleted some thirty percent of our arable soils to less than one percent organic matter and of the seventy percent left, seventy percent of those are expected to be depleted of organic matter by the year 2100. Even more alarming, this trend is closely mirrored worldwide. That is to say most of the world will be without arable land within the next seventy to ninety years. This is not even considering rates of erosion from over plowing fields, soil salinization and water depletion from poor irrigation practices, and expanding desertification from overgrazing and global warming. To add perspective, it takes natural processes thousands to tens of thousands of years to develop just one inch (2.5cm) of soil and to sustain intensive agriculture a minimum of one foot (30cm) of soil is needed. The sobering reality is that by 2050 most parts of the planet, including the U.S., will not be able to supply the food necessary to support our population as it exists today, let alone the projected population of ten billion people. To put the timeline in perspective I'll only be 65 and my kids late 20s to early 30s. What age will you be?

The dust bowl will become a worldwide phenomena.

 Photo credit: http://kansaspublicradio.org/kpr-news/pbs-air-ken-burns-documentary-dust-bowl

          Are you ready for the rabbit hole to get deeper? There is a way out, its not all doom and gloom, I promise. Remember, the solutions are rather simple and easy to do. We'll get to that next week, but first lets take a look at how soil health relates to global warming, water availability, and regional climate stability.

          Organic matter in soil equals carbon in the soil and carbon tends to stay locked up in the soil for thousands or even millions of years. Carbon is also locked away in all living things, large amounts being in trees and grasses. So when we talk about carbon emissions and global warming, we are talking about releasing carbon that has been sequestered from the atmosphere by biological processes and locked into the soil or fossil (oil, natural gas, coal) and non-fossil (wood, syngas, biomass) fuels. When forests are clear cut, or grasslands converted to monoculture cropland, or soils are depleted of organic matter, that stored carbon doesn't just disappear, it leaves with whatever was harvested and more often than not ends up in the atmosphere thus increasing the amount of solar radiation in the form of heat that gets trapped on our planet and increases rates global warming. At the same time, those carbon sequestering biological processes are stopped dead in their tracks; the system is thrown out of balance as more carbon leaves the soil than enters the soil. When the carbon is released in the form of methane, most notably from drilling for fossil fuels and modern livestock farming practices, the effect is ten times worse than carbon dioxide alone. Likewise, plants cannot grow well, or at all, in unhealthy and depleted soil. This makes it that much harder to sequester atmospheric carbon by biological processes.

The carbon cycle.

Photo credit: http://cnx.org/contents/b3c1e1d2-839c-42b0-a314-e119a8aafbdd@8.24:98/Concepts_of_Biology

          Carbon rich organic matter and a healthy community of biological organisms in the soil also generally means more water in the soil. this is because decomposed and decomposing organic matter (humus) acts like a sponge, retaining up to ten times its own weight in water. Likewise, soil biota increase  the water holding capacity of any soil. As well, soils rich in humus, water, and biota can support a large variety of plant life that store large amounts of water in their tissues, again most notably trees and grasses. Here's where things get really cool, more water in the soil means more water percolating deep into the ground and eventually recharging aquifers as a water savings account. As well, increased water in the soil and diverse plant life leads to greater levels of  evaporation from the soil and transpiration from plants (evapotranspiration), which creates higher local humidity and rainfall. Higher humidity buffers local and regional climates against severe temperature changes and drought while increased local rainfall contributes to a healthier water cycle and supports healthier river and tributary systems, thus stabilizing local and regional climates.

          With all the problems our world faces, from peak oil, to climate change, to ocean acidification, to destabilizing geopolitics, and so on, dirt just seems like another thing to add to the already out of control list. However, as we've covered, dirt is not soil and soil is innately tied to and a primary influencing factor of climate change, which is the primary influencing factor of ocean acidification, though we didn't cover the topic of oceans. Soil can also be a mitigating or exacerbating force for geopolitical relations as it relates to food production and the coming food shortages if we do not heed the warning signs that have been documented since the mid 1960s. Though GMO's are a topic for another day, it's pertinent to say that GMO's will not save us from depleted and degraded soils. The fact is no plants, not even modified ones, are going to grow in lifeless pure mineral dirt. Remember dirt is inert. Certainly carbon emissions need to be greatly reduced worldwide and resources need to be reused and recycled to a far greater extent than they are today, however soils are the most pressing and influencing problem we face. No matter what else we do to address other issues, if we can't feed ourselves, well be in really bad shape. By focusing on soil repair we will ensure our own future and the future of our children while simultaneously mitigating many of the other problems our planet and our species are facing. I look forward to sharing a more positive and upbeat look at how anyone and everyone can and should help rebuild soils worldwide. I look forward to next week for sharing soil building 101.

          

         
  

Intro

          Welcome to The Suburban Bare blog, I hope you are as excited as I am about the future and about the quiet revolution in food production known as Permaculture. Before we get started, I believe a bit of personal history is in order. Since 2005 I have been fascinated by renewable energy and as a result have read hundreds of books, articles, and publications on solar power, passive solar, wind energy, and biomass; everything from basic theory to how to manufacture solar cells and electric generators. I have built hobby solar thermal collectors and small power generators.

          Since 2007 I have kept a home garden that has evolved into a subsistence urban farm and I have amassed a library and knowledge base for home scale organic food production. I began, much like the history of agriculture, taking advantage of built up healthy soil for monoculture production, using synthetic fertilizers when my soil fertility depleted and crops failed, and ultimately left with a desertified plot where nothing but the most aggressive of weeds would grow. To survive, I had to evolve. So in 2010 I began researching organic farming, soil building, polyculture planting, wood coppice, crop rotation, and so on. In 2012 I first heard of Aquaponics however I wrote it off as worthless, as it sounded so much like hydroponics which I had then and have now little faith in. However now my attitude towards aquaponics has made a full 180 after learning how the systems work. Finally in 2013, quite by accident, I stumbled across Bill Mollison's permaculture concept and I have been an advocate since.

          Academically, I'm a student of environmental sociology. Since 2005 I have studied climate and climate change; the history of agriculture as it relates to soil depletion, societal development, social movements, and societal collapse; the destruction of ecosystems and ecological collapse in relation to and caused by human activities. Through my studies, I have found time and again that the problems we face are severe and grave and  the solutions to these problems, though simple, are not often provided or well understood. This is where my hobby and love of permaculture and all things renewable meets my passion for understanding human society and the environment.

          Through this blog and hopefully in combination with Youtube videos, I intend to promote permaculture, aquaponics, and their principles; to address anthropogenic climate change and the coming food shortages and to do so in a manner that is readily accessible to the majority of people, who may not have the time or desire to research these topics as in depth as I have. To be clear, I am not pushing any political agenda, though from time to time I will make commentary on political discourse as it relates to these topics. I believe that after failure to take any serious or significant action to correct climate and social problems that threaten all life on this planet, especially humanity as the quintessential keystone species on this planet, that government action and policy on any level will be wholly inadequate to save our way of life. I believe that the change has to come from you and me, the masses, and though it has to happen immediately in order to avoid serious crisis, I believe we can do it. I operate on scientific fact and not the subjective opinion of representatives who are either ill informed or willfully negligent and entirely willing to argue and blame rather than take responsibility and action towards bettering our future.

          It's time to change the story from one of consumption and planetary domination to one of reciprocity and cooperation. We are not separate from the natural world, we are part of it. We are not islands unto ourselves separate from the world around us, we are integral parts of the whole and our every thought and action bears consequences for the rest of the planet. We are just one of many species on this planet and historically when species cease to serve any vital function or fill any ecological niche they are inevitably eliminated.

          With this in mind, well start from the bottom and work up and out. I hope you enjoyed this brief intro and I look forward to sharing more with you as time goes by. Next week's post will be about soil and why its so important for all terrestrial life.