Twenty-five years ago I wrote a series of articles: “The seven bank accounts of a farmer”(Soil, seed, continuous education, the “team,” neighbours, politics, and money). After twenty five years; I still realize that “soil” is still the most important “bank account” that a farmer has.
Whether you are a farmer, a gardener with a garden big enough to feed the town, or grow a few veggies in a pot on your balcony, if you look after your soil you will be rewarded with a crop that you and your neighbours can be proud of. However, your soil is like a money account at the bank, if you continuously withdraw or take off a crop and don’t put anything back in, your soil account will soon look like a bank account that is not looked after (nothing there).
When our county was first settled and the land cleared of trees by cutting, stumping, and burning the unwanted brush and stumps, this “virgin new land” was fertile and very productive with centuries of fallen leaves, decomposed trees that had died and the soil was alive with thousands of worms and other soil life so small that they couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. This was how our “topsoil” was formed. When I first started plowing ground more than a half century ago, I sometimes plowed up a thin strip of ashes about an inch wide and two feet long. This was the remnants of a root on a stump that had been burned in the land clearing process. Sometimes the fire in the stump will follow the dry roots deep into the ground. Canada’s early population were farmers of some description. The most of them had both livestock and crops to feed their family. A huge garden both fed the family all summer and was pickled, preserved, or stored like potatoes, carrots, etc. for winter use. Wild fruits were used the same way with some consumed when ripe, and others stored for winter. Small field crops were grown like hay for the cows and horses, grain for grinding into flour and fattening hogs and cattle and supplying energy so the horses could work hard too.
Any waste food or crops were returned to the soil as was the manure from hens, pigs, cattle, sheep, and horses. There was usually a farmer nearby with a “lime kiln” where lime for the fields and “mortar” to hold the stones and bricks for construction could be bought or “bartered” for. Some of the farms closest to the lumber camps would sell hay, potatoes, grain, pork and beef to these “bush camps”.
Needless to say, the waste from cooking and manure from the horses was never brought back to the farms where the supplies came from. After many years of selling their crops to the bush camps, these farms slowly became less productive and later became known as poor farms.
In western Canada, farmers cropped their land continuously, selling the grain which became known worldwide as the finest wheat in the world. Unfortunately, this continuous cropping led to a depletion of organic matter and soil life. This was followed by “the dirty ’30s” so named because of the endless dust storms when farms were literally blown away in the wind when this bare soil was blown to fence rows and around buildings. Many farmers just loaded what meager belongings they had along with their families onto a horse pulled wagon and drove away, abandoning their now worthless farm.
The easiest indication of a soil in good condition is lots of earth worms in the soil when you plow up or turn your garden with a shovel. If the soil runs through your fingers like beach sand, that is a sign that very little organic matter or “soil life” is present.
These last few years we have seen more extreme weather, more intense rains that soils have trouble absorbing and longer periods of dry weather when plants depend on the “water holding capacity” of the soil to still have moisture to supply the plants needs until the next rain comes. Fifty years ago it was a common practice for farmers who were short of manure to plant a field of buckwheat or fall rye to plow back into the ground as green manure to improve the organic matter and quality of the soil. Tight budgets have all but eliminated this practice. We are beginning to see more “cover crops” used in grain and corn fields to provide root structure to keep soils from blowing away or being washed away with water runoff in wet times or during the spring melt.
Both the crop residue and root growth from these cover crops add to a build up in organic matter and improve the water holding capacity of the soil. Many of these practices don’t require large cash outlay, but must be planned in advance.
I will never forget the terrible feeling of getting a cheque returned with a note attached that says NSF. Let’s not let our soils get that way either.
Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that has been in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com
