first off, Merla - Are you really applying for organic certification???? I've been certified organic for as many years as Idaho has had an organic certification process. Anyone on the market here who was serious, joined at the beginning. Just remember how conservative this state is even compared with Virginia. This is the boonies. Even to be certified organic with the state is controversial. This is a way to announce yourself as a serious farmer and not just a hippie gardener. I am way off in left field because I am BD. Most organic people really don't understand the importance of the soil food web. They just don't use herbicide and chemical fertilizer. They use soil amendments still in the same paradigm as conventional ag.
This past year I kept my certification even though I wasn't making as much money as the minimum limit. It was purely optional for me and my motivation was to have more clout on the county weed committee. I will admit that it's hard to get off the program when you have so much paper behind you because certification carries status on the Farmers Market. Without having my certified organic sign, I could be conventional for all the public knows. There's all kinds of communications and meetings that are for certified people that I like to attend. My BD work on our own land is separate from the work on the road. I didn't want it to be that way, but Randy, my nemesis, made that necessary when he reported Pfeiffer Field Spray to the state. I can never admit to using BD on the grant, but I can to using CT. Alaska humus is OMRI certified, probably not registered in Idaho, but when I don't write up BD preps on my report when I use them, it is only to protect JPI from any problem. Nobody here knows anything about microorganisms and how the nematodes feed off the bacteria and excrete ammonium. They don't know there are two categories of nematodes besides the root-feeding ones. Realistically, who cares what kind of nematodes are on the road right-of-way? You aren't raising crops there. That was just a way for Randy to defend his conventional paradigm. The concept of working through the microorganisms in the soil is what we need to educate the Commissioners, the county department heads, the local conventional farmers as well as the organic farmers who would be reinforced by understanding the soil food web better, so that we can get the whole county off the herbicide treadmill and into a wholistic land use ethic that has preserving soil, water, air, wildlife and little human children's immune systems as one of its purposes. I'll never be able to share RS's vision of the universe with the dominant religious culture here, but they can be organic and some of these churches already are vegetarian. Is the statement, "We are all related." relevant here? We're back to the basic split in BD between the Anthroposophists who have spent their lives following RS's writings strictly and those who feel that if RS were alive, he would want us to innovate and expand the process and share it with the world. I know that I need to read Esoteric Science and the many other books and that I am not educated enough in RS. I'm coming from where I'm coming from. Should I make separate CT plots and BD plots, just spray the whole road with BC, 500 and all the weed peppers surreptitiously or should I put it all together and not mention the fact that there are BD preps in there? I've given up only trying to prove that peppering will work on the road right-of-way as a method of weed control. Now I'm simply trying to get everyone to think about weed control wholistically and I'm trying every strategy I can find until I find what works here including peppering. Urea and 20% vinegar probably injure the food web too much. Do I drop those methods or use them and repopulate with microorganisms? How long does it take to dissipate? This is road right-of-way, not a veggie bed. I am dealing with a forest paradigm not an agricultural paradigm. The road right-of-way was a forest before they scraped all the topsoil off. Our farm was a wild meadow and a forest before we started gardening here with BD preps in 1986 or 7. I don't know what microorganisms are in BD compost. If I made compost preps here, they would probably have mycorrhizal fungi in them. If they are made on a farm on the East Coast, how much fungi and what fungi are in there? Elaine is from the West Coast and stresses that we put forest littler or some other soil amendment that grows fungi in our compost. What's the difference? I need to learn to make my own compost preps. Please anyone give me your take on this. Allan, you've met both Elaine and Will and Vicki now. You seem to be impressed with what Will and Vicki had to say. I have not heard them speak or talked to them. I'll see if I can figure out how to activate the audio software on my computer. Can I "install the latest real one thang" and be able to hear your tape? Are Will and Vicki on there? Merla >
