The book "Healing Harvest" is written by Michio Kushi and is
part of a series on Macrobiotic cooking. The book doesn't go
into the history of Nature Farming, but i think that is where
the ideas are taken from.
It is my understanding that Nature Farming originated in Japan
and is related to Fukuoka's work. The Macrobiotic part is also
from Japan and both ideas can be difficult to understand. The
first reaction many people have is to dismiss these ideas as
unscientific or strange.
Anyway, this book takes "Nature Farming" and describes how it
can be used in a garden. The first part is philosophy about
yin and yang, plus some strange stuff about the viewing the
whole world as food. Then, the book defines something called
the Natural Garden.
Mr Kushi considers Organic farming a slight improvement from
todays chemical (modern) farming methods and then shows how
Nature Farming is a completely different.
With organics the plants are mono-cropped in rows (no
diversity) and the soil tilled with power equipment. The
chemicals are still used but now they have a more organic
source. Overall, chemical farming and organic farming are
the same thing.
With Natural Gardening the plants become the tools. For example,
if we were to take a lawn and turn it into a garden, how would
Natural Gardening proceed? Organics would probably till or
mulch over the grass. In Natural Gardening we would look for
a plant to smother the grass and act as a succession plant which
well lead to our eventual garden.
Here are some ideas from the book:
* Weeds are our friends and keep the soil soft.
* Plowing makes the soil hard and kills soil life.
* Weak vegetables are trouble (celery, eggplant, potatoes,tomatoes)
* Strong vegetables are good (daikon, burdock, squash, radish, carrot)
* Fertilizer upsets soil balance and is a shock to soil life.
* Fight weeds with weeds, plantain, clover, and milk vetch are
good tools.
* Use succession of crops for sustainable growing. Rice, barley,
and wheat are backbone crops and help smother weeds.
Mr Kushi makes the point that plant selection depends upon local
conditions and all the examples are oriented towards parts of
California and Japan. Applying these ideas to other areas would
require some observation and study.
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>From a eco standpoint these ideas are very appealing. None of the
other farming/gardening methods work with nature as closely. The
one criticism that keeps occurring is that the methods may work in
Japan, but they don't work here. The weeds are too strong or
some other problem keeps Nature Farming from working.
If anyone has had success with Fukuoka's ideas i would love to
hear more about it.
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Jeff Owens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Zone 7, http://www.teleport.com/~kowens
Underground house, solar energy, reduced consumption, no TV
