Soil

4 Massive Benefits Of Organic Gardening For The Environment And Your Family

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Kevin Hilton – You’ve likely heard of organic gardening and possibly aren’t entirely convinced of its benefits.  Perhaps you think the effort invested in growing a garden isn’t worth your while. This simply isn’t the case. There are huge benefits to starting your own organic garden, not the least of which is feeding yourself wholesome nutritious meals from your garden.

organicMore Oxygen, Less Carbon Dioxide

Having a garden means you’re making a positive contribution to the total number of edible plants on the planet. This in turn translates into more oxygen and less carbon dioxide as plants and trees consume the latter for sustenance and convert it to the former.

By growing an organic garden you help tip the balance in the environment’s favor – if even just a little bit. The plants and trees you grow will help replace the environment’s CO2 with oxygen, a gas humans and other life forms breathe every waking and sleeping moment of their lives.

Organic Gardens Provide Natural Habitats

Growing an organic garden encourages small, occasionally endangered life forms like honey bees –  to ‘set up shop’ and reproduce. Ladybugs, praying mantis, beneficial nematodes, spiders, and bees are just some of the helpful insects you can attract in your garden. Birds like hummingbirds, wrens, bluebirds, and white-throated sparrows can also thrive in your garden. They are known to prey on harmful insects while leaving your produce alone. Continue reading →

5 Expert Tips for Starting Your Own Organic Seedlings

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seedlingsIt doesn’t matter if you have acres of space to plant your herbs, vegetables, and fruit, or if you are starting with a few small pots in a window sill; beginning your own organic gardening is a cinch when you know how to get your seeds growing right from their first stages.

Here are 5 unknown gardening tips to start and grow your own organic seedlings.

1. If you are using topsoil from your garden to start your seedlings, put some in muffin tins and warm up your oven to 350 degrees. Bake the soil for about 25-30 minutes and let it cool. This will sanitize your soil and make sure that no weeds or grass come up when you transfer it to a larger pot in which you will grow your seedlings.

2. If you don’t want to start your seedling indoors, which is highly recommended (some people can’t if they have pets that might dig in the soil and ruin new plants, etc.) try starting them on a covered porch or otherwise protected area to keep excess sun and wind from ruining your new seedlings. You can also use a plastic cup with a few holes poked in the bottom, turned upside down and placed over your seedlings to keep them protected. Continue reading →

Soil Around Fukushima Site Remains Contaminated With Dangerous Radioactive Waste

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David Gutierrez – The soil surrounding the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant remains contaminated with radioactive cesium, with a high risk that those atoms could transfer to food crops, suggests a study conducted by researchers from Kyoto Prefectural University and published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.

radioactiveThe March 2011 earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima plant, causing the plant to eject a radioactive plume into the atmosphere that spread across Japan’s countryside and the northern hemisphere. More than 100,000 people were evacuated from the zone within 30 km (20 miles) of the plant.

Agricultural soil most toxic?

One of the main elements ejected from the plant was radioactive cesium, which dissolves easily into water and spreads quickly into the environment. In order to examine which types of soil are most likely to absorb radioactive cesium and which are most (or least) likely to pass it on to food grown there, the researchers conducted a survey of the physical and chemical properties of soil in rice fields around the crippled plant.

The major factor determining how easily radioactive cesium is taken up from soil is the “frayed edge site” (FES) concentration of the soil, which measures the soil’s content of minerals with rough or weathered edges. These rough edges bind to cesium, preventing it from leaving the soil. Unfortunately, FES is incredibly difficult to measure. A measurement that approximates FES is radiocesium interception potential (RIP), but RIP can only be measured in a lengthy process at specialized labs.

So the researchers tested with more easily measured variables that can be used to estimate RIP. They found that soils rich in potassium, clay or silt tended to have a higher RIP, and thus were more likely to hold on to radiocesium over time.

Alarmingly, soil rich in organic material and low in acidity — in other words, the best soil for growing food — was the most likely to allow radiocesium to migrate into plants. However, this soil could presumably be more easily bioremediated than soil with a higher RIP.

The bottom line: The soil around Fukushima is still highly radioactive, and is likely to remain so.

Government struggles with storing toxic soil

Radioactive soil from Fukushima was also in the news on March 25, when Japan’s Environment Ministry began the first transport of contaminated soil to the site of a planned temporary storage facility in the town of Futaba, in Fukushima Prefecture. Approximately 12 cubic meters of soil were transported to the site; about 246 cubic meters have also been transported to the site of the other planned temporary storage facility in Okuma.

According to the ministry, the first year of the transport process will be considered a trial period, as many details of the plan have yet to be finalized. During this time, the two temporary facilities will receive a total of 1,000 cubic meters of radioactive soil and debris, which is currently spread throughout 43 separate locations in the prefecture. This is less than 0.2 percent of the 22 million cubic meters of radioactive waste eventually intended for storage at the two sites.

The government has good reason to be tentative about its plan; even getting this far took years of negotiation with town officials and local landowners. Even now, the ministry has acquired less than 2 percent of the 16 square kilometers needed for the temporary facilities. Local landowners have been reluctant to sell their land for the facility, expressing concern that the storage facilities could become permanent once the government owns the land. Others have refused to sell land that has been in their families for generations.

According to the Environment Ministry, the radioactive waste will remain in the temporary facilities for 30 years. There is still no firm plan in place for the construction of a permanent storage facility, however.

Sources

SF Source Natural News  April 2015

Bonnie L. Grant ~ Antidepressant Microbes In Soil: How Dirt Makes You Happy

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Prozac may not be the only way to get rid of your serious blues. Soil microbes have been found to have similar effects on the brain and are without side effects and chemical dependency potential. Learn how to harness the natural antidepressant in soil and make yourself happier and healthier. Read on to see how dirt makes you happy.

soil

Natural remedies have been around for untold centuries. These natural remedies included cures for almost any physical ailment as well as mental and emotional afflictions. Ancient healers may not have known why something worked but simply that it did. Modern scientists have unraveled the why of many medicinal plants and practices but only recently are they finding remedies that were previously unknown and yet, still a part of the natural life cycle. Soil microbes and human health now have a positive link which has been studied and found to be verifiable.

Soil Microbes and Human Health

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Sustainability On Steroids: Organic Farmer Grosses $100K An Acre

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“3 main rules of soil health: Keep roots in the ground as much as possible, keep the soil covered as much as possible, and disturb the soil as little as possible.” – C Sarich

We need GMOs to feed the world like a fish needs dry land. A controversial farmer in California is proving that a veritable bumper crop can be had using new farming methods that don’t require GMO pesticides, herbicides, or even weeding, and require 10 times less water than the average farm. The best part – he earned $100K per acre last season without even harvesting all of his land.

What kind of super-fertilizer allows Paul Kaiser to grow so much food on a mere 8 acres? Lot’s of rotten food scraps and rotten plants – otherwise known as compost. And he uses loads of it.

He uses farming practices (both old and cutting-edge) so well that agricultural specialists from University of California at Davis who have tested his top soil can drive a four-foot steel pole all the way through his fields. This, as opposed to most parts of California, where it would hit infertile hard-pan in less than 12 inches.

Last year, Kaiser’s farm located in Sonoma Valley, CA grossed more than $100,000 an acre, too. This is ten times the average for most farmers of this area, even in lucrative wine-country. Continue reading →