By Katie
Mankind loves revolution. As a race, we have worked hard to progress to our current level of luxury, education, and convenience. One of our earliest achievements was the agricultural revolution, thousands of years ago. We had an industrial revolution in the 1700’s, and in our own era, a mind blowing technological revolution. These big steps have greatly benefitted us, but I’d like to bring up the elephant in the room.
Sometimes progress is too much progress.
There are free public schools, but high dropout rates and a loss of practical skills, not to mention the toll standardized testing has taken on the upcoming generations’ ability to think freely.
There is access to produce in the stores year round, with season barely affecting crop availability. On the same hand, those crops are often genetically modified or covered in toxic pesticides and herbicides, grown in depleted soil, leaving a low nutrient product at which even your dog turns up his nose. Consumerism demands thousands of products and we get them all for the cheap price of being in a few million lifetimes of debt to China. Oh, and the amount of waste is so extreme we ship it to other countries.
However, do not despair! We are the ones riding the wave of the new revolution. The revolution of reconnecting to God, reconnecting to nature, and reconnecting to our higher, spiritual selves. In general, it’s a spiritual revolution. People are waking up to see the damages caused by leaning on man’s understanding instead of acknowledging God’s power. I am excited to be here with you to share in this new era, laying the foundation of a better world for our children.
I write to you today about what seems to be the newest craze in gardening, but is in fact ancient and eternal. Many affectionately call it “Back to Eden” gardening. The idea behind it is when you rely on the Lord, He is able to answer you in his perfect creation. People realized the madness of tilling their fragile soil, putting expensive chemical fertilizers into it, and receiving ever decreasing yields of produce despite the myriad of “miracle” products used. Slowly, farmers have turned to God, asking why they are failing. He answered. He always does.
In nature, we have a powerful example of redemption and abundance from lack. No matter the climate, something can grow there. God’s design works despite challenges, whereas man’s design fails without challenges. What’s the difference, you ask? Go walk where man hasn’t polluted, such as a forest or prairie. What do you see? I’ll tell you what you don’t see, and that is uncovered dirt. God covers the soil with plants and fallen organic matter. Man is faithless and only believes there is dirt to be had if he can see it!
In the Back to Eden method, gardeners understand the need of this covering. In the fall, God covers the earth with leaves and twigs and needles. The winter rain and snow aid in breaking this organic matter down, and when spring comes, gorgeous, rich soil has been made under that mulch covering. No wonder spring blossoms so incredibly! The trees and flowers truly spring up with growth!
If you imitate this covering, you will see how quickly worms and fungi move in, turning everything beneath into useable soil. You can use anything to cover your soil that you have on hand, such as grass clippings, leaves, straw, manure, or woodchips. The traditional Back to Eden garden features woodchips, which are comprised of green matter from branches, leaves, and needles. They tend to be more absorbent, don’t break down as rapidly, are unaffected by wind, and work wonders for cleaning up wet spots.
I will briefly describe how to create a covering and then go into the benefits.
First, mow any grass or other plants in your desired garden space. Lay down a couple layers of newspaper or cardboard over the space. Avoid cardboard with any sort of laminate, gloss images, or lots of ink.
Now that you’ve created a barrier to kill the grass and such beneath, apply any organic matter you have. Make a layer of some lovely compost if you have it. Take a note from the Creator when you do this and always layer, never mix or till. God doesn’t mix or till in the forest. He layers and it is perfect. We have been taught incorrectly, and this is us trying to rewire.
As your final layer, put 4-6 inches of woodchips on top of your compost, manure, etc. When it rains, this will make compost tea for you. Free and abundant. You don’t have to break the bank buying compost tea. All of God’s gifts are free, and the garden is no exception.
That’s all well and good, you think, but what’s the big deal? I’ll tell you! The soil is a living organism and must be covered, the same way we are covered with skin. Now that it’s protected, it can flourish.
Here is the good part.
Year after year, this organic covering will break down and build better and better soil. It will balance out chemically, eventually reaching a neutral 7.0 pH. Both alkaline and acid loving plants flourish in neutral soil. Because the soil is covered, it doesn’t dry out. You get to remove irrigation and sprinklers and drip lines and all the other desperate contraptions you employ to keep your plants hydrated. The covering keeps it moist down there, even in the midst of summer. It also doesn’t suffocate roots or trunks. In extreme temperatures, it is insulation against both cold and heat. Hello, winter crops!
The covering supplies nutrients to the soil, giving you high levels of things like potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen, iron, and such. Your food gets tastier and plants healthier, especially if you save seeds and start to breed a superior strain. Another great relief is that crop rotation is no longer necessary. The soil is never depleted now that it’s properly nourished. You can plant again and again with the same results.
Another amazing benefit is freedom from pests. The plants are so full of water that insects drown when they nibble. They need cellulose, not water. Pest control becomes very minimal over time as everything improves together.
Say goodbye to backbreaking weeding, too! New weeds are easy to pull out of the woodchips, since they’re so light and full of air. Some gardeners take a rake and brush them out. It’s a cinch! I just told you that your biggest problems are erased. How do you feel?
Whether you are a seasoned green thumb or a hopeless, self-dubbed “black thumb”, anyone can have bountiful produce when this return to God’s method is employed. I hope you are inspired to pursue this. God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light. So can yours be, if you use His creation to your advantage and cast off your burdens.
Before I let you go, I’d like to briefly share my own experience with this method. I live in a suburban neighborhood and have a small backyard. I wanted a garden, but wasn’t sure how to achieve it since the yard is all grass and I wasn’t in a place to buy dirt. My mom discovered the Back to Eden method online and shared the YouTube videos with me. It was truly an answer to prayer. I got a few free loads of woodchips from a local tree service and started my covering! (Note that tree services often have to drive a distance to the dump and offload their chips. You are doing them a favor by asking for the chips!)
All winter my woodchips sat, percolating. I finally couldn’t resist and had to check out beneath the chips to see if it had worked. Immediately beneath were gorgeous, moist chips and white threads of healthy fungi. A little deeper were worms, creating precious vermicompost. Even now, no weeds have peeked out of my chips, except for a few that blow in on top. My vegetables are happily growing, and I am so excited to reap a plentiful harvest!
What are you still doing here? Go watch these videos and call up your local tree service! You have an amazing journey ahead of you!
Live well,
Katie
(This blog post to be featured in a magazine soon! I will link it up as soon as I can!)
