The Midland Library Taught Me about Gardening

The Red Bridge at Dow Gardens

Midland, Michigan is headquarters for Dow Chemical and Dow Corning, so the city also boasts Dow Gardens, Grace Dow Library, and Dow High School.

The library had an excellent selection of gardening books when I lived there, and the children's library was just as good. I found the children's books often covered the basics I needed to know, or they supplemented the facts by offering material not usually found in the main gardening books - the big questions.

Dow had a large agricultural chemical division, but I avoided chemicals for one reason - cost. I was going to buy some things for my first serious garden - Wormhaven I - when I went to the store. The prices shocked me because I knew those boxes and bags contained only a few pennies worth of basic chemical fertilizer. The church members had interesting stories about work at Dow and the markup on chemical prices.

My mother was an insect expert, so I also realized that pesticides were not a good answer - and they cost plenty too.

I read every organic gardening book I could find, subscribed to the Rodale books, and read about the basics of Creation. Organic gardening is as old as the ancient Egyptians, who made killing an earthworm a crime, and used the flooding of the Nile to make Egypt the breadbasket of the region.

Note this new story on Egyptians and earthworms.

The new version of organic gardened developed from composting in India (the Indore method) when Sir Albert Howard worked on ways to improve the soil without a lot of modern machinery too expensive for the average farm.

Here is another link on Indore composting - too much work! When I read such terms as "double digging" and building boxes to store various materials, I think of ways around those ideas.

For example, once I set up a shelter for small animals in the winter - New Ulm, Minnesota. I made a pile of evergreens on top of the lawn, fashioned into an igloo for the fortunate. The ingrates did not use the shelter, but the evergreens killed off the grass during the winter and spring. I found the soil was very soft and easily shoveled in that area. Double-digging? What about using the sod to compost itself on the spot.

I also put a layer of compost on top of a tough, clay area in the Midland yard. The result was easily dug soil, after the earthworms pulled the compost down.

There are worse examples of back-breaking labor, such as trenching. Nostalgic for WWI, these gardeners dig deep trenches and fill them with organic matter for their future gardens. Digging a pit or trench is a great education on volume, on the exponential weight of soil when a third dimension is added.

• If a 10 by 6 foot garden area is dug down to 4 feet - 240 cubic feet of soil.
• Expanded by one foot in each dimension - 385 cubic feet of soil.
• If... - don't even ask.

Here are some aphorisms that all gardeners accept:

1. Nitrogen compounds are good for growth.
2. Soil teeming with bacteria will be productive.
3. Looser soil is better than packed down soil, because roots grow between soil particle.
4. Rain is better for plants than watering from the hose.
5. The best soil is on top and often blows away in the wind.
6. Insects love weak plants but do little damage to healthy growth.
7. Earthworm castings are the best for all plants, but the little guys produce only a little bit each day.
8. Nobody likes to weed.
9. Everyone loves birds.

One simple method satisfies all these aphorisms at the same time - with relatively little work.

Mulching provides a bacterial base for the earthworms to feast upon. The liveliest soil is a woodsy soil, so wood mulch is handy, easy to place, and inexpensive.

Since earthworms thrive on bacteria and produce usable nitrogen compounds, they enhance the nitrogen levels of the soil.

Earthworms and other soil creatures loosen the soil by pulling down the debris left on top.

Mulch holds the rainwater in place, absorbing it like a sponge, and decreasing the waste of rapid evaporation.

Mulch also holds down the top soil, preventing wind erosion and forming new soil from the worm castings and general decomposition.

Composting and mulching will produce healthy plants, which fend off insect predation by hosting beneficial insects and growing past the damage.

The total weight of earthworms in the yard will equal the total of castings per day. No one could afford to buy all those castings from a gardening supply house. Earthworms do their work in exchange for good working conditions, adequate moisture, and plenty to eat.

Using mulch to produce compost - or using compost as mulch - will reduce weeding to a pleasant byproduct of gardening.

A productive yard will necessarily be one filled with birds. They will feast on insects, bathe in the water supplies, and sing Matins and Vespers each day. Increasing the organic compounds will multiply the birds by giving them a diverse and abundant supply of food and shelter.

God's Creation reminds us of how He cares for all His creatures, because He cares even more for us. As Luther said about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, Jesus is just as anxious for us as we are for Him.