We Saw an M.D. Who Began Talking about Creation Through the Word. I Offered To Give Him a Creation Gardening Book

 Creation Gardening is an easy book to give away.
The author's price (write to me) is only $5 plus shipping.

Mrs. Ichabod had a doctor's visit, and we began talking with him about various things at the end. He mentioned going to seminary and then talked about God's Creation through the Word. I said, "I teach that." He asked, "You do and in...?" I finished, "Yes, six days - through the Word."

He was a bit startled about the idea of a Creation Garden, which made him smile. The next visit will mean roses and a book or two. I enjoy telling people that the flawless roses were grown without sprays and chemical fertilizer, which hails back to "If you do not believe the Word, at least believe because of the signs (miracles)" in John.

Diabetic Shock
Our son sees the same diabetic specialist that Mrs. Ichabod visits. She just received her copy of Creation Gardening before she saw him. LI said, "She was still disturbed by your roses when I saw her." By the way, she really adores roses, which we give her, so this news was intriguing.

Gabe Brown, Regenerative Farmer
Someone directed me to a video, which I will place at the bottom of this post. The initial video led me to a series created by Gabe Brown, regenerative farmer from North Dakota.

Those who are interested in this might want to investigate the theories of the soil-food-web, another general term for these practice.

Agricultural videos bring out the inner farmer in me, since both my grandfathers owned farms until the Great Depression.

Four Disastrous Years Taught Brown
My brief description - Gabe Brown began on a huge farm which he was buying from his in-laws. However, they had four years in a row which were a total wipe-out of the crops, due to natural disasters like drought and hail. They had no cash. He planted each year but had nothing to harvest, so the soil noticeably improved because the soil absorbed the destroyed crops.

Farmer Brown learned that he needed to focus on the health of the soil to have good crops and preserve his greatest asset - the land.

Chemical and plowing practices (tillage on the tape) have the following bad effects:

1. Plowing creates a hardpan that the roots cannot break through. Bigger, deeper plows push the hardpan layer down but do not solve the problem.
2. Plowing also reduces the carbon in the soil, which diminishes what the soil can do.
3. Chemical fertilizers do not reduce these problems, but make them worse.
4. Rainwater, which is often sparse, runs off and causes soil erosion, when the soil surface is hard and non-porous.

Did an earthworm take this photo of Gabe Brown
and his son Paul?

Brown's main emphasis is upon diverse cover crops, which keep most weeds down, soften the soil, and attract beneficial insects that devour the pests. Animal life of all types also eat weed seeds at a prodigious rate.

I had similar problems. I began gardening in shock - I could afford the chemicals. I had the almost-infinite resources of the Grace Dow library in Midland, so I read every gardening book (adult and juvenile sections) I could find. The juvenile books were often the best ones.

I softened clay by placing wheelbarrows of finished compost on top of it. The soil creatures did the plowing, mixing, and tunneling. Once the soil had digested the organic matter I used, the gardens were always productive. I did not want to spray what we ate, and I had no need for chemical enhancements.

I also created fast compost by putting sod clumps together in a hole I dug for a parsley garden. The soil became jelly-like from all the humus digested in it.

Scarlet Bee Balm is rampant,
but this purple Monarda is clumping.

Brown learned from an expert that he needed more than one plant in his cover-crops - he needed a mix of six. This diversity is what I am practicing in the gardens, because I reasoned, "The plants with another agenda can grow next to and among the roses, providing a good rest and feeding station for the beneficial insects." -

• Dandelions - a dandy and attractive herb.
• Horse, Mountain, and Cat Mints - well-behaved and clumping.
• Wild Strawberries, low-growing and planted by the birds.
• Clover.
• Buckwheat and other plants can be bee-friendly and squeeze out weeds, without becoming a bother.

I pull out future nut and maple trees, but the list above are never-pulls. Big obnoxious weeds can be dug out in some cases and given cardboard-mulch shade in others.

Brown's overall emphasis in his videos -

1. The soil must be built up, not abused until dead.
2. Repeated plowing is bad for every aspect of the soil. Organic growing is no good if someone plows that soil all the time. He does not plow at all now.
3. God mulches (did Brown steal that from me, or did we both steal it from Creation?) He calls cover crops/mulches "the armor of the soil."
4. Soil is an ocean of life, below ground with too many creatures to name, above ground, with hundreds of beneficial creatures that live from it and benefit us.
5. Diversity of plant and animal life is natural, based on Creation, and this mix leverages all the outcomes of natural far beyond what we can imagine until we see it. Almost Eden and I see hawks resting and searching on our property - because we have so many creatures living from it.

All the children and Do-It-Yourself fanatics are learning that YouTube covers every topic. I have started to create videos for the classroom. Now I am going to create some for gardening. That will have to wait a bit until I get some other items finished.