Organic Gardening 101 w/OEC and Tilth

Today I attended a three hour course on the basics of organic gardening, which was very good. I did know a lot of the basics but the big one that never previously clicked for me was about doing what you can to not (roto)till the soil. The main problem with tilling is you kill the micro organisms in the soil like bacteria and fungus. While the bacteria is able to bounce back the fungus is not quite so adapt. Weedy species like the higher ratio of bacteria to fungus but most of the plants we are interested in growing strongly prefer something close to a one to one ratio. Which might explain the ever increasing use of fertilizer to try and compensate for the nutrient imbalance. There is a much longer story which it too long to start talking about at this late at night.

I went ahead and signed up for organic gardening 102 and plan to attend all of the second Saturday work parties where the cover topics like bio-intensive growing, intro to permaculture, fall/winter gardening (without a greenhouse),...