There goes mushroom, soil health and cleanliness

There goes mushrooms.


There is precise timing of mushrooms appearing in the field, which we replicated in the jar.  What really build soil?  This is a century old convention and tradition many farmers and gardeners claim that adding dark compost and lots of bugs in it, but is this really the best we can do?  A lot of times we neglect to look at the signs.  Signs are on the crop and in the soil.  If we look at the plants and notice any disease or insect pests, there is apparently something happening.  What do we do?  spray pesticides or pick by hands,  they are both the same.  If a gardener continue to pick by hand just to say her vegetable is organic, it is probably worse.  You are still looking at the superficial label only.  You gotta fix the cause.  When the pests appear, it is only the consequence of what she does.  It's all what's in the soil.


So look at the soil.  What's the sign in the soil.  You hear that soil is full of diverse community of microorganisms.  Billions of them in a handful of soil, but which ones?  Most of them are harmless, but when we farm or garden, why are we adding more harmful ones to the soil?  What kind of farming practice is that so that we have to keep moving to new patch to get the clean condition again, often called crop rotation. 

Well, the biggest sign in the soil is earthworms.  Somehow gardeners worship earthworms and falsely came to believe that earthworms are the sign of health.  It's the opposite.  They are the sign of your soil rotting and they are there to clean the soil.

When the soil becomes clean, you barely find any earthworms and most pest problems go away too.  It's not mystery and I'm not making this up either.  There are many natural farmers who already do this with amazing result.

Look at the crop.  When you find your lettuce or spinach or peppers or cucumbers melting and turning into slim, this is a sign.  The crop is not healthy.  They are taking up the rot in the soil and the plant itself is rotting.  And the most scary thing is when we eat it, we are rotting ourselves too.  Then we get sick. 

While most farmers try to maximize yeild by giving fertilizers and killing with pesticides, soil health and crop quality should really be measured by not just available nutrient level and yield, but health of people who consume the crops and cleanliness of the soil itself.