May rolled in with a palette of vibrant colors and kicked a reluctant spring into high gear. The cold wind carrying the threat of frost retreated north and in its place came a balmy southern breeze that urged a bazillion seeds to sprout and swollen buds to explode with leaf and flower. The marsh celebrated with blooms on red twig dogwood, the woodlot with wild hyacinth, and the thrush filled the late afternoon with a flute-like song, confirming that May had arrived.
Early in the month, the incubating goose in the flower box grew fidgety and within hours she was surrounded by seven downy goslings. Ten days later the total had grown to 42 as other area nests hatched. It all proved more than the parents could handle as members of one brood joined another, and while distraught ganders fought for order the chaos continued, and families were split up. After several days of commotion and fussing there seems an intentional goose community has formed. Broods have consolidated into a couple of herds and are under the watchful eyes of 2 to 6 tending adults. Parents take shifts in chaperoning but still squabble among themselves over proper care of offspring. The youngsters, though, are in hog heaven and growing by the day.
About 50 years ago I saw an old timer with a grizzled face sitting on a wooden bench outside a general store. As I was passing we made small talk about weather and the coming of May and the season of morel mushrooms. He said, “The time to hunt mushrooms is when oak leaves are the size of squirrel ears.” I’ve tested the theory over decades and found it quite accurate, especially applicable to the big, meaty yellows.
It’s been a great mushroom year for some and good enough for us. We enjoy them for any meal but particularly breakfast, sautéed in butter and served up with eggs and toast. Delectable. There are some things better left as seasonal treats and a mess of meaty morels is among them. If they were available from the market year round they would be good, but appreciated less. Rhubarb pie, likewise, is best reserved for the month of May, strawberry shortcake for June, fresh corn on the cob for July. Some treats are better left seasonal.
There are photos this morning from the Dakotas showing massive dark walls of dust engulfing homes and communities, eerily reminiscent of the Dust Bowl era. Also this week was an article published in The Guardian by George Monbiot on life in the soil. “As diverse as a rainforest or a coral reef…yet we scarcely know it.”
A few years ago we visited a biodynamic farm in Northern California. The crops were terraced along a mountain slope in soil chocked full of stone. This particular farm operated without inputs from livestock or other sources, no manure or fertilizers ever added. Instead, crops were intensely managed and rotated, so when one crop used an excessive amount of a particular nutrient, the crop that followed helped restore it. In biodynamic farming, the soil and the quality of the product is the central objective, not the farming itself. “We focus on growing carbon,” our guide, Jes, told us, “to give soil microbes what they need to do their job.” That job, Monbiot points out, is to make cements out of carbon that are used to stick mineral particles together, creating pores and passages for water, oxygen and nutrients.
In a teaspoon of soil lives a billion bacteria that feed on the sugars and complex compounds provided by the plant. In exchange, the bacteria break down organic matter and allow essential nutrients to be available to the plant. It is a highly evolved system where particular chemicals alert specific bacteria that provide the exact nutrient the plant needs.
My wife and I have been growing food organically for 20-odd years, with the only inputs being mulch used to control weeds, and compost from garden and kitchen waste. We’ve been impressed by the garden’s productivity, year after year. Each spring we till in the winter's cover crop to incorporate organic matter, which is good, but the practice also disrupts fungal networks and established ecological communities in the soil, which is not good. Yet we continue because the results we get are most satisfactory. It’s a human tendency to stick with what works, but it can be a curse when it leads to a refusal to accept change.
There are nearly eight billion people on the planet that need to eat. To satisfy the projected world population in 30 years we will need 50 percent more grain than grown today, which will require 146 percent more irrigation water if traditional farming methods continue. The water does not exist.
Ninety nine percent of the foods we eat are grown in soil, which explains why 80 percent of the deforestation in the past century has been for the sake of agriculture. And it continues today. “Farming is the world’s greatest cause of habitat destruction... and the global extinction crisis,” according to Monbiot. “Of the 28,000 species known to be at imminent risk of extinction, 24,000 are threatened by farming.” Around half of all grain is used to support the livestock industry, so the problem is not a lack of farmable land, the problem is what we choose to eat.
It’s spring, and the season for planting is underway. A barrage of chemically concocted insecticides, herbicides, and fertilizers are being applied to over 250 million acres in the U.S., supporting practices farmers trust and chemical and seed companies love. But the methods are destroying soils and fueling a long list of woes affecting our health and environment. Our own Department of Agriculture recommends eating organic foods and supporting non traditional farming operations that use fewer chemical inputs. The writing on the wall is clear, but when impending disasters unfold slowly they struggle to gain the remedial action deserved, particularly when tradition and corporate profits support the status quo.
It’s May and early seasonal crops are reaching their prime. Below our feet lies a baffling orchestra of life, intricately connected, not fully understood, poorly treated. The thrush sings, flowers bloom, another season of growth is underway, and the soil that sustains it all begs attention.
