gonebananas: I tend to be analytical, but I confess to being casual at times -- usually because of forgetfulnes. The analytical posture was well represented by Arden Andersen at the Acres USA conference two weeks ago. He maintains that it is the duty of farmers and gardeners to produce nutrient-dense food for their customers and families, because anything less would add to the general nutritional malaise. And, nutrient-dense cannot be achieved by hit-and-miss, but only by constsant measuring, finely balancing the soil, and experimenting. This is tough counsel, but he is a medical doctor and an agricultural consultant, so is more prone than most to avoid bad practice and aim at best practice. As my history teacher would say: discuss. Regards, Peter.

great topic bananas: I'm the analytic type due to my extensive education and training, just can't help myself. research and analysis too are enjoyable, given enough time, just planting a row of beans.

One of the most important things I've learned is to observe, in doing so, I find things that one person might fret about, another not. If I never notice the spot it may wipe me out, at least I have a chance to leave it alone or act if I observe it. My stuff is not disease and insect free nor is the soil as fertile as it could be, we all have our limits.

After about 8 years of trying apple trees I've begun to run into micronutrient deficiencies and begun to address the problem. It is a significant amount of work to get the remedies right but I am determined to do so because I would really like to have those trees flourish and be bountiful. The trees can be successful if I make the right choices and execute them, the reward will be worth the effort. My efforts to find the answers can be very satisfying if proved to be valid.

I prefer the casual approach after doing my homework. Just reading the lists of all the things to do would leave little time for anything else. I eliminate a bunch others apparently find essential and not a fan of the manicured look, either. Ruth Stout had the right plan for me combined with intensive planting. I do, however, have many reference books & use them. So maybe determined casual?

I just grow stuff. I am casual. I fail in some. I thrive at others. I grow huge tomato crops etc and give them to my urban neighbors. People who wish they could pay for a smile. I give veggies to the woman at the liquor store and she thinks I am a freak. I collect anything off the street and make it work for me. (fencing, borders, trailing...) Once I got a half eaten carrot cake on my porch from someone i gave a bunch of lettuce to. We are now friends. Most of you would say I do it all wrong. But come and look at my 20 corn that have 4 ears on each stalk. My dig dug up all my carrot yesterday. I still love him. I will put the capsicum there instead. Adapt. Overcome. I think Cuba is fascinating. They have some great stuff happening at the moment. I am American. I haven't lived there for years. You should all join me in Australia. Save yourself a few grey hair. Love ya folks. Over and Out.

I am casual, certainly. Or more accurately, I do a lot of analytical thinking but don't put much of it into action. Then occasionally the opposite, as lately where I have taken to doing mineralizing and probably without sufficient analysis.

I do a lot of anecdotal observation but am far too casual to enact any intentional controls or repeats. For example, I have observed my brassica populations go from untroubled by ICM at first, to severely infested, and back down to lightly troubled in the last few years. My light and inconsistent use of dipel is certainly not the reason for the decline of the infestation. Is low S in the soil the reason for the infestation? Drought stress in sandy soil? Do self-seeding populations of plants eventually reach a balance with an insect parasite, regardless of other factors? My guess is the latter but I am not about to do any scientific trials.

why analise?

plant grow enjoy the crop, if it fails try something else. once beds are built keep work light and easy just like in nature, for me i try not to dominate nature or the soil.

so soil testing, no fertilisers too easy, a real beer drinkers system (i don't drink so a water drinkers paradise)

i don't make money helping others and i don't make authors rich buying their books of plagiarism and common sense, why pay for something that is free?

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Gardenlen wrote:
> i don't make authors rich buying their books of plagiarism and common sense, why pay for something that is free?

Books....who needs books? They make good fertilizer [chuckle] :-)

Plagiarism isn't free if one loses the resulting law suit.

good on ya' len.

If you want to have success in gardening look at acient techniques, considering civilizations put their lives on the line for their crops. If a crop would fail the people would fail.

I don't think the amish dutch even think anything of it, rather just do what was passed down.

All in all, if you where farming to pay your bills I am afraid one has no choice but to "Careful Analytical Gardeners"

I did not say, I cosider myself casual easy moving up to the other. I like this subject you posted.

their books making good fertiliser lol lol i like that only thing makes for expensive fert' hey scraps from the kitchen table better and cheaper.

as for plagiarism by those who may or may not be who they say they are in name and gender and who may or may not even garden, those of us little people who have been abused as such have very little resources to fight the wealth chasers, but they are so blaze that they don't even offer a word of thanks.

anyway with forums like this why does anyone need books?? waste of time and money.

happy new year

len

Plagiarism has a strict definition. Writing a book about something the author is not expert in isn't it.

Ha Ha I like the term 1940's gardener. That fits me quite well. My thing now is to grow what grows best in my area with a minnimum of input other than compost and coverings for insect damage. I spend more time adapting to my plants. Than tring to adapt my soil to my plants. Most posters know that I am not organic, however I just had to post here. ( I am not a anti!)

Curt

Since I retired, I am more analytical with the extra time available. I have gardened for about 70 years and know the ropes fairly well. The only real challenge is with melons because of disease pressure from so many years of growing them in the home gardens. I have another new area and they grow wonderfully where they have never been grown before.

Apples and blackberries are problematic because of insects and fungals on apples and winter kill-back on blackberries.

Good subject for debate. I'm on the "more careful but not anal" side, lol.
1940's ag was mentioned, well in those days if you saw a bug you just dosed the whole row with arsenate of lead. It never goes away but it does kill hornworms! Max overkill, but they just didn't know.
Maybe 1840's is more like what I'd want, can't remember that far back....

rockguy,

Here is a link to old timey days.

Here is a link that might be useful: Old days farming & gardening

Perhaps the clearest delineation I come across between gardeners can be found in the variation between how eager growers are to accept anecdote over science; or said in reverse, how diligent growers are in determining whether something can or should be taken at face value. How much we learn or how much we actually know about plants and gardening isn't necessarily related directly to the effort we expend to learn, or even to the effort we expend to gain what passes for experience.

Experience is only valuable if we are learning from our errors and changing patterns so we don't make the same errors a second, third, fourth ..... time; and being bitten continually by the error half of 'trial and error' is actually one of the slowest ways to learn. It's not experience that has learning value if we are doing the same thing over and over again without improvement. I think experience is extremely overrated unless it's being used to validate previously acquired knowledge. IOW, learning by error and then changing 'something' in the hope of making things better is far less efficient than learning something from a reliable source and using our practical experience to validate that knowledge, or in some cases refute it as impractical for our application.

Limiting our opportunities to learn to only those sources that are in accord with our personal views may increase the enjoyment we get from the affirmations we seek, but learning from a source that is concerned to the greatest degree possible with disseminating information w/o bias, puts us on the fast track when it comes to acquiring valuable experience, penultimately, and user-friendly knowledge, ultimately.

I think it's pretty easy to take the measure of a gardener, at least on these forums, by considering how his observations and statements are qualified. The casual gardener is more likely to make broad statements and assumptions with little in the way of qualification; while the more analytical gardener understands that everything isn't always black and white, and illustrates the analytical side by thinking through his offerings to see if it holds water as a broad statement in all cases or if it needs qualification.

As an example - the casual gardener might say, or accept on its face, the idea that because Mg is a critical part of the photosynthetic process, and that because banana peels or Epsom salts contain Mg, that adding either to your soil can only be a good thing. The analytic gardener understands it's not that black & white & qualifies the statement by saying it can be a good thing if the soil is deficient of Mg because they are both sources of Mg. Or, he might note that in the case of the banana peel, if there is no Mg deficiency, the excess may be (in the tiniest of degrees) a potential limiting factor that could be offset in other ways because of the addition of the OM.

I don't think that analytic gardeners are necessarily better gardeners, but I think they have the potential to be better gardeners because they want to know 'why'.

I also think that ambition has a LOT to do with how successful a gardener is. The diligent casual gardener will probably fare much better at harvest than the lazy analyst, illustrating that gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration; and the best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow.

Al

"The best fertilizer is the gardener's shadow." !!!

Worth framing.

If it's an old saw, I never "seed" it before.

I admit to WAYYY over thinking some things such as micro-nutrients. I just want to get everything whipped into shape and then ease up and enjoy the fruits of my labor (or vegetables as the case may be).

I like that saying about best fertilizer too. I read way too many times about people that do things in their garden and then when they look 3 days later nothing has changed... I check mine 2 or 3 times a day... lol I observe whats going on, and react if appropriate.

I like that one Gonebananas: my favorite is, "The best manure for the field is the masters eye and foot".