Are all organic fertilizers "Green"?

[Alan]

Paquebot Says: I've never seen any credible mention of native Americans doing that. The opposite was generally true with them long ago having learned the importance of fertilizer. They are famous for getting great harvests year after year by using fish for fertilizer. Many southern tribes had huge permanent fields already before European settlement. They didn't know what NPK was but knew that fish and their own manure was great for growing food.


Actually, and when I find the article I'll post it, There is some amount of conjecture to the "fish fertilizer" story now in that if I remember the article correctly it's now believed that this particular method of fertilization was adopted from the Europeans, but it wouldn't much matter anyhow as I'm sure every tribe had their own means and methods, some using fertilizer, some using small scale slash and burn, and some just wearing down the soil and moving up or down stream to find a new area.

In the mid west there is a long traditon of moving up and down the river banks to find new areas that are still fertile, or instead relying upon yearly floods to replentish the lost fertility, even moreso, In a recent excavation in Salem Indiana (right up the road) a vast trading depot with artifacts representing multiple groups of Native Americans was partially excavated, the excavation did uncover a large amount of planting being done on midden heaps (trash heaps) which included something similar but not quite terra pretta.

Dear carcasses, entrails, bio-mass, feces, and pottery were all found in these areas along with a large amount of charcoal and evidence of cultivation of midden heap prior to the arrival of settlers in the area, also in this area there was a man who lived here prior to any other settlers by the last name Hurst who had fought in the Napoleonic war (loosing side BTW) and came here to live with the OX Indians, I have read excerpts from his journal via his several times removed grandson and can account for the planting on midden heaps and river fertility theories.

As far as Native Americans in the arid southwest, it is hard to say, I'm sure of one thing though, they had an amazing system that would have utilized anything and everything possible given their environmental conditions and the harsh climate they live in, one thing is known for sure though, they were some of the first to domesticate our favorite thanksgiving feast, the turkey.

Gould's (M. g. mexicana) as well as Rio Grande (M. g. intermedia) wild turkeys are thought to be the result of recurent selection and domestication of the species, in some areas these "wild" turkeys show off colors associated with domestication and still routinely visit the pueblos, both abandoned and not abandoned, the chances that the natives in this area used their manure for fertilizer is relatively high in my opinion, given the history and conjecture about their domestication.

BTW, the Rio Grande (M. g. intermedia)was also the basis for our Modern Domestic Turkey, later crosses were made into the Eastern Wild and other wild types.

[silverseeds]

Native tribes here did use many many tactics to survive here. Collecting runoff water, waffle gardens, terraces, and many other things. A common tactic was semi cultivated areas, of amaranths, and sunflowers, and herbs. Corn wa grown in redundant ways by mant tribes, with some irrigated from the runoff water, some at high and some at low elevations. Basicallycovering each base. so in a good year all areas produced. In a bad year maybe just the irrigated place produceed.

This is VERY broad generalizations. theres MANY tribes here. For instance the quarai people who cam from mexico a couple hundrd years before the spanish arrived, they purposely planted many things other tribes used from the wild. Their berry gardens still persist. Many tribes would be semi nomdic moving from to different areas over a season or over years, with many permanent, but sporadically used villages. Others stayed in one spot.

But the idea about them abandoning feilds waiting for atmospheric nitrogen, is in atleast two books I have, Im pretty sure one of them is the book called canyon gardens. The tribes found leaving feilds for many years would replenish the soil somewhat. This area is in general nitrogen poor. Some tribes did other things like using "tree sand" they called it the half decomposed stuff brought with runoff water. I never heard of using the fish in this area, which makes sense since they are not known to eat fish.

One tribe or another did pretty much everything imagineable, I intend to use, the best of each systm Ive heard, and some from other areas.

[PatrickW]

Aug 13, 2009 22:04:15 GMT -5 Alan said:

the excavation did uncover a large amount of planting being done on midden heaps (trash heaps) which included something similar but not quite terra pretta.

That's kind of interesting, and this is similar to what the Fries did in northern Europe. When this was done hundreds of years ago, the borders were conceptually and legally different from today. In parts of what is now Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Russia (along the black sea) was Friesland, and it was an important agricultural area.

In many parts the land was very low lying and often flooded. The ground was also pure clay, making agriculture difficult.

In modern days the land is drained with a system of dikes and canals, but before these came alone people built 'terps', which were just large piles of trash rotted down into compost. Like Alan said, these likely incorporated some aspects of terra pretta, and were incredibly fertile.

These terps were huge, and there are a few modern day villages built on them. During floods, clay will wash away, but compost/terps are stable. I discovered this when I had a garden in the area for a few years, and a compost heap. I never needed to build any kind of structure for my compost, and all of the heavy rains of the area never washed it away.

The terps made this area the most important agriculture region of the world in it's day. This was the backbone of worlds largest trading alliance called 'Hansa', which was later dominated by the Dutch East Indies Trading Company.

Now most of the terps have been dug up and sold as 'fertilizer', or simply cleared to make the land flat again and suitable for modern agriculture.

[silverseeds]

It amazes me, some of the knowledge of the past surpasses so much of what is considered "modern" agriculture. It is crazy people do not look at things long term, and see it is not in fact superior, but just ensures profits for key people. Which rarely is the actual farmers, the backbones of any society. Strange to see a world which might be on the verge of robots to clean our houses, or space travel, but we forgot how to grow our own food sustainably.