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About ten years ago, I was looking back over the great people we had recorded. I selected 16 to include in a kind of “best of” collection. It was primarily selected from keynotes at a variety of conferences. It was back in the cassette tape days so when we switched to the digital world, it started collecting dust on a shelf. As I was cleaning out a basement storage room, it surfaced. I looked at it & knew it had to be updated into the digital world. So I dug out my old cassette recorders & began the conversion to digital. As I was in the process, I wondered if others would find these keynotes as amazing & frankly as visionary as I did. So let’s find out. I am going to ask Mary Janis, the Organic Voices webmaster, to get this on the website.

Here is a list of the recordings:

Wes Jackson The Struggle for Sustainability

Fred Kirschenmann Feed the Village First

Joel Salatin Economics, Environment, Emotion

L. T. Bhramdat The Health of Our Nation

C. R. Lawn The Control of Our Seed Supply

Gene Logsdon Wild Eyed Wanderer

Ann Clark GMOs & the Global Backyard

John Ikerd New Farmers for a New Agriculture

Allan Nation Your Unfair Advantage

Kathy Lawrence Agriculture, Justice, Sustainability

Lynn Byczynski It’s More than Produce

Sally Fallon The Oiling of America

Alan Savory The New Agriculture

Ronnie Cummins Driving Genetically Engineered Foods & Crops Off the Market

Michael Abelman The Next Agriculture

Cheryl Long Agriculture, Nutrition, Hunger

Barry George

OrganicVoices scribe

PRE-ORDER your MP3′s for the MOSES 2012 Organic Farming Conference at a Special Discount of just $40!

This year there will be 65+ Workshops, 10 Full Day- Courses, 160+ Exhibitors and 2,900+ Participants.If you are interested in learning new organic farming ideas, improving your farming systems, and meeting other growers, these conference recordings are for you!

Barry & Judy will be recording all the sessions and are taking Pre-Orders for this event with special pricing for those who order early. These pre-order recordings will be delivered to your mailbox on CD’s in an MP3 format. Get them early BEFORE the price increases. Please allow up to 4 weeks AFTER the conference to receive your CD’s in the mail.

You can see the topics and speakers and place your order by clicking this link.

Click here to order your set today!

The idea of no-dig gardening was developed by an Australian named Esther Deans. It was originally both developed both as a labor saving idea, and a method to rejuvenate badly depleted soil in a vegetable garden.

The process involves starting with layers of newspaper, and by adding lucerne hay, straw and compost in succeeding layers, you can create a growing medium without resorting to heavy digging, and one that is rich in nutrients and which will simplify weeding and encourage your much desired plants to grow. The layers compost together, and greatly encourage earthworms. The gardens are maintained by adding manure, compost, etc., and should not be dug up, as this will undo the good work. I have used this approach to creating vegetable gardens, and it certainly does work.

The principle of not digging has sound foundations. Excessive cultivation of the soil, especially when very wet or very dry, will damage the structure of the soil, and lead to compaction. Such excessive cultivation can also discourage the earthworms, and they are the best free labor a gardener has.

Some followers of permaculture and organic gardening have translated no-dig into never-dig, which I believe is sadly mistaken. If you start with a base soil that is badly compacted, then your no-dig garden will initially work well, but you may find your garden does not continue to perform well. The fertile layer you have built up will encourage the earthworms, but we do know that the worms need to shelter from excessively hot, dry, cold or wet conditions. They have been found to seek shelter from extreme conditions by burrowing more deeply into the soil, sometime many feet down. If they cannot shelter in this way, it is my contention that they will die out or move out.

My belief is that an initial cultivation of the soil before you apply the no-dig system will guarantee a better environment for the worms, and thus a better garden for growing your plants, over the longer term.

By all means give the no-dig approach a try – you will be pleased with the result.

It is organic living using nature’s laws and here are 10 practical steps to having success in your garden or farm”.

Using wood mulch in pathways to deter weeds, disease and conserve moisture.

I remember hearing a speaker quote that once at an organic farming conference I went to in 2009 and at that very moment I realized that my parents and grandparents were farming organically long before the current resurrection of these principles.

They didn’t use chemicals on the food they would feed to us children and gardening was a part of daily living to ensure there was sufficient food to preserve for the long winters.

Everything was re-cycled and kitchen scraps were routinely thrown onto our worm bed to feed the worms that made our compost to replenish the soil. Organic fertilizers such as chicken and rabbit manure were used and the only fertilizer on the potatoes was bone meal.

My mother and father produced the best tasting vegetables and lots of them – enough to feed a family of seven throughout the winter. Birds, bees, worms, and other signs of a living soil were welcomed into our vegetable garden.

In recent times synthetic chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides have become the practice most common among commercial agricultural practices. These practices have had some undesirable results such as the loss or depletion of topsoil, the land becomes less fertile, and the excessive use of pesticides has resulted in insects resistant to the current chemicals resulting in having to develop even stronger chemicals.

Our environment is being damaged by toxic chemical spills, chemicals leaching into rivers and our water supplies are contaminated. The effect of global warming is becoming a major part of the political agenda. Our personal diet and health is a major topic of importance as more attention is being paid to the relationship between food and health.

Research has demonstrated that organically grown vegetables are higher in vitamins and minerals than those grown with inorganic fertilizers. Farming organically and growing as much of our own food as possible is one of the steps we can take to start healing the earth on which we live and in the process healing ourselves.

Several key components are fundamental to the practice of organic farming and gardening.

1. It Starts with the Soil.

The soil is kept healthy by working with nature rather than against it. Practical steps for success include using organic fertilizers such as manure, bone meal, wood ashes, seaweed, compost,and blood meal to replenish the earth and all refuse produced by the garden should be recycled back into the garden.

Farming organically uses all of the waste produced in the garden such as grass clippings, chopped leaves, and leftovers from the kitchen to make compost that feeds the soil and keeps it full of the nutrients necessary to grow crops.

2. Avoid the use of all synthetic chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.

Eliminating the use of chemicals in the garden allows gardeners to not worry about children, pets, and wildlife coming in contact with synthetic weed killers and fertilizers on the lawn and shrubs. The food grown is pesticide-free, additive-free, and nutritious food for the table.

3. Sustainability.

In his book, Gardening Organically, John Fedor defines sustainability as “the ability of a society or an ecosystem to function indefinitely without squandering the resources on which it relies.” Organic gardening does this by ensuring there is no loss of nutrients or topsoil in the garden.

4. Environmental Stewardship.

Gardening organically means that the environment benefits from the reduction in contamination of the water supply and air pollution. It means that we provide a habitat for wildlife including beneficial insects and animals.

5. Wildlife-friendly Habitats.

Informal areas can be created to assist wildlife in their search for habitat where they can survive the destruction of many areas that have now endangered many species.

6. Intensive planting.

Plants are spaced closely together to conserve water and shield the soil from sunlight thus helping to prevent weed seeds from germinating and growing.

7. Biodiversity.

Biodiversity ensures that when a change in growing conditions occurs, a single crop from a monoculture does not lead to a crop failure. The food supply does not become jeopardized when a diversity of species are planted near one anather.

8. Rotating Crops.

Crop rotation assists in the control against soil-borne pests and diseases. This rotation makes a difference in the productivity of the garden as those diseases that affect the plants are kept in check by the rotation of the crops to other areas of the garden.

9. Watering and Weeding.

Rainwater can be saved to water the garden. Soaker hoses, drip irrigation, and watering by hand conserve water. Organic mulches are invaluable in both water conservation and slowing down weed germination.

10. Saving Seeds.

Save some seeds from your best plants when harvesting crops. Many old heirloom varieties are being lost at an alarming rate and preserving this biodiversity is important. Some of these saved seeds have been used to develop new strains after disaster has affected commonly cultivated varieties.

These 10 practical steps to farming organically with success are only a realization point for you. It’s very important that you continue to learn more and it’s now so easy to learn from the professionals just by listening to the organic farming conferences on MP3′s. You will get so much wisdom and experience as these farming heroes share their methods of success with you. Each MP3 title is approximately 40 to 90 minutes long and there is loads of information in each conference set.

Click here now to purchase the MP3′s and learn all about farming organically.

John Ikerd on Sustainability