T661 line 242
2021 was our ED’s 2nd year to advance residential lawn conversion into truly organic food gardens, under the following constraints:
- Use truly organic gardening materials. “Certified organic” supplies are available, but the standard disadvantages the toxin-intolerant persons, for whom only own biomass and no imports guarantees untainted supply .
- No animal products, for the unknown toxins the animals have consumed. An average urban household doesn’t want to or can’t manage animal husbandry, that is banned on smaller lots anyway.
- Liquid fish fertilisers can’t be trusted; allowable isotope emission levels have been arbitrarily increased by factors in the hundreds and thousands following Fukushima disaster.
- Utilise in situ layer of ca. 10 cm dirt over hardpan at ca. 15 cm depth.
- Inexpensive, minimise machine and labour use, up to moderate physical effort.
Knowledge from science articles and sources on gardening doesn’t fit the constraints, e.g. techniques based on terminating turf import “certified organic” composts. We modify and innovate in order to integrate techniques into a feasible approach that yields viable, effective, truly organic gardens.
Developing humus-poor dirt under turf into productive garden soil takes time. When screening conversion methods the question is how long time. Even “instant” conversion by dumping compost on turf starts underlying sod and dirt transformation that could double the depth required by tomato. A method thus consists of first year treatment, continual soil improvement, nutrient maintenance, and cultivation effectiveness upgrades when necessary — a process building on available knowledge, and gaining new one with testing, analysis and close contact with the site throughout the ED.
The table defines our initial uncertainty groups:
| Uncertainty group | Definition | Measure of uncertainty to resolve |
| Feasibility | Method’s doablity. | Time to decompose sod, time to first crop. |
| Viability | Ability of converted turf area to produce enough truly organic vegetables for all household members. | Quantities of truly organic materials to maintain cultivation, not exceeding residential lot’s supply capability. |
| Effectiveness | Power to sustainably produce truly organic, quality crops. | Number of potatoes per tuber planted. For other cultivars: health, vigour & crop relative to control plots. |
T661 line 244
In 2021 we continued testing feasibility, viability and effectiveness (line 242) for former turf (a meadow). We suspended pot experiments, as the heatwave required insulating the pots, while we had to deal with “covid” tyrrany, rescue project notes on Piotr’s blog suspended by the government, and protecting cultivars from the heat.
FEASIBILITY
Smothered sod in beds 1, 2 and 3 continued decaying and obstructing cultivation in the dirt over hardpan. Placed in 2020 and remixed at potato planting and harvest, sod pieces improved beds 1 and 2, while sod inbetween 2020 grooves remained firm, requiring hoeing in 2021. Pluckings (meadow above-grade material, roots with soil, and biota of both strata) facilitated decay of hilling material.
After method 3 applied pluckings in 2020 – 2021, we effortlessly slotted decomposing sod for legumes and corn seeds without amendments. Our own organic legumes bore the usual crop. Bought corn seeds failed to sprout or pests comsumed them.
Newspapers and sod partly decomposed in beds 4 (dump 15 cm lean compost) and 5 (soil mix dumped after 2020 tests in pots). A thin layer of lean compost with kitchen compost at the roots served tomato well in the heatwave. Both beds also yielded cucumber, legumes, kale, parsley, dill and garlic comparably to the controls, without concern for firm sod underneath.
We started method 6 in 3-year-old meadow: remove sod spotwise by cut-sod-&-shake-off-dirt, piecemeal conversion lighter than in green turf with less life in sod and soil. Plucking was somewhat easier than on 2 year-old meadow. In holes, 5 russetes on average yielded 12 tubers each. fancy fingerling — 43 when the fancy shape was imagined “glued” from substantial separate tubers. Of 14 misc. potatoes covered with pluckings, only 2 out of 4 whites survived, averaging 8 tubers each. Five holes for cucumber, squash and zucchini, and three strips for bean, yielded no worse than same cultivars in controls.
VIABILITY
2021 heatwave consumed double mulch volume of 2020, straining our mulch store. Another drought year would delay a conversion by an average user. We managed to balance the mulch use/supply by shading, watering, more mowing (incl. spare meadows) and diverting compost-bound clippings.
We continued to record compost and mulch usage to analyse longer-term viability. There was no problem with own supply, because we accumulated a store of both materlas before 2020 and managed them with future weather and operational uncertainties in mind.
EFFECTIVENESS
We maintained control plots more fertile than treatment beds, simulating shortage of truly organic materials. Treatment bed cultivars’ health, vigour and yields matched those in control ones.
Potato in beds 1 and 2 bore 9 to 11 tubers per surviving seeder (ca. 60% of planting), compared to 9 in control plots at ca. 80% survival. Voles may have damaged the crop, since they ate the entire fall 2020 planting for 2021 spring harvest. There went potential doubling (2 harvests/yr) of potato yields. We examine the loss, because potato is rewarding for poor in situ soil in the first conversion years.
Perhaps for cold wet spring followed by the heat, vegetables performed somewhat worse than in 2020, except potato, tomato, kale, mustard and alliums.
We fall-planted 139 greening tubers from 2021 harvest, hypothesizing the toxin would deter pests. As in beds 1 and 2, we insulated the plot with 0.3 m of leafs collected from neighbours, but removed them later because of winds and snail infestation.
In beds 1 and 2, grooving semi-decomposed sod for cultivars was easier than in 2020. More earthworms appeared, visibly improving drainability, moisture retention, aggregation and texture. Mulch thickness shrank, but earthworm activity at the soil interface looked similar for both.
CONCLUSIONS:
- Conversions beginning in fall rather than spring add a few months to soil development, bearing first crop next summer or earlier.
- Sod decomposition is faster, less mulch-, compost-, and labour-demanding with meadow age and application of pluckings.
- We should examine meadow soil development’s viability/effectiveness effects.
T661 line 246
We target advancement of residential lawn-to-garden conversions under copnstraints (line 242).
Initial knowledge came with three green-turf-to-organic-garden conversions (150 m2) since 2008. We didn’t grow a meadow unsure of reversal, a common myth we dispeled when mowing a meadow to replenish mulch in 2021 heatwave. Revising myths (e.g. food scrap compost is it, dry grass depletes nitrogen, green grass requires turning in composters) augments our technology understanding.
We allowed four lawn areas (ca. 200 m2) overgow in 2018 and began conversions in 2020, noticing meadow surface biota, sod workability, and faster soil improvement. 2021 precipitated closer examination of meadow processes to resolve main uncertainty: can residential lot provide biomass for truly organic household garden?
2021 was a sober lesson in gov’t tyrrany. For science-based non-compliance with “covid-19” measures, RCMP violated Piotr’s rights. Our project material on his blog suffered damage and photos were destroyed, after RCMP attempted to stop truth-telling. Iwona refused to take more photos, we fell into depression, ready to quit. Like millions of Canadians we were about to loose livelihood and trust in the gov’t.
Lessons learned:
- Meadow pluckings accelerate soil development and decay of mulches, benefiting the tech’s feasibility, viability, and effectiveness.
- Potato suits first conversion years because it’s undemanding of soil (feasibility). Hilling poses truly organic supply problem (viability uncertainty). Fall-planting risks winter loss to pests (cultivar effectiveness).
- Pests can impact a conversion worse than manageable heatwave. We need to include this factor into our ED (cultivar effectiveness).
- To license their product “certified organic”, the proponent submits test results — a conflict of interest that harms public health, echoing our experience with nuclear, tobacco, telecom, pharmaceutical, vaccines and GMO sectors. Our “truly organic” constraint is right on.
- “Survivability of R&D business” — a new uncertainty class is in order? Gov’t policy destroys our reform attempts. The societal impacts determine implementaion potential of the tech we target, augmenting the uncertainties. We wouldn’t participate in Canadian R&D, should another pseudo-science-based, genocidal programme ensue.