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Rivenrock Gardens Philosophy Welcome to
Rivenrock Gardens. We are a small family owned and run nursery and market garden. Our
nursery is for the propagation of the plants we use in our landscape business which
specializes in xeriscaping and desert landscapes. Our market garden is run in the
old-world traditions of French-intensive. All our operations and the plants we sell are
certified organic by California Certified Organic Farmers.
(CCOF)
Besides this page, we have other pages dealing with organic cactus care and general
organic cultural practices. Click on the 'pop-up' box below to see what other pages we
have.
We ship our cactus cuttings unrooted, as this decreases costs and they will root quite
readily at the final destination. The cuttings are taken when the order is received and
held over for a few days to allow the wound to heal over. By the time the cutting is
recieved it should be ready to plant, but if the weather is not co-operating the cutting
can easily be stored in a cool shady, dry spot for several weeks with no loss in
vigor.
All our plants and cuttings are fairly hardy plants able to withstand temperatures into
the twenties for short periods of time. All our mail-order plants are field grown and used
to outdoor conditions.
Why Garden organically? I have been gardening most of my life, I
do it because it is a natural activity for the human animal. The sense of being in contact
with the Earth, with the soil and the great outdoors is not easily replicated with other
outdoor activities. Many of us were raised gardening by parents who were raised on farms,
in those days and locations one had to garden to have fresh vegetables. We are
luckier now days, we can go and buy vegetables any day of the year of an astounding
variety that would have been unimaginable a few decades ago.
Yet there has been a price gathered from this grocery shopping mentality, the price
can be measured in the reduced knowledge of, and appreciation of the fact that we are all
interconnected. The chicken is killed and the blood and entrails go into the soil to feed
the plants that will in turn feed us and the new batch of chickens. If we poison the
chicken we poison the soil and in turn ourselves. Man has lost touch with the bounty of
the land in a personnal sense, that is not to say that we do not utilize that which the
Great Creator gave us, but it is not appreciated by the average person. This has led to a
demoralization of the entire society whereupon even members of one's own 'tribe' are seen
not as fellow inhabitants, but merely 'resources' to exploit as we exploit the
Earth.
Is there a way out of this quagmire of moral decay in which we find ourselves?
Besides inner awareness, and a personnal religious awakening, one can garden to sooth the
soul and rekindle the realization that all systems interconnect. when one gardens one has
to consider the repercussions of one's actions, and the affects to the environment in
which one is working.
A way to consider this is the correlation between pesticide use and crop insect
damage. Even though we in the 'western' world use prodigious amounts of pesticides we
still experience the same amounts of insect crop damage as occured at the turn of the
century. This is due to several factors, one of which is the process of 'natural
selection. In time insects will develop a resistance to the poisons we use, this means
that we must constantly switch poisons in order to keep up with the insect breeding. The
problem is that the insects like most prey species have a much quicker life cycle than
their predator opponents, the vegetarian insects will allways be quicker to adapt to the
poisons than the predators. This means that the amount of insect control provided by the
predators will be negligable, yet the poisons will soon be rendering little effect on the
target species.
Could it be that going the 'natural' way will result in little or no reduction in
the food supply? Could be, the problem is that much of the research in this area is done
by the large agricultural schools, they recieve large grants from the chemical companies
who are reluctant to have adverse results obtained. I have seen tests that were scewed to
show that organic farming willl reduce yields by unacceptable amounts, and cost twice as
much for input at the same time. These tests forget to take into account the
interrelationships between the fungal, bacteria, insect and animal populations of the
soil.
The main idea behind organic farming and gardening is to encourage the animals and
micro-plants of the soil to flourish and generate food particles form the native soil and
a small amount of additives such as compost. If the soil is sterilized from years of
chemical saturation and then organic methods used, the crop will indeed be meager. The
sterile soil cannot support the plant growth required without the constant additions of
chemical 'soup' that the soil requires once the micro population is gone. It can take up
to five years for a soil to be 'renewed' to the requirements necessary for optimal organic
growth.
So in order to renew your soil, stop using the fertilizers and pestecides that
cause undue hardship on all that comes into contact with it, switch to organic methods and
expect and ready yourself for reduced yields, and increased insect damage for the first
couple years, after a time you will learn more about the organic methods and have better
soil that can well support the plant life that you expect.
This page will be updated and more information added in time, so be sure to come by
in time to see the information that I will add, and the links that will be added to
appropriate text.
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