Hi Cleansweep – I take your point but I think I would prefer to regard gardening as a game of ‘swings and roundabouts’ rather than as a ‘vicious circle’!
Iain Tolhurst (mentioned by Stringfellow earlier in the thread) is very focussed upon trying to eliminate the need for brought-in fertility. He farms a dozen or two acres on vegan principles and operates a 7 year crop rotation two of which are devoted to green manuring which, presumably, has zero cash value. But he appears to have no problem at all with using all sorts of diesel-powered machinery. I highly recommend his book ‘Growing Green’ which is refreshingly non-dogmatic whilst setting out a huge amount of information and knowledge for gardeners and farmers alike.
My own point of view is that, if we wanted it to, our allotment would probably be capable of growing enough vegetables to satisfy all the requirements of our entire extended family throughout all twelve months of the year. But it is easier, cheaper, and much more reliable, to go down Tesco’s.
As a 70-year-old newbie, I am mostly enjoying learning about composting and managing the soil and eco-systems. Right now, most of the plot is still covered by permeable membrane but there are three beds of roughly 2 metres by 2 metres which look really nice. One of them is ankle deep in lush green growth which has survived the winter and which should soon start to produce masses of poached egg flowers to attract the bees etc. The other two mini-plots were sown last November with field beans – they took a long time to come through and they are still widely spaced and I am not yet convinced that they will be a useful green manure. But they definitely look much nicer than permeable membrane would have done.
Ken