The Land Tells the Dirty Truth

 

 Every old story has the barefoot country kid walking down the dirt road. It's a classic picture of "the good 'ole days". Even many people reading this can probably look at the picture and feel it in their memories. The thick humid air. The hot, rocky road. The cool blades of grass tickling your ankles. 

In that picture, would you be walking that hard, rocky dirt? Or that thick green grass beside it?

The thick, cool grass feels so much better than the dirt. Enough so to lead a few traveling pilgrims astray in John Bunyan's allegory, Pilgrim's Progress.

But no Giant Despair resides in these lands! So come and walk in the grass with me!

As we stroll the soft greenery, let me tell you a story. See, a few months ago, I took the plunge of choosing farming as a career path/lifestyle. Its been an amazing journey thus far. And this past week, I had the opportunity to listen to, and speak with, a sixth-generation farmer and leading voice in the regenerative farming movement, Mr. Allen Williams.

I learned a lot that day. But possibly one of the biggest lessons was about dirt and how it plays a part in so many things.

Seriously.

Dirt affects a lot. For example, if you have hard, packed, concrete-like dirt, that is going to prevent rain from being absorbed into the ground. If it can't absorb, that contributes to flooding problems which erodes our topsoil and causes property damage.

Also, bare dirt without plant cover heats up way faster than the plant cover, often exceeding the ambient air temperature, to the point of cooking the living organisms and microbes that plant roots need.

Obviously, open barren desert is a lot hotter than grassy shaded forests. In a dry climate. Those of us who live in the muggy south have to put up with the extra heat of humidity. But the facts remain the same. Exposed dirt heats up way warmer than covered dirt.

We can also factor in erosion of both water and wind. Let us not forget the Dust Bowl era, where the Corn Belt lost a ton of it's topsoil. And it is happening again. In the 21st century.

Poor dirt quality even affects animals and humans. The nutritional value of our food has plummeted because plants can't extract as much out of the soil as they used to.

Even grassy manicured lawns degrade the dirt. Frequently chopping the grass forces it to work on growing it's leaf instead of it's root system. Herbicides and fungicides kill weeds, but they also mess the dirt up. Constantly rolling with a lawn mower just packs the dirt, rather than breaking it up.

Being from western Maryland, I understand why some people want short grass. Around here, keeping grass short makes it harder for snakes to hide. But even then, not all grasses are equal. Some grass variants can handle the low cutting height. If you need low grass, maybe consider seeding a mix of 3-4 grass types that thrive at those heights.

But yeah, a lot of these problems stem from centuries of poor soil management. We set ourselves up for failure. We didn't take care of our dirt. We allowed it to get compacted. We fed it with herbicides and fungicides. We tilled and plowed. We chopped our plant life too close to the ground.

And we're paying the price, because dirt affects a lot.

This was not an explicitly stated point of the field day event, but based off of the evidence, my calculations estimate that if everyone worked on improving the piece of dirt that they own, that alone could go a long way to combating the environmental issues being faced by our country.

If you can absorb and retain more snowmelt in the ground during the spring, you have more groundwater to count on during the summer.

If the dirt is covered by plant life, it can be up to 20 degrees cooler than bare dirt, and this cooler temperature feeds into less evaporation.

So just through taking better care of our soil, we can be fighting flooding, fighting dust storms, fighting rising temperatures, fighting malnutrition, fighting wildfires, and so much more.

Just food for thought.

We were given dominion to rule over the earth. Let's be better stewards of it. Starting with the earth itself.