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Ancient Soil Amendments: Night Soil

September 1, 2019 by Melissa Smith Leave a Comment

This is the seventh in a series of blogs, about ancient soil amendments used in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific type of soil amendment used in the garden, along with documentation for its use, as well as occasionally discussing why a particular soil amendment was chosen, or its relation to modern gardening practices. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

Fancy name for a not so fancy product, and definitely not for the faint of heart. If you are easily queasy, this may not be the blog for you.

I first learned about using night soil in gardening when watching a reality TV show where modern people had to survive life in a Victorian world. The modern term is “fecal sludge” – so yes, if you had any doubts – night soil is human excrement.

Now days the idea of spreading human waste on a garden seems downright barbaric. I polled a number of my eco-friendly minded and garden-loving friends just to see how they took it, and without fail the reaction was horrified. However, this concept is not new – and it is making a comeback. From complicated operations which create marketable “biosolids” to complicated systems which turn human waste into pelletized fertilizers, human waste as fertilizer is not just for hippies anymore.

However, if we go back in time, before the Victorian nightmen (as they were called), we have the Tudor English gong farmer. Gong farmers were considered to be well paid (six pence a day during Queen Elizabeth I’s reign), but it was not a job for the faint of heart. At the end of the 14th century, there were 16 public bathrooms for 30,000 people – most of whom lacked private latrines. These workers collected the waste and sent it to the countryside, where it could be spread on the fields (Havlicek, Pokorna & Zalesak, Waste Management and Attitudes towards Cleanliness in Medieval Central Europe, 2017).

In Geoponika, Florentinus writes of human waste and calls it better than animal dung (p87). Zadoks (Crop Protection in Medieval Agriculture, 2013) found other authors who wrote specifically of the use of human waste as well, it was believed to be free of weeds, which is why it was considered superior. He also shares Augustín the Prior’s discussion on how much Jewish farmers fertilized crops and suggests that they likely used night soil. Night soil was also recommended to be smeared on the roots of trees to protect it from insects.

What are the benefits of using night soil in the garden? According to Rachel Dring, of the Sustainable Food Trust, it “provide[s] nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in a less soluble form than farmyard manure and artificial fertilisers, which means [it will] remain in the soil for longer and [is] less prone to leaching into groundwater or run-off, which pollutes waterways. Biosolids also contain useful levels of sulphur and magnesium and trace levels of micronutrients. Unlike artificial fertilisers, biosolids contain 20%–80% organic matter, which is critical for the health of soils.” It seems if you can get over the ick factor, there may be something to using human waste in the garden.

Weeds: Broadleaf Plantain

August 20, 2019 by Melissa Smith Leave a Comment

This is the eighth in a series of blogs, shared with permission, about weeds in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific weed found in Maine, its history, uses, what story it tells about the soil it grows in, and how to get rid of it. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

Plantain is a wonderful weed. Heaven knows why you would want to be rid of it. The most commonly found plantain near me is the Broadleaf Plantain, and so this is the one I am discussing today. Plantain is useful as a remedy for minor itches and insect bites – take the leaves, chew them and place them on the affected area for relief. It is considered throughout history as a cure-all; Pliny thought it would knit the flesh of dead things together, and it is found in Lacnunga as a sacred herb. Indeed – everyone from Chaucer to Shakespeare seemed fond of this little, now-hated plant.

Plantain thrives where the soil is best, and they prefer places where the soil is hard and moisture is nearby. Cattle eat it, and in England, says Ehrenfried Pfeiffer, it is grown hand in hand with clover. It is well suited to use in walkways as it survives regular tramping. Furthermore, because it, like many of our garden annuals, likes healthy soil, it is quite nutritious. The leaves have iron as well as vitamins A, C and K.

What does it mean?

According to Jay L. McCaman , this means that the soil is likely high in the following minerals: calcium, phosphate, potash, manganese, iron, zinc and selenium. The soil is also likely high in boron and chlorine. In sum, your soil is in nearly fantastic shape.

The best way to deal with an excess of plantain is to loosen up the soil, both through tilling the area and also through the addition of turned in mulch and extra earthworms. However, always remember to consider all of the weeds in an area before deciding how to deal with it.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to learn more about weeds, why they grow, and what that means about your garden, consider the following texts:

Weeds and Why they Grow, by Jay L. McCaman

Weeds and What They Tell Us, by Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer

Ancient Soil Amendments: Ash

August 1, 2019 by Melissa Smith Leave a Comment

This is the sixth in a series of blogs, about ancient soil amendments used in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific type of soil amendment used in the garden, along with documentation for its use, as well as occasionally discussing why a particular soil amendment was chosen, or its relation to modern gardening practices. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

There is a time and place for ash in the garden. High in lime and potassium (and containing carbon, calcium, and magnesium), if you burn wood you automatically generate it for free and without the work necessary to obtain other fertilizers. Free fertilizer and soil building is always nice.

Apples in particular apparently like ash, but young plants might burn if it is placed on their tender leaves. Slugs and snails are reluctant to cross dry ashes, but overall ash is considered very alkline so most garden reference materials say to use it carefully.

Varro talks about using ash – specifically in areas where there is no
natural “salt”, and how the locals in these places instead added “salty coals” obtained from “certain kinds of woods.” Interestingly, what type of
wood you burn makes a difference when determining the fertilizer value, so the reference Varro makes to “certain kinds of woods” is not just ancient fortunetelling. Columella says that good farmers should use ashes when creating “manure” for the garden.

Beyond as a soil amendment, there are a variety of other ways ash was used in the garden. Ibn al-‘Awwām said to use ashes of fig or oak to help yellowing trees (Crop Protection in Medieval Agriculture, p114, J. Zadoks, 2013). Ashes were spread alone or added to mixtures which were then spread on plants (from trees to young vegetables) as a way to stop all manner of insects, and spread over young plants to help protect them from night frost.

Pliny suggests ashes are a more gentle salt, and useful for keeping figs and rue from rotting at the roots and an early 17th century author suggests using ash from holm oak as a way to get rid of voles (Zadoks, 2013). In the Geoponika, Didymos says ashes “are the best” because it also kills fleas and borer beetles beyond its natural benefits to the soil (p248). In fact, there are 20 references to the ways a farmer can use ashes in Geoponika.

Clearly, ashes were a pretty common addition to the garden, especially since many of the plants that don’t particularly like them (potatoes and blueberries, for example) are New World plants. If you want a quick way to garden like a medieval gardener – ashes are an easy way to get started!

Weeds: Dock

July 20, 2019 by Melissa Smith Leave a Comment

This is the seventh in a series of blogs, shared with permission, about weeds in the garden. Each blog will discuss a common and specific weed found in Maine, its history, uses, what story it tells about the soil it grows in, and how to get rid of it. The original blogs, along with other gardening related blogs, can be found here.

Dock (Rumex genus) comes in many names and forms. Docks are related to sorrels (there are about 200 species) and members of the buckwheat family. Dock, has long been considered as a remedy for the sting of nettles. Ethnomedica lists 143 uses of dock, and all but 6 relate to nettle stings. Of the other six, 4 are other types of stings. Should you get stung by nettles, dock is usually growing right near it as a neutralizing agent.

One important thing to know about it, says Pfeiffer, is that that where dock grows a flood happens every year. Curly dock and broad-leaf are the two types most often found in the northeastern US. Broad-leaf dock was brought to the US by settlers, and curly dock is now considered naturalized. Both are edible, as is a dock called Patience. Patience was once gown in gardens in the same manner as some sorrels are today. Broad-leaf dock was used, because of its large leaf size, to wrap butter (K. Blair, 2014, The Wild Wisdom of Weeds).

Fun fact: broadleaf dock seeds will have 83% germination after 21 years.

What does it mean?

Broadleaf dock thrives in acidic soil or compacted soil (T. Jenkins, Soil Testing Without Labs). Curly dock is less tolerant of acid. Typically it prefers soil with poor drainage, as do many weeds, and likes the edges of wetlands – natural or manmade. It can indicate high quantities of calcium, iodine, phosphorus, potassium and even nitrogen.

To get rid of it, improve soil compaction. It cannot survive being tilled if the tap root is substantially damaged. However, if you just pull the top from the plant, odds are it will come back. They are somewhat tolerant of herbicides, by the way, so tilling or plant removal may be the easiest way to deal with unwanted plants.

Want to learn more?

If you would like to learn more about weeds, why they grow, and what that means about your garden, consider the following texts:

Weeds and Why they Grow, by Jay L. McCaman

Weeds and What They Tell Us, by Ehrenfried E. Pfeiffer

Plants are amazing!

July 14, 2019 by Myke Johnson Leave a Comment

Last night, I watched (again) the documentary, What Plants Talk About. Did you know that plants change their chemistry based on the environmental stressors they experience? So, for example, if a certain caterpillar is munching on their leaves, they can release chemicals into the air, scents, that attract the insect predator of that caterpillar. Or they might offer nectars that shift the scent of the bug itself, and that scent attracts predators. They also share nutrients with their child plants and other tree species in a forest.

This got me thinking about our human use of plants for healing. We benefit from their chemical wizardry and can use their medicines for our own challenges. Over thousands of years of human “prehistory” and “history,” we learned the benefits of so many various plants in our environment. A body of knowledge has accumulated for the medicinal use of herbs.

Plant medicines can also be used to help other plants. Michael Phillips, in the book Holistic Orchard, recommends making fermented teas of comfrey, horsetail, stinging nettles, and/or garlic scapes to use as a foliar spray to help orchard trees during the summer. Comfrey provides large amounts of calcium. Horsetail has natural silica which helps the plant cuticle defense against certain summer fungi. Nettles are a tonic of overall nutrition with trace minerals, vitamins, nitrogen, calcium, and potassium. They also have silica, with levels skyrocketing when seeds formation is just beginning, so that is a great time to use it. Garlic helps to carry other nutrients.

It just so happens that I was in the orchard last week, thinking I needed to trim back the comfrey because it was getting too big. Then I noticed that the nettles in Sylvia’s herb garden were flowering, maybe starting to form seeds. (We’d rather that they didn’t spread nettles everywhere.) And lo and behold, the garlic plants had formed scapes. So maybe it was time to make some herbal tea. (We don’t have any horsetail, sadly.)

To make the fermented tea, you use a five-gallon bucket. Cut plant leaves into the bucket and loosely pack them in. Then, pour a kettle of boiling water over the leaves to get things started, and add unchlorinated water to fill it to the top. I used water from our rain barrels. Then “let sit for seven to ten days somewhere outside, loosely covered to prevent significant evaporation. This fermentation period makes the constituents that much more bioavailable for foliar absorption.” It gets pretty smelly with sulfur compounds–that’s how it is supposed to smell. You strain it when you use it. Once brewed, you dilute it, using about a cup of the tea per gallon of spray.

So I made the tea on July 6. It is likely ready to use about now, though I went ahead and added two cups to the spray formula I did on July 9th. Having such a small orchard, I might not be able to use all of the tea in a timely way, so I figured that partially brewed tea would add something beneficial in any case. I will add whatever I don’t use to the compost pile.

A few other thoughts were brewing in my mind after watching What Plants Talk About. If you think about how plants change their chemicals to fit their environmental stressors, you have to conclude that the medicines in the plants might be changing day by day, hour by hour. So when you harvest that plant, and in what condition you harvest it, might make all the difference in the world about whether that plant has the medicine you need. And perhaps that is the source of the “old wives’ tales” about when and how to pick various medicinal herbs. When the moon is full, or first thing in the morning? (By the way, I think that old wives’ tales are often the source of much hidden wisdom.)

If I were a young person just starting out as a scientist herbalist, I would want to ponder how we might experiment and cooperate with plants to create particular medicines that we need. We’d have to start by understanding and measuring the differences in their chemical composition under various conditions. Try to better understand why the old herbalists knew the best times for picking. That might take a while. But then, once we better understood these marvelous beings, maybe we could learn to communicate back and forth with them, and then, perhaps we could invite them to create new medicines for the diseases we face in these times. What a line of research that would be!

This post was first published on my blog, Finding Our Way Home: A Spiritual Journey into Earth Community.

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