>    From:    Oliva <[log in to unmask]>
>    Subject: Re: seeds/plants
>    
>    Thanks for the info on the clover.  I'll plant some in the spring.   Do you
>    have the name of a good book showing which plants are compatible with each
>    other as soil builders/sustainers?

I have criticized other for being off-topic, so I'll try to keep it short:

Maintaining the NPK levels in soil is not the only story. There are other
minerals which serve as micronutrients not only for the plant but for
the consumer (you and I). For example watermelon is relatively tasteless
unless grown with sufficient boron in the soil. And the thousands of
organism species in the soil as well as organic matter play their roles.

Calcium, iron, manganese, zinc, magnesium and even a bit of copper,
among others, are all essential to plant and human health. These are
not normally replenished except by flooding by upstream mineral
wash-down or atmospheric dust settling. A very few farmers realize
this but even fewer are willing to manually replenish their soils.
Adding seaweed, mineral dust from mining/cement ops, or river mud
are some of the amentments. Just clover is not enough.

So simply adding more nitrogen to boost crop yields is a recipe for
long-term failure, something even the 60's Green Revolution wonks had
to finally admit. This is why the implicit anti-agricultural bent
of Paleo is important to keep in mind. Wild-grown is better nutritionally
(broad generalization) as well as ecologically. Of course you can't
sustain billions on wild-grown, but that's another topic.

Tried to keep this short but failed of course. The gist is that IMO
part of the Paleo WOL is not falling for the lies of our times
about what constitutes "sustainable" in agriculture. If you're
going to "gather" in your garden you owe it to yourself & family
to keep the soil fully alive and its bounty fully nutritious.

The "biodynamic" system of agriculture has the right idea even if
you don't buy the full-moon, shit-in-cow's-horn mysticism.