The nursery and landscape industry is far and away the leader in Oregon’s agricultural economy. All indications are that it will grow even larger as baby boomers transition from salad days into serious gardeners. Increased time, discretionary income, and a more compelling interest in health and quality of life drive the demand for a “greener lifestyle.”

This greener lifestyle is a counterpoint to mainstream production agriculture, where the trends focus on quantity over quality, and large corporations morph into multi-national monoliths that determine prices and set the production standards. The recent “merger mania” taking place throughout the agricultural economy threatens to consolidate control of our basic food supply in the hands of a very few corporations looking for market share and quarterly profits before social and environmental sustainability concerns. These agribusiness giants are driving the small farmer off the landscape and eliminating plant and food diversity from the farm and the supermarket.

The long-term prospects of this trend are disturbing, and regulatory oversight seems arbitrary and compromised. Much of the rest of the world refuses to buy genetically modified foods and seeds, forcing industry and the U.S. government to reassess the patenting and fast track approval process for genetically modified organisms that they have sold the American public as wholesome and safe.

What does all of this have to do with spring and seed catalogs? What is there to feel good about here? It is that so many of the catalogs are marketing alternatives to the prevailing corporate paradigm, and that this market is the fastest growing, greenest, most sustainable, earth friendly and socially responsible segment of the economy.

Simplexity Health also has a product line ideally positioned to provide real alternatives; the rise of the “slow food” movement is a case in point. Slow food stresses quality over quantity and heightened awareness of the interconnected relationships of the food chain. An expanding awareness of how our food is produced, processed, and ultimately consumed determines what and how we eat. Food serves to connect us with each other, the earth, the cosmos, and ourselves. Food is, after all, just stored sunshine. This is what led to the development of PLANeT Food®.

As the play on words implies, PLANeT Food® nourishes plants, yet it also plays a larger role in building and maintaining the matrix of life in the planet’s soils. Ordinary NPK (Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium) fertilizers give quick results for plant growth with a few macronutrients, but these mainstream products do little to establish long-term fertility in the biosphere. Only recently discovered and popularized as the “crypto-biotic crust,” the unseen world of soil microorganisms not only supports the growth of the higher plants, but serves as the architecture that holds the soil together as a foundation for all that grows.

The importance of this cannot be overstated, since the soils are such a finite fraction of the earth, take such a long time to accumulate, and are under ever-increasing pressure to sustain the world’s population. Space does not permit here, however, the following resources are among the best at articulating the subject in-depth:

Holistic Resource Management, is a book by Alan Savory, the founder of the organization by the same name. Savory has written extensively on erosion following the loss of biodiversity in ecosystems (and the effects move right up the food chain).

Exploring the Spectrum and Paramagnetism, by Phil Callahan, discuss the electromagnetic potential of life, the parent material of the earth—rocks, and rock dust in soils.

The Survival of Civilization, by John Hamaker and Don Weaver, takes a global look at rock dust and the carbon cycle. This excellent work continues with “Remineralize The Earth”, a networking newsletter for earth activists sharing information. This publication is available from 152 South Street, Northhampton, MA 01060.

Secrets of the Soil, by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird, includes a good discussion of both algae and rock dust (the book was written before PLANeT Food® was developed).

Bread From Stones, by Julius Hensel. Written over one hundred years ago, this book makes the case for the role of trace minerals in the health of humans and plants.

The Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association, a gold mine for understanding the broader implications of agriculture, can be reached online at www.biodynamics.com, or by mail at Building 1002B, Thoreau Center, The Presidio, PO Box 29135, San Francisco, CA 94129-0135.

As you peruse your own stocks of seed catalogs this spring, we hope that you will pause and reflect on what some of these writers have to say on the subject of producing our food. As gardeners we are cultivating more than just a row of vegetables; we are cultivating a relationship with the earth herself. And to establish natural harmony we need to pay attention to the smallest details as well as the large ideas. Everything is really connected to everything else, and nowhere is this more apparent than in your garden – Happy Spring!