ORGANIC NZ MAGAZINE

Film review by Philippa Jamieson
January/February 2012
Volume 71; page 56
This US documentary focuses on the organic growing practices of Paul Gautschi, who asked God and looked to the Bible for guidance in how to grow food, and found that 
nature has all the answers. He realized that the forest floor with its layers of duff or mulch provided the most wonderfully rich soil that was continually being added to. He replicated that to some extent in his vegetable garden and orchard. Paul advocates no digging, and using cover (mulch) of various kinds; fairly fine wood chips (and compost) being his preference. He and several others expound on the benefits of this in terms of water-holding capacity, soil structure, mineral uptake, higher nutritional quality and no problems with weeds, pests and diseases. Surprisingly he reports that plants supposedly requiring different pH levels all do well with the same mulch.

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