Maine State Grange

Webmaster’s note: The format of this column includes all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways! Phil writes this month’s column.

Making Microbes Happy

In my life, I’ve had a problem understanding wealth and success. The message I get from the culture around me is very different from the message I live.

As a farmer, wealth and success have different iterations, but they are all connected. The base of the issue is microbial. In order to accumulate wealth, I must make microbes happy. My first billion must fit easily on a spoon.

There are many ways to make microbes happy. It’s all in the recipe that you prepare and having proper ingredients. Aerobic microbes need oxygen; anaerobic do not–different recipes for the little buggers even though they eat the same foods. Feed them well, and they will make rich compost or living soil. Treat them poorly, and your soil suffers.

This base of wealth supports the soil, which then feeds everything. The invisible is made tangible.

Soil can then be used to grow food for humans directly or indirectly. One might pick a carrot and eat it for nutrition and pleasure, or one might pick a carrot and feed it to a hog that will later be eaten.

The community that grows around a small farm sits atop the pyramid of wealth and success. Soil creation and microbial de-light occur to tickle palates with flavor. They occur to further life.

Find yourself supporting microbes and soil, the wealth and success of local farms, and local ecosystems–the dividends are fantastic! Take your lessons from the deer in the pasture or the clearing, the fox in the hedgerow, and the hawk above the garden; they all know the food is better where the bases for wealth have been flourishing. We do, too.

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Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously permitted us to share some of their columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.