This morning’s broadcast of This Week In Water on community radio station KGNU announced that results of a 5-year study conducted by the U. of Washington found that using regenerative farming practices such as not tilling the soil, growing cover crops, and having plant diversity affect the nutritional content of vegetables.
“The food grown using regenerative agriculture and its soil-boosting practices contained, on average, more magnesium, calcium, potassium and zinc; more vitamins, including B1, B12, C, E and K; and more phytochemicals, compounds not typically tracked for food but that have been shown to reduce inflammation and
boost human health. Crops grown with regenerative agriculture were also lower in elements considered detrimental to human health, including sodium, cadmium, and nickel, compared with their conventionally grown neighbors.
The researchers believe the reason is that soils at farms using regenerative practices had more microbes and fungi, which directly and indirectly boosted beneficial compounds in crops.”
BUT YOU ALREADY KNEW THIS!
You have been paying attention and you care about health and about our Living Earth!
For decades now, you’ve been reading Harlequin’s Gardens’ E-Newsletters, Spring Newsletters, Mikl’s articles, and the great books we offer, like ‘Teaming with Microbes’. And you’ve been taking our cutting-edge classes on Soil-Building and Gardening without Toxic Chemicals, getting the best guidance from our knowledgeable staff, and using our soils, composts, organic fertilizers, amendments, mycorrhizae, compost tea, and the regenerative practices we recommend!
And you already knew that these regenerative practices go hand in hand with other Life-Nurturing approaches to growing and maintaining gardens. We have ‘branded’ our Harlequin-grown plants LIFE BRAND, because we walk our talk and grow our plants without the use of any chemical fertilizers, synthetic or heavy-handed pesticides. They are safe for you, your children, your pets, the birds, and wildlife in your yard, and all the beneficial insects that abound in a well-diversified organic garden!