What a terrific surprise it was to learn about the Earth-Kind Landscaping techniques, and when I heard the creator of the system, Dr. George, say that “everything he learned in school was wrong”, I couldn’t have been more pleased. You see, a credibility problem exists with the land-grant universities and their “researched-based” advice. The problem is that the research is almost always paid for by chemical companies. So seeing the advice such as “don’t fertilize”, “don’t spray chemicals”, and “lower your watering to near zero” come from Texas A&M caused me a bit of cognitive dissonance. But in a good way! Take a look at the handout below, at the bottom row which is for clay soils. Notice in the “yearly fertilizer” column, it lists “No”.
This is for typical landscaping beds. I think intensively planted vegetable beds will require some fertilization, but my point is that I think this advice is a major step forward and in my mind, gives Texas A&M AgriLife Extension a much better reputation for being Earth friendly.
As an aside, I’ll share that as I walked through the Earth-Kind Research Gardens at Myers Park, there were many bees of different types working the area. I don’t think we would see this if the garden was maintained in a traditional way using insecticides.
