When Micromanaging is Good
Microbes are a big name in organic agriculture – in fact, they are the reason for everything. I’m not exaggerating here: the first life forms thought to have existed were – you guessed it – of such tiny proportions that you and I would have thought nothing of them. Story and photos by Paige Murray.
I’m sure you know the basics, but to be clear, ‘microbe’ is the broad term to describe organisms of microscopic size – too small for us humans to see, thus we give them far less credit than they deserve. In this case, I’m referring to the microbes colonising our soils and helping our plants to grow big, strong and healthy. Microbes are like colostrum for babies: without them, our plants would be sickly, weak and lacking a whole heap of important nutrients.
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Paige lives in a tiny house on the outskirts of Lincoln, and loves to get her hands dirty in all ways homesteading. A childhood of growing up on and around farms was the perfect way to understand that agriculture got us, as a human race, to where we are today… and it will shape who we become tomorrow.
The past five years saw Paige working on an organic market garden. It was here that she learnt (in spite of what all her agricultural science lecturers told her) that organics can be economically viable, and is a pretty good way to grow and produce alongside nature, rather than fighting her.
