They Sprayed What on My Salad?

Sometimes the darnedest things trigger memories.

A while back, I was working as project manager for a company installing manufactured homes on sites around San Diego County. One of those sites was in Boulevard, out in the far eastern reaches of the county where it gets hot and dry. We had been working there for some time when we suddenly noticed a huge increase in the population of little black flies. They went from an occasional nuisance to prolific swarms almost overnight.

As I stood watching the progress on the site, a local resident chanced by and we started talking. When I brought up the flies, his answer not only surprised me, but it took me back to a time much earlier in my life. Back to my days as a young boy on the farm in Alabama.

Our soil was generally in pretty good shape, but, as any farmer will tell you, you have to take action to replenish the soil if you plan to use the same patch repeatedly. Which was almost always true, of course.

Replenishing the soil can take many forms, and we used most of them. Stalks, stems and vines left over after the harvest were plowed back into the ground. We applied bags of fertilizer and nitrates on a somewhat regular basis. We rotated the crops so the same type crop wasn't planted in the same ground year after year. All of these did their part.

But none did as much for the soil as our dairy barn did. In some ways, it wasn't much. Oh, it was definitely a barn, with stalls, a corral, a loft, a corn crib and a wagon room. But it was old and leaning and had a good many cracks and gaps in its sides. And the tin roof often had sheets flapping in the wind. But it did the job.

And part of that job was to manufacture fertilizer. Namely, manure. Twice a day, every day, the cows would wander in to get fed and to be milked. Of course, as they stood around, nature took its course. What went in one end of the cow would inevitably exit the other end of the cow. You may not know this, but what's left over after the cows finish their food makes one of the best fertilizers known.

But, not right away. Not only would "new" manure be a little messy to deal with, it actually is a little rich in some nutrients and it contains things you might not want to be in contact with. These characteristics mean it has to go through some changes before it is ready to use. It would slowly build up over the months between preparing the crop fields in March and April of one year until time to do it again the next. As it accumulated, new deposits got churned into lower layers and they all slowly and surely composted into a fairly dry, safe and easily handled (by shovel, of course) substance which is the "manure" that all gardeners and farmers know.

When the time came, we'd load it up into the old pickup truck and, along with several five-gallon buckets, head for the fields. The buckets were our distribution method. We'd shovel the manure from the truck into the buckets then walk the field scattering the manure until there was an ample amount covering the ground. This process was repeated until we had covered several acres. Sometimes we'd run short of manure. Then we'd visit neighbors who had cows but not so much need of the manure. They were always pleased to have us do the work of cleaning out their barns!

After it was all spread, it was time to turn it into the soil. In other words, plow it under, so that the nutrients it contained would then be available to replenish the soil.

Now, this was the late '60s and early '70s, so tractors were a common farm tool. And many of our neighbors had them. But, not us! We had Bessie and Brownie, two huge, but gentle, old mules. Couple one of them to a plow stock and off we'd go, the plow tearing though the soil and gradually turning it inside out, so to speak. The result was a crop field or garden plot with a fresh and naturally balanced compliment of nutrients, all of which originated pretty much where they ended up. After a little processing, of course.

My mother and father basically raised us six kids on that land. We didn't always (alright, practically never) want to do the work, but we sure did enjoy the results!

Now, you may be asking, what did that Boulevard resident say that day about the flies that made me recall plowing the manure into the fields so long ago?

Well, when I commented on the sudden increase in the little black fly population, he called my attention to a plot of land I had seen everyday on my way to and from the work site. It was quite large, maybe forty acres, or more. And it went through a cycle that took it from a bare, brown and empty field to a field bustling with activity as workers prepared it for what it was to do. Then, over a period a just three or four weeks, it would gradually get greener and greener. Until, one day it would suddenly be bare and brown again.

"They are growing baby salad greens" he said. "That's why it goes through such rapid cycles. And to fertilize it, they spray liquefied hog waste on it. The liquefied hog waste attracts the flies."

"That's why I don't eat baby salad greens." he said.

And I am with him on that. There's not enough water in the Colorado River to wash those baby salad greens clean enough for me.

When we used manure on the fields, it had been composted and turned into the soil so that it would continue to rot and the plants could take the nutrients as they were needed. Somehow, spraying fresh, liquefied hog waste all over the greens just does not sound as healthy.

Just my opinion.