By Klaas and Mary-Howell Martens, Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on August 3, 2004 You diligently took soil tests this winter and now they’ve come back indicating that potassium or phosphorus is low on some fields, here and there you … Continued
Dig Deeper
soil health
Looking for root causes and real solutions
By Mary-Howell Martens (with Klaas’ help!), Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on April 2, 2004 March comes, cold and snowy, but then suddenly overnight, it’s Spring! Just a few days of warm weather and fields of wheat change from yellow … Continued
Using the ordinary to cultivate the mysterious power of indigenous microorganisms
By Lisa M. Hamilton Originally posted in April 2004 Who wouldn’t be suspicious? Right from the get-go this workshop is promising cure-all concoctions that bring new life to everything they touch. The potions work in ways that are difficult to … Continued
100 ideas for improving yield and income
By Mary-Howell Martens (with Klaas’ help!), Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on January 12, 2004 After a delightful Christmas visit with family in North Carolina, we drove north past Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, with red clay furrows in fall-plowed fields. As … Continued
Why making organic the norm is important
Klaas responds to a question about last month’s column, Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on December 16, 2003 From the Dakotas to the Texas Panhandle, the rural Great Plains has been losing people for 70 years, a slow demographic collapse. … Continued
Evaluating the 2003 season, and harvesting lessons for 2004 and beyond
By Mary-Howell Martens (with Klaas’ help!), Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on November 21, 2003 November is a time of sharp contrasts, the early dark of overcast days and the incandescent glow from windows, the chill bite of the wind … Continued
The unseen life of sand and soil
By Mary-Howell Martens (with Klaas’ help!), Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted on September 30, 2003 At the end of August, we took a much appreciated vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. One afternoon, I left Klaas and the … Continued
Cultivating diversity underground for better yields above
By Laura Sayre Originally posted on September 29, 2003 You’ve read the amazing facts and figures: one teaspoon of healthy topsoil can contain millions of individual microorganisms, all playing a part in the functioning of the soil ecosystem. But how … Continued
How Mary-Howell and Klaas Martens made the transition to organic
By Mary-Howell Martens, Lakeview Organic Grain Originally posted August 2002 “I wish you didn’t have to do that!” I was standing by the kitchen door, several months pregnant with our second child, as I watched my husband, Klaas, leave the … Continued