With regards to organic gardening, we’ve been there and done that, for about 4 years. My picture was actually published in the Organic Gardening magazine in 1992 when I submitted a short story on composting in the winter.
We stopped because it is labor intensive. If that’s all there is to one’s life, then OK. But it’s not practical on a commercial level. Prepping raised beds, pulling weeds by hand, making organic fertilizer by composting and manure teas, etc, etc.
Now we till with motorized tillers, use herbicides, granular fertilizers. The veggies are just as good and we have time for other things.
Depending on when Curt Cline attended high school he may
never have been a member of the Future Farmers of America.
The organization which I consider to be the greatest
youth organization in history changed their title to
plain FFA sometime in the 70s. It seems they were early
victims of self imposed PC. The organization had gained
chapters in urban high schools which often focused on
Ornamental Horticulture but didn’t like the farmer
“stigma” associated with “Future Farmers”. The loss
of Future Farmers was a head shaker for us old guard
rural types.
Those Ohio river valley counties from Belmont on down are extremely depressed. There is widespread rural poverty. The terrain isn’t very hospitable to farming and industry has left. What there is are coal fired power plants that Obama and Hillary are sworn to destroy. Lovely country but the people are suffering. The story is much the same across Appalachia.
Gas drilling has injected a lot of money. They sit on some very productive plays but currently that is depressed as well because of the low commodity prices.