I planted my first organic garden, in the back yard of the first house I rented, in the summer of 1969. This was also my first experience with seriously compacted and depleted soil. The previous tenants of this house had used the back yard as a place to park their cars and burn/dispose of garbage. When I hand tilled the soil, I also dug up pieces of broken glass, tin cans and old door knobs. I grew a lot of veggies in this garden but I was a bit disappointed that they did not look and taste as good as the organic food I got at my mom’s health food store.

Back then I did not fully realize that soil is home to an incredible web of life and that it is the foundation of the ecosystem.

On January 1, 1970 I decided to eat a totally raw, lacto-vegetarian diet consisting of homemade yogurt, kefir, sprouts and veggies from my garden. I continued eating raw for three years then quit eating raw for a few decades but started again eating mostly raw in 2008.

Throughout the seventies I lived in several places and generally started a garden in the yard. Some of these gardens started with compacted soil and poor results but they all improved over time through the use of compost.