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market-farming - Re: Permanent Raised Beds

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  • From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lflondon AT mindspring.com>
  • To: market-farming
  • Subject: Re: Permanent Raised Beds
  • Date: Tue, 01 Feb 2000 22:38:15 -0500


On Tue, 1 Feb 2000 23:13:02 EST, BBGREGSON AT cs.com wrote:


>Lawrence London wrote about tilling only once in 15 years. That is not
>clear

That part was written by Alex MacGregor. I was only advocating a
one-time (if possible) deep tillage involving major upheaval/moving of
most of the dirt in the garden down to 8-24" in depth.

>to me. How do you prepare seedbeds? How do you incorporate green manures
>and crop residue? It also sounds like a lot of soil amendment usage. We

Light tillage. Read Art Biggert's post about that technique.

The object is not to do major turning of the soil as in deep
rototilling or plowing (that, of course, would destroy the raised
bed).
Heavy tillage destroys the soil crumb structure, particularly if you
have heavy clay or silt soils.Earthworms and some microorganisms
suffer major setbacks too. Studies have revealed that earthworm
populations dramatically decrease in farm fields when plowing and
cultivating or rototilling occur on too frequent intervals.

>rototill lightly to prepare for cover crop in the fall (if crops can be
>harvested in time) and then again for seedbed preparation in the spring (for
>transplants in most cases). More explanation will be helpful! Thanks.
>Bob and Bonnie Gregson, Island Meadow Farm, Vashon, WA
>

Lawrence F. London, Jr. Venaura Farm
http://metalab.unc.edu/intergarden InterGarden
http://metalab.unc.edu/permaculture PermaSphere
http://metalab.unc.edu/intergarden/orgfarm AGINFO
lflondon AT mindspring.com london AT metalab.unc.edu





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