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livingontheland - [Livingontheland] Get big or get small ?

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Get big or get small ?
  • Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 08:25:56 -0700


Fedco has a handy planting chart at
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/veggie_chart.htm

But I have to point out that their distance and row spacing (like most seed
sellers) is based on single file tractor rows rather than intensive wide rows
or permanent beds. Single rows two or three feet apart are a complete waste
of space. Intensive planting generally yields four or five times the
production of single rows. This has been demonstrated and documented for
years.

So what? Where land is too expensive this can mean the difference between
profit and loss for market growers. For the backyard gardener space is
already at a premium, obviously.

Permanent beds or wide rows can be more labor intensive depending on the kind
of crops, yet they allow soil amendments, compost, mulch, and water to be
concentrated at the plant roots rather than wasted in walkways or empty
spaces for tractor wheels. Which adds up to saving half your inputs that cost
time or money.

Further savings are possible. Efficient mulching, onsite composting, and
no-till or intelligent cultivation can cut labor and expense. Season
extension techniques and humus-intensive soil get a lot more production for
your efforts. All these things can make growing easier and more profitable,
whether you're just saving on groceries or making money at the market.

The obsession with more land, bigger equipment, hiring more labor and wasting
more money on chemicals has been a disaster for farm families and food
quality for decades. Get small is the new prescription for healthy growing
and farm survival.

paul, tradingpost@riseup.net
---------------
The outstanding scientific discovery of the twentieth century is not
television, or radio, but rather the complexity of the land organism. Only
those who know the most about it can appreciate how little we know about it.
- Aldo Leopold in Round River, 1933









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