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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Improving the water-retention properties of the soil

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>
  • To: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>, livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Improving the water-retention properties of the soil
  • Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 20:01:00 -0700


Well, Mitch, any kind of growing is going to be iffy where it's hot, dry,
and alkaline. Intensive interplanting can use a wide variety of short and
long season, early and late crops, but depending on your climate your
choices may be more limited. You choose what'll grow there from the lists
of early and late and so forth. Fortunately there's a *lot* of help. The
two sources that look most helpful to me are High-Yield Gardening, and
Getting the Most from Your Garden, both Rodale Press so they're not wackos.
They have detailed charts showing week by week plantings for most varieties
you might want, with length in the ground and all the rest. Incredibly, I
haven't seen those two books mentioned anywhere else. Jeavons book is a
good source too. You don't have to jump into intensive planting all at
once. It can be simple or complicated as you want. And these planting
schedules will naturally vary depending on your climate and needs. I think
we each have to learn to adapt it to our own situation, don't we? But think
of the production.

I'm still trying to figure out why those two books and the whole subject
aren't discussed everywhere. I'm guessing, for one thing, effective
interplanting is best with permanent beds or wide rows, for equidistant
spacing, and most growers are still stuck with space-wasting single file
tractor rows. So they don't even consider intensive planting. And I suspect
they don't realize the cost and labor savings per unit of food produced.
When you have something growing all over the beds all season you shade any
weeds that germinate, and shade the soil or mulch and reduce moisture loss.
Not to mention that mixing up plants reduces losses to pests.

If I'm not clear on any of this, holler at me. We're thinking outside the
box here. But then we don't get spectacular results by doing things the
same way we always have.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 1/29/2007 at 4:13 PM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>What you wrote about here (interplanting and succession planting), is one
>of the most enticing avenues of gardening I've encountered. Yet I find
>the planning and organization intimidating, in part because my Central
>Texas environment is so hot, alkaline and (sometimes) dry, while all the
>books on the subject are written for more benign climates. Is there one
>of the references you used that you would particularly recommend to get me
>jump-started? I've ordered Jeavon's latest edition, but I haven't read
>any of Coleman's books, wondering if techniques developed in Maine would
>be of any use here.
>
>I realize that the techniques and vegetable varieties can be adapted, but
>I don't, as yet, have that expertise.
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: TradingPostPaul
> To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Monday, January 29, 2007 12:06 PM
> Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Improving the water-retention properties
>of the soil
>







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