Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Thanks for responding on this.

Most vegetables do need deep, friable soil for maximum root growth, and an
initial tilling isn't deep enough for close planting and maximum
production. Part of the reason is soil moisture. Stressed plants are bug
magnets. I found that digging one shovel deep plus a thin organic layer on
the surface wouldn't hold enough moisture and needed excessive irrigating.

No doubt many people feel they have plenty of space, so logically why
bother with intensive growing. Probably a common perception. But intensive
beds reduce the time and labor for weeding. Wide paths between single rows
are a common excuse for needing a tiller or cultivator (not your situation
apparently). But that raises the cost per unit of food produced, and
seriously narrows the profit margin for market growers. Widening that
profit margin by reducing inputs and labor is what we're after here. Home
growers need the best production for the least effort, to encourage a lot
more people to grow at home. Far too many follow nurseries' advice, and end
up spending so much on inputs and equipment they'd be better off buying at
ridiculous Whole Foods prices.

If you're doing fine with close planting and walking on planks without
compaction, I wouldn't question that. I'm now going with all permanent beds
and aisles, no need to waste any of the initial digging on the area for
permanent paths.

You mention cover crops. Legume cover crops are a cost efficient way to
build soil nitrogen as well as biomass. Managing cover crop rotations for
larger plots is a bit more involved. I don't know what cover crop seeds are
available in Portugal or Europe but this is from the UK, HRDA in England
http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/pdfs/international_programme/GreenMan.pdf .

Also from SARE, U.S.
http://www.sare.org/publications/covercrops/covercrops.pdf .
UC SAREP Cover Crop Resource Page at http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/ccrop/
Overview of Cover Crops and Green Manures at
http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/PDF/covercrop.pdf
Selecting the Best Cover Crop for Your Farm
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/pubs/nwl/2005/2005-4-leoletter/cover_crop.pdf

Winter Cover Crops
http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/forages/publications/ay247.htm
Annual Winter Cover Crops Legumes for Nitrogen Fixing Growing
http://www.kuow.org/garden/031001.txt

My own experience with cover crops is pretty limited.


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 2/15/2007 at 2:31 PM Dieter Brand wrote:

>Paul,
>  People have different views, but since you ask for comments on your
>text, here is my 2 penny´s worth.
>  To me, raised beds and double digging are the exception rather than the
>rule, they are not necessary to practice no-till. I like to keep my garden
>level for best water efficiency. Raised beds can make sense when you want
>to improve degraded soil quickly or have a lot of stuff like wooden logs
>and branches to bury. Most people don´t understand that building even a
>thin organic layer at the soil surface can significantly improve the soil
>underneath.
>  Also, there is too much emphasis on compaction and not walking across
>vegetable beds. I have a few permanent paths between which I have areas of
>around 10 by 20 meters for planting/sowing at random. Basically, I just
>walk between the vegetables when needed. When I have to cross the same
>places every day for harvesting etc., I put some wooden planks or pieces
>of cork (I have a lot of cork oaks) on the ground to step on. This also
>conserves moistures. Some plants, like cabbages, like the soil to be firm.
>For water conservation and earthworms a loose soil can also be a problem.
>I only avoid walking on the planting areas after heavy rainfalls.
>  What is most important for furthering organic no-till is a better
>understanding of cover crops. There is a lot of disparate information
>available on the net, but it is difficult to find specific information for
>addressing specific problems. What is needed is a comprehensive cover crop
>data base for different climatic and soil conditions listing the
>characteristics of cover crops that are important for organic no-till.
>  To be quite honest, the above comments are motivated by the fact that I
>have plenty of space to work with. At present, I use less than 1% of our
>land for my vegetable garden. Therefore, the term "intensive" as used in
>your text is not all that important to me.
>  Regards,
>  Dieter Brand, Portugal
>