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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Comment on Jeavon's Work

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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: Re: [Livingontheland] Comment on Jeavon's Work
  • Date: Thu, 22 Mar 2007 09:03:57 -0700


We wish you well with the move, and your enthusiasm is contagious ;-)
Starting over is exciting. Coleman definitely has a workable, profitable
system. His winter greenhouses are unheated. I wish we had lots of room for
your orchard and vineyard. We can't do justice for dairy goats and grow
their feed. I too have a slope to garden, so framed level beds are needed
to hold soil in place. Since relocating last year we're starting from
scratch but at least the soil isn't so sandy and coarse and it won't take
years to build healthy soil that holds moisture. We're also in the process
of applying more of those "best practices" than in the past. We'll have
permanent mulch in place in a couple weeks - last frost in May. We're
triple cropping for local market with cool weather greens and roots now to
be replaced as they finish with summer crops and then fall roots and
greens. Some can overlap in the same space at different stages of growth.
All heirloom varieties, mostly European, for proven flavor and stress
resistance. Taking fullest advantage of good beds does get complicated!

Keep us posted!

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 3/22/2007 at 7:26 AM Carrie Shepard wrote:

>I'm one of those getting ready to combine techniques and most likely
>mechanize soon. I've done the double digging and getting the beds
>established, and once established those beds are very easy to maintain,
>but there IS still a limit to how much one person can manage and I usually
>have three children helping. I'll most likely attempt to increase crop
>growing area for market gardening capability and try to implement more of
>the ideas I've read about in Eliot Coleman's books.
>
>
> This year I may not get much gardening done, as we're moving to a larger
>place. It's very exciting to me to finally be able to work on a bit more
>land where I can design more from scratch -- other than the house is
>already where it's staying LOL!!
>
> I'm increasing my goat milk herd by the 7 doelings from this year which
>will give me somewhere between 14 and 17 milkers for next year. The
>property we're going to has lots of browse to easily sustain this many.
>
> What needs doing this year is designing the layout for where everything
>needs to be at the next place and hopefully I can get a few dwarf apple
>trees and plums planted in the fall when I figure out WHERE on the place
>they should go. I'd really like to plan the orchard and a small 1/4 acre
>vineyard first. There is already a healthy established small kitchen
>garden area that I'll be able to plant in for summer garden items and
>perhaps fall greens. The terrain is a down sloping hill that slopes from
>the high end on the east down to the west surrounded by tall oaks.
>
> I still love How to Grow more vegetables for it's ideas of the varieties
>of crops to plant/ percentages of which types and how to mix them to
>advantage in beds. It's amazing how many people can only think of growing
>tomatoes, squash and peppers where I live. There are SO many other
>vegetables to enjoy!!
>
> Carrie
>







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