Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Well, Mitch, if I try to do it in my head it certainly gets confusing.
Anyone working on this themselves should jump in here. As I said, this is
my first shot at double or triple cropping, and it does take planning. And
yes, it does take more work but you can get several times as much produce
from the same garden. Price of land being what it is, and most city folks
being limited in space, it's a practical answer to the problem. I'm finding
out you don't get it just right the first time, and it's a very individual
thing. No book will tell you exactly what's right for you in your area. 

I shouldn't try to explain this without going through at least one season
of it myself. 

Graph paper helps to make a rough scale drawing of the garden area. It's a
good cheat sheet. Note which crops are planted in which beds and date. Keep
it current when transplanting and harvesting. Then some lists are in order.

Pick which cool weather crops you want, like early beets, early cabbage,
lettuce, onion sets, peas, radishes, early spinach, mustard, turnips and so
forth. I don't want all those but do want bok choy. Your plan will be
different.

List which warm weather crops you want, like beans, cabbage, corn,
cucumbers, eggplant, melons, okra, peppers, potatoes, pumpkins, squash,
tomatoes, swiss chard, and so forth. 

Write in the times to start the summer crops outside. That's when the cool
crops need to be done - if you're replacing them in the same space. Some
can overlap depending on growth habits. 

Then you work backward to the earliest date you have to start cool crops in
order to have them mature when summer crops need the space. Seed packets
lie. 

If you have a longer frost free season than I do, you might get by without
doing transplants, just seed it all at the right times. I have about 4
months, so I need to start cool crops in pots and set out in early April,
and summer crops have to be seeded already for transplant around end of May
or early in June. That's assuming some overlap. Knee pads are a must for
me. 

Complications set in, always. Our garlic from last fall surrounds the
inside of several beds with lots of room to plant in the middle. We have a
few hundred red onion sets still waiting to go in the ground. We have some
cool crops growing and more germinating in the seedling greenhouse now, and
some planted in the beds, just in case. Summer crops are seeded indoors and
must get out to the greenhouse soon as they sprout. Should have started
snow peas weeks ago. Beets, turnips, and chard seeded in beds three weeks
ago didn't sprout, too cold then. 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 4/13/2007 at 8:34 PM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>My vote would be some discussion of (the use of space for) early
>vegetables, followed by late (i.e. succession planting) before going into
>artificial methods.  To do the best, the "late" has to be started early
>(so it's ready for transplanting), making it a bit confusing.
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: TradingPostPaul 
>  To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org 
>  Sent: Friday, April 13, 2007 1:41 PM
>  Subject: [Livingontheland] season extension