Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

In places with mild winters crops can be grown all year round. Here, the concept of

right timing is more useful than that of season-extension. Right timing, i.e., to know

when to grow what, only comes from experience; talking to neighbours also helps.

For example, I can sow green peas from Oct. through May; however, having

experimented with early and late sowing, I found that best results are obtained

when sowing green peas in the Feb-March period. Earlier or later sowing will

result in stunted growth and reduced harvest.

 

Ideally, the ground should be permanently covered. For example, a couple of

weeks before harvesting the last summer vegetables (peppers, tomatoes,

aubergines, etc.) in the Autumn, I sow cover crops (clover, lupines, favas, etc.).

In the Spring, I simply cut the cover crops together with whatever remains of the

previous year’s vegetables including supporting poles and all to remain as a

mulch through which I can plant the next crop.

 

I don’t have patience for planning the garden. I simply plant or sow at random

without rows or beds wherever some space becomes vacant. I always have

plenty of seedlings, which I grow in seedbeds or under glass. Planting or

sowing at random, I don’t even bother with crop rotation anymore, since the

spatial variation replaces the temporal rotation.

 

When I started gardening 10 years ago, I did everything by the book. Today,

half the joy of gardening is to forget all about the rules and reinvent the garden

every year.

 

Cheers, Dieter

TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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