Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>]

That is an excellent, and concise, synopsis.  You should probably post it once a month, no matter what else is going on.

 

One suggestion that you might add is for people to start selling very simply - maybe just one item that they know they can do well.  Then bootstrap the business as time, energy and cash allow. It would certainly cut down on the mistakes and the angst.

 

E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz

----- Original Message -----

From: TradingPostPaul

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 9:12 AM

Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Market gardening

As I observed, the demand is there already. Before long those who have a
bit of land and can grow saleable produce at affordable prices without
fossil fuel machinery will be more in demand.

We can see inflation everywhere, not just gas which goes up and down but
never down to where it was. Whole Foods (whole paycheck?), housing,
utilities, insurance, medical, all up. But we can produce food affordably
by ditching conventional farming in our own communities - and do it
sustainably, conserving water, improving soil instead of depleting it.

Conventional farming is a dead end with the cost-price squeeze. Big farms
trying  to survive on credit, expensive chemicals, machinery, and fossil
fuels are all part of the problem. We can't keep feeding the country with
one or two million big farmers; we need 10 or 20 million little people
feeding their local communities, and doing it without being vulnerable to
high costs or lack of credit and land. So we get out of the System. We do
it our own way, and do it far better.

I stress selling at affordable prices. It means controlling costs. Those of
us with some background in growing can start on a shoestring without
expensive equipment if we don't have it. We can learn cost-cutting best
practices while we start producing for friends and family - permanent
mulch, no-till beds, homemade cold frames or starter greenhouses for season
extension, succession planting to get two or three crops a year, even
perennials, and selling direct by farmstand or market. The key is, working
without expensive equipment is realistic if these methods cut down on the
land area by producing on one acre what others need four acres to produce.
On average we slash labor and costs by 3/4 to produce the same amount as
conventional gardening. There's a learning curve but it's not rocket
science. I certainly don't know it all but that doesn't stop me from doing
it, and I'm almost 64 and not in the best shape physically.

There are plenty of people with a bit of land they can use, doesn't take
much to supplement your income. What else do millions of retirees have to
do with their time? What about the unemployed? The kids just out of school
without job prospects? Homeschoolers? The list goes on.


paul tradingpost@lobo.net