Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Hey, you're doing something and that's better than nothing, right? We don't
even try to produce a "healthy, diverse, year-round diet" where we live.
We're not supposed to. That's why we network and make friends who grow
things we don't and raise animals. We had some fine goat milk and meat the
other night, but we're not about to try goats and spread ourselves too
thin. Market garden is enough to keep up with. 

Jeavons' How to Grow More vegetables etc. is probably on the mark on
yields, can't say for sure. I strongly recommend two older Rodale books. 
   and High-Yield Gardening has a chart on yield for a dozen common
vegetables, page 102.
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=wFxmDWRYl8TKN.In9LcTpOCCIFg
_2496093669_1:2:256
as low as $4. 
   Getting The Most From Your Garden has a similar chart page 7. 
http://www.bookfinder.com/search/?ac=sl&st=sl&qi=Y1pljg5B5RPJkos4DbgnLY2TdIs
_4451134872_1:4:117 as low as $4 used

The trouble with any charts is yield obviously depends on too many factors.
What both books show is how much more can be grown in permanent intensive
beds as opposed to row cropping in the field. I proved it for myself. Both
go into great detail on many practices for growing the most in whatever
space, and I consider them indispensable.  

(Off topic, but on the subject of overpopulation we just learned my
daughter in law's great grandmother just passed, and she has about 200
direct descendants. Hispanic family, rosary & funeral, whole nine yards.) 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 1/15/2008 at 5:40 PM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>These kinds of conversations always make me question how much of our food
>I can grow.  Jeavon's work is the only quantitative information I have
>found on our needs vs. what a home gardener can do, and I'm not optimistic
>that I can produce a healthy, diverse, year-round, diet.  Most of us on
>this list are growing gardens; some are raising animals, but I'll bet most
>would like to have some discussions about what, and how much, we should be
>producing in order to feed ourselves.  Currently I only have about 10% of
>the garden space that Jeavons says I need, but I don't think I can add
>more than about 10% a year.  Yeah, I'm ahead of most folks, but I don't
>think that's good enough for this situation.
>
>True, Tomatoes are the #1 market garden item, but they don't offer many
>calories.  I've never eaten a Turnip, or many other root crops.  Beans,
>squash, greens, tomatoes.  Corn is not a good use of space.  What else?
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
>  ----- Original Message ----- 
>  From: TradingPostPaul 
>  To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org 
>  Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2008 4:44 PM
>  Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Shattering Myths: ?Can sustainable
>agriculture feed the world?
>
>
>
>  In modern famines people don't form wild mobs and go pillaging. Hungry
>  people don't have the energy. What we see happening instead is gradual
>  migration from the havenot countries to the haves. We see it and Europe
>  too. What was the old saying - don't beggar your neighbor?
>
>  On so many lists people fret over what they'd do if hungry hordes came
>  after their own supplies. They stock up with guns and ammunition. Bunker
>  mentality. The last thing they worry about is learnning to produce their
>  own food in cooperation with neighbors. Yet they always seem to assume
>they
>  won't be one of the hungry themselves. Hmmm. 
>
>  paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>
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