Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Well, Tameson, I've seen the SPIN site and the New Farm (Rodale people)
write up on them, and no doubt they get the results they claim. However ...
those techniques and results are what we've been talking about on this list
for months. For free I might add. And I get similar results per square foot
(one sixth of an acre) with our market gardening, and I'm only one person
without a tiller. And I don't have a green thumb, and I'm not a long time
grower either. They hardly invented the idea that you can grow a lot of
stuff in a small space. Jeavons, Mel Bartholomew, Eliot Coleman, and many
others have described their ways of doing just that. In fact we adapted
their cutting edge practices from several sources and started a financially
successful market garden our first year. We grew intensively in permanent
beds with mostly free amendments and without powered machinery. This year
we expand mulched no-till with more double cropping, earlier greenhouse
tomatoes, early cold weather crops, better season extension tricks, and cut
the things that didn't sell like bok choy and turnips. Point being we're
not doing anything that hasn't been done before, and we're doing it on a
shoestring. And a million others could do it to, and probably thousands
already are. Without trying to copyright a catchy name like SPIN. 

If you want my suggestion, spend that money getting these books:
Rodale's Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening
Jeavons, How to Grow More Vegetables
Hi-Yield Gardening, Rodale Press
How to Get More From Your Garden, Rodale Press

Best prices on all of them at bookfinder.com . 

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 2/7/2008 at 9:14 PM TamesonOB wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>Thinking about maybe taking my gardening to the next level and developing
>a 
>market garden. I stumbled on the SPIN farming website and wanted to know
>if 
>any of you folks out there have any experience with this method. I don't 
>have a lot of capitol, and I'm hesitant to spend any kind of money on a 
>gamble, hence my query. I was thinking of getting a book or two on market 
>gardening (was looking to Eliot Coleman's book or some such) when I
>happened 
>upon SPIN farming, but they have a series of 8 downloads (which look
>fairly 
>substantial) for 12 bucks a piece and that's a pretty hefty price tag when

>you aren't sure what you're getting. What say you all? Any opinions?
>
>Tameson in NH
>http://tamesonsmusings.blogspot.com/ 
>
>
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