Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] How do you start?

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "E. E. Mitchamore Jr" <emitch@att.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] How do you start?
  • Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2008 22:07:34 -0500

A good summary.  I'd add that three or four raised permanent beds makes it easy to rotate crop families.  My garden is small, but it's working well for me.  When a crop is finished, I cut it off, leaving the roots in the soil, toss the top in the paths, and plant the new plants in between the old roots.  Not much work.
 
E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
www.hillcountrynatives.biz
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2008 9:49 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] How do you start?


Ok, now we're getting somewhere. Lasagna gardens are for small plots and
they do take more time to develop topsoil than I have to waste. Double
digging is impossible where I am due to thin topsoil and hard clay beneath,
so it's more efficient to build up soil in framed beds. Beds don't usually
need framing in most soils tho.

The double digging championed by Jeavons at Ecology Action
http://www.growbiointensive.org/ IMHO is usually unnecessary. Jeavons and
Chadwick before him had volunteer students to help dig and turned worthless
subsoil into a lush garden. Now if I had nothing but subsoil to work with
I'd go somewhere else and leave the stunts to the experts. I have to
produce for market and I have to hold costs down, including my own labor
with no power machinery.

That said, growing in beds (they call Biointensive) is far more efficient
and productive, and organic soil building and succession/double cropping
with season extension can easily quadruple production for home or market
growing. Once beds are in place use mulch to conserve moisture, reduce
irrigation and weeding, moderate soil temperature, and discourage bugs by
reducing moisture and heat stress on plants. Allow organic matter to turn
into valuable humus by not tilling or cultivating. The mulch cover helps
protect the microbial life and earthworms that build and till soil for you.
Constant tilling oxidizes soil carbon and you cannot build up humus levels
if you do it. No-till sequesters carbon in the soil and reduces outgassing
of CO2. Do contact Ken Hargescheimer on no-till.

Actually no-till can be very different in important ways. If you don't need
to till then you don't have to move mulch around; just add some here and
there as needed. Further, you don't have to move drip lines to till, and if
they lie on top of the mulch then you don't have the aggravation of
clearing clogged lines. All told this can save at least half the work of
growing. No small accomplishment.


This all works for me and I have no green thumb. No bug damage, no sprays,
no crop failures, no excuses.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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

On 4/3/2008 at 8:56 PM Pumpkin Lady wrote:

>TamesonOB wrote:
>> try Lasagna gardening by Patricia Lanza. Also if you google Lasagna
>> gardening you'll come up w/ many hits - quite a few how-to.
>
>Thank you but Lasagna gardening is exactly what I don't want, that's why
>I said that and double digging were what I could find associated with
>the term. I don't want tiny beds with cardboard or newspaper and
>compost/mulch on top of it. If that's required, I ain't doing it. That's
>pretty much what I have seen associated with lasagna gardening.
>
>I'm also not willing to double dig.
>
>I was thinking I had seen people talking like they didn't do either, but
>not recently and I am not sure how to search archives here. I can figure
>out how to read them, just not how to search for stuff inside
specifically.
>
>Morgan
>
>

_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland



Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page