Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

This is about planting schedule for market. Growing technique is a whole 
nother subject. Our approach is to grow what will sell - the ordinary 
vegetables people buy - and a wide variety of them so that anyone who stops 
at our table will find something they have to have. Those who sell only 
raspberries or only honey or cheese can't sell to 95% of customers. I haven't 
found ANY writer in books or on the Internet who mentions this. This is esp 
critical in smaller markets where you have to sell something to most everyone 
to make it worth your time.

Some things need to be planted in stages to have continuous harvest, like 
carrots which don't keep well. Onions can be planted all at once and 
harvested all together because they keep. Some things like squashes take all 
summer but winter squashes keep to sell right through fall after frost. 
Keepers that don't sell are eaten in winter. We don't fool with salad greens 
because harvesting is labor intensive and don't make much money for the work, 
and you can't keep what doesn't sell for sale later. Tomatoes and potatoes 
can keep a week for next market.

If you want to ask something more specific understand "my" methods certainly 
aren't original; we use what works from several sustainable growers and 
writers from Howard to Jeavons, Emilia, Chan, the Rodales, Coleman, Stout, 
and others. And of course we have to adapt everything to our arid climate and 
short season. YMMV.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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

On 6/6/2008 at 9:23 PM Nigel Kirby wrote:

>I would love to hear more about your gardening/farming methods Paul (and
>anyone else). I have just started market gardening this year and can
>already
>tell I have a lot to learn about the business. Not making very much money
>but I'm loving the work. I know I need to get more efficient and would love
>to learn from others how they are doing this and bringing in an income.
>
>I'm all for no till and would love to hear what this means to others and
>how
>they're doing it.
>I sheet mulched some new planting areas last fall for this season but had
>to
>do a lot of weeding to remove rhizominous (sp?) grasses, which I have found
>sheet mulching will not get rid of, and ended up disturbing the soil quite
>a
>bit. I also used a ton of mulch and can't imagine how much I would need to
>do a bigger area.
>Another area I left covered in straw all winter seemed too hard to plant
>directly into after I removed the mulch (I was hoping to see a nice layer
>of
>compost on the surface) so  I went through with my fork trying to crack the
>soil but without turning it.
>
>Any advice on these topics and market gardening in general would be greatly
>appreciated. I have lots of room to expand but I would prefer to use what I
>have and sell as much as I can from my existing beds.
>
>Thanks for the help
>
>Nige
>