Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

You only asked about bed depth - but this is about what works in this 
climate, somewhat similar to yours. Beds end up with soil about one foot 
deep. I dig up the bed ground first then anywhere from 2x4 to 2x10 (cheapest 
lumber or culls) frame is screwed together on top. Carrot beds a little 
deeper, don't grow the long carrots intentionally. I amend the entire bed 
once framed, not just around plants, so it doesn't need redigging next season 
and on and on. The initial setup is work (and some expense for cheap lumber 
etc.) but it's done only the first year.

The amending and mulching is just my own preference, YMMV. It's a mixed layer 
of screened manure, alfalfa meal, with small amounts of greensand and bone 
meal on top of freshly dug bed, then soaked with dilute fish emulsion, then 
soaked in deeply with water. When dry, redig and mix it all well with the 
dirt. Repeat if necessary, then mulch and keep soil from drying completely. 
Some would use blood meal or kelp meal or rock dusts, or turn under a cover 
crop to begin with. I'm not going to irrigate a cover crop on our little well 
tho.

My amendment costs are very low since the manure component is free. The hay 
mulch is free from feed stores that pile up loose, spoiled hay for horse 
owners to haul off. Forget weed seeds. Decent hay isn't full of weeds, and 
they cut and bale it before it goes to seed. And it doesn't blow off the beds 
in high wind like straw does.

I simply reason that the aged manure has lost its nitrogen and the high N 
fish emulsion kick starts the biological breakdown process. The alfalfa meal 
(high N + minerals) decomposes over the season and the whole moist soil mix 
starts working on the minerals in the greensand, bone meal and alfalfa. The 
mulch and moisture is essential to keep the biological activity at a high 
level. The organic matter ensures moisture retentive, loose draining soil 
right away, nothing like the dry dirt it was. I get good production from 
immediate planting in these beds, better the second season without redigging. 
Next year it gets a thin layer of more or less the same mix on top, remulched 
and soaked in.

Now this is for bone dry, uncultivated ground that grows nothing but rabbit 
brush around here. Different conditions would call for variations.  Still, 
few places have good soil structure already with high (5% or better) organic 
matter levels and the trace minerals from these amendments.

We heard so many market customers (and some of the market growers) say the 
bugs, wind, heat, or drought got their squash or whatever. Of course. They 
tilled, fertilized, watered, and weeded till they dropped, and got poor 
production. Nothing is as frustrating as watering and weeding bare ground day 
after day in this hot dry wind. We're running 90-95 this week, no rain for a 
month now; before that it was Nov. not counting a little snow.

Small scale production like this can feed a lot of people even in a dry 
climate. We should have thousands in NM growing and using free organic 
wastes, but we don't. Is it sustainable? Well, we're not wasting thousands of 
acre feet of aquifer water growing grain or hay for beef, and we're recycling 
waste, and we're turning unused ground into healthy, food producing soil, and 
selling locally. And with such low costs, it IS a profitable sideline. Even 
with $4 gas to get to markets.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 6/16/2008 at 5:40 AM E. E. Mitchamore Jr wrote:

>Paul: I don't recall ever seeing how "tall" you build your raised beds.
>Certainly you have said, but please repeat: You place amendments
>under/around transplants?  What about for seeds?
>
>We've been unusually hot and dry here in May & June and my gardens are
>wanting more water than I expected, so it's clear that my soils aren't
>"there" yet.  I haven't found the perfect mulch for my situation and
>location (meaning nearly no effort or cost).
>
>E. E. "Mitch" Mitchamore
>www.hillcountrynatives.biz
>  ----- Original Message -----
>  From: Tradingpost
>  To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
>  Sent: Monday, June 16, 2008 12:33 AM
>  Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Ten Acres Enough
>
>
>
>  5 acres or whatever, some of his principles apply to smaller and larger
>parcels. Two Rodale Press books I have go into further detail on intensive
>growing. We misunderstand Jeavons if we think he was creating a
>one-size-fits-all model for the whole population. Ditto for Morris. For
>example, I work to adapt methods from all writers I've run into. But I
>don't double dig; I don't compost; I don't do cover crops; I don't use a
>tiller. But I do build healthy soil, use permanent beds, and concentrate
>amendments, water, and labor on growing beds instead of wasting it on
>aisles between. In those beds I plant intensively, mulch, and double crop,
>and I hold costs way down and get retail prices at growers markets. And we
>produce very large amounts on one-sixth of an acre. All by hand. With
>similar methods a younger couple could make a good living on one whole
>acre. And we're in a dry climate with a short season. And we're far from
>the only ones.
>
>  The point of these books is, we can do far more in less space than we
>once thought, if we don't dismiss the whole project as ridiculous and
>never try. The day is coming when those of us who do it will get
>ridiculously high prices for our work.
>
>  paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>
>  *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>
>  On 6/15/2008 at 4:22 PM bruce smith wrote:
>
>  >the book was ok.. It doesn't deal within the natural world though.. 89%
>of
>  >people do not nor will the ever have 10 acres of land..
>  >Does anyone know of books that teach folks to grow on less..Not Jeavons
>  >books either, because he is 5 acres..that can't be realized in this
>modern
>  >age.
>  >
>  >On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 8:31 AM, TamesonOB <tamesonob@metrocast.net>
>wrote:
>  >
>  >> I LOVED!!!! this book. I have reread it 4 times. I think it's
>profoundly
>  >> better than anything the Nearings ever wrote (similar vein) IMNSHO. I
>  >> highly
>  >> recommend this book - I sound like I'm on reading rainbow or something
>  >but
>  >> it really is a super book.
>  >>
>  >> Tameson in NH
>  >>
>
>
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