Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Wood chips take too long to decompose and use up available nitrogen, which 
forces you to add it in some form to grow crops, and that can get expensive. 
Plowing under mulch at seasons end means plowing under browns which need 
added nitrogen, and it means plowing which exposes soil humus to more air and 
degrades your soil organic matter levels. Running faster to keep up. Of 
course I use hay. Straw is too light and blows off in one day. I get a few 
"weeds" but I'd be nuts to fear alfalfa growing in my beds. It fixes soil 
nitrogen and deep roots bring up subsoil minerals and add organic matter to 
the soil. Fact is, most hay doesn't have much weed seed, or shouldn't, and 
hay is usually cut and baled before it goes to seed. I grew up with hay and 
it's just not full of weeds. The hay I get is the free loose stuff around the 
sheds at feed stores. After applying it I do water it in once or twice. I 
don't mess with it on windy days anyway.

You're concerned about getting enough hay and how to spread it and what to do 
with it in the fall. Why do anything with it? If you can't get enough hay or 
it's too much area to spread, then you're working too much land. Intensive 
vegetable production can make a ton of money on little land, and if you make 
the learning curve you can do it without machinery, fertilizer, pesticide, 
fungicide, or paid labor. And keep your costs ridiculously low. I do. 
Fertilizer has tripled in the past year.

Most farmers understand their profit is what's left after all their costs. 
But they don't believe they can hold costs to a bare minimum on small plots 
and sell retail and clear 90% profit. They're caught in the cost-price 
squeeze. By selling retail direct, you can make a good sideline income (I do 
even at my age) or a good living on very little land without heavy debt for 
startup capital, given fairly acceptable climate, soil, and markets. Or you 
can go dead broke on a thousand acres, as millions of farm familes have done 
over the years. Get big or get out is the worst advice USDA ever put out. I'd 
string 'em up without trial.

Don't try to use big farmers methods on small plots. They want you to because 
they want you out of business.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 7/3/2008 at 7:48 AM mcoldiron wrote:

>Sorry I got the Subject wrong on the last post.
>
>Paul, let's talk about mulch a little.  You say don't use wood chips and
>don't plow mulch in at the end of the season.  Is there something wrong
>with
>wood chips?  Why not plow mulch in at the end of the season?  How can you
>use hay with all the seeds?  Won't you just get a lot of hay growing in
>your
>garden?  I can see straw maybe, but that's not available that I can find.
>When you say yours doesn't blow away, how is that possible?  Does yours
>comes from round bales?  Do you water it in such that it makes a mat?  Is
>your garden protected from the wind?
>
>You say - do it small and then work up.  I agree to some extent, but a lot
>of the problems I run into only show up when going larger.  To me the
>purpose of trying something is to find the problems to see if they can be
>worked out.  Anyone can grow an organic garden if it's small enough.
>Larger
>gives rise to questions like "Where do I get this much hay?" and "How do I
>haul it?" and "Now that I have it, how do I spread it around?" and "What
>do
>I do with all that hay at the end of the season, plow it under?" you get
>the
>picture.  Larger brings up the "real" questions.
>
>TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
>West Texas Zone 7b
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
>To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
>Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 12:07 AM
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] pickup trucks?
>
>
>>
>> Ken is right that the principles are the same. Trying to reduce tillage
>is
>> a good start. I'd add this: your climate is not suitable for some crops,
>> and even if you can manage to grow them it'll be unprofitable. Hauling
>> water costs too much. Forget wood chips, and you don't plow under your
>> mulch whatever it is. BTW I'm using loose, spoiled hay and it does not
>> blow away, even with our frequent 50 mph winds. Dryland farming probably
>> won't help you; our winds just blow loose dust into the next county. The
>> last thing you want is to lose what topsoil you have.
>>
>> Mark, I don't know how much land you're trying to work into organic
>> vegetables. Best to start small and make small mistakes. By small I
>don't
>> mean a few acres. I mean a few square feet. When you learn to grow in a
>> postage stamp garden then you learn what it takes to grow in a larger
>> area. How large? I make a good sideline income market growing on one
>sixth
>> of an acre. And I have a much higher gross and net, per square foot,
>than
>> most any large farmer. If you're younger and have more startup capital
>> then you may be able to work it into a full time income.
>>
>> There are a few rules of thumb we've worked out and verified in practice
>> ourselves. Retail, like growers markets for example, or farmstands.
>> Wholesale puts you at the mercy of the middleman who pits one grower
>> against another to pay him the lowest price. Grow what will sell
>locally,
>> grow what people normally buy in the store, not what you think you'd
>like
>> to grow. Not globe artichokes. Limit yourself to higher value crops for
>> the ground space they require and the labor they need. Not watermelons.
>> Grow in permanent beds (not necessarily raised or framed) with permanent
>> aisles to walk on, and plant intensively as explained in books on that
>> I've mentioned before. With smaller root crops you get far more
>production
>> per square foot than with wide tractor rows. With larger plants you
>don't
>> get the same increase, but by growing in permanent beds you still make
>the
>> gains from not compacting the soil by walking on it. I do this and it
>just
>> a better way from every standpoint. I can go
>> into a lot more detail on these methods with documentation, including
>> mulch issues.
>>
>> Now, crop selection is up to you, and whether you will double crop,
>> irrigate some way, and so forth. How you extend your growing season is
>up
>> to you, whether you grow starts or buy them, spend for low tunnels or
>hoop
>> houses, and so forth. Your aim will be to hold down costs relative to
>your
>> total gross income, obviously, because the difference is your pay. This
>is
>> just a broad outline. BTW none of these methods are original; they've
>all
>> been done and described in many places for many years.
>>
>>
>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>>
>> On 7/2/2008 at 3:19 PM mcoldiron wrote:
>>
>>>I'm trying to move toward organic vegetable farming as much as possible.
>>>I
>>>still till the soil like a regular farmer, but am trying to find a way
>not
>>>to do it so much and conserve water.  I live in a very hot and arid part
>>>of
>>>west Texas with an annual rainfall of 18 inches or less.  The soil is a
>>>sandy loam.  Due to the unpredictable rain here I want to try using mulch
>>>and drip irrigation.  The well water isn't good, so it'll have to be
>>>hauled
>>>in.
>>>
>>>I have questions about mulch?  It's so windy here until the end of June,
>>>that anything other than wood chips will just blow away.  Can I use wood
>>>chips for mulch?  If so, what will that do when I plow them under each
>>>year?
>>>Will their decomposition tie up the Nitrogen so I can't grow anything for
>>>a
>>>year or two?  What about planting, won't the chips interfere with the
>>>planter?  Sure could use some very basic "been there done that" advice.
>>>
>>>Thanks
>>>TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
>>>West Texas Zone 7b
>>>
>>
>>
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