Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Colossal garlic, true garlic but larger, red shallots (I think the French
grey is the only other kind), and fingerling and Yukon Gold potatoes. Don't
know if the potato yield will justify the bed space yet, but they both will
be priced at $4 lb or $5 lb. The garlic and shallots brought $1 each last
season. Going on our third market season here, getting more and more from
less than a quarter acre, all framed permanent beds. With a great source
for aged horse manure (thanks to a friend), I put it through a quarter inch
screen and work into the top 2 or 3 inches with alfalfa meal, greensand,
rock phosphate. Also using the screened manure as a thin mulch till we find
affordable spoiled hay. Unusual? But so far it does keep hot sun off the
bed surface. We're trying snow peas again in spite of being semi-desert
here, and the unthinkable - brussels sprouts. However the nantes carrots
are germinating but need daily sprinkling with the hot wind. The challenge
is trying to stagger seeding or transplanting some of the crops to keep up
constant supply for market July thru Sept. I'm afraid a lot of it is
guesswork, even with the best information on time to maturity. I fear for
the newbies who will need to grow to eat, and think dumb farmers can do it
so it must be easy - right?

Sounds like you have two exotic potatoes, and isn't the Austrian banana a
fingerling?

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

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

On 5/13/2009 at 11:35 AM Pete Vukovich wrote:

>Curious, what garlic, shallots and potatos are you growing? I'm trying a
>hardneck right now which is the only thing in the garden with yellow leaf
>tips, still could be nitrogen deficient, but seems unlikely, our inca
>purple, austrian bannana potatos on the other hand are definitely turning
>into weeds.
>
>
>--- On Wed, 5/13/09, TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net> wrote:
>
>From: TradingPostPaul <tradingpost@riseup.net>
>Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Organic Vs. Conventional: Have You Been
>Robbed?
>To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
>Date: Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 10:41 AM
>
>
>Just a note on that: We're not certified organic. We don't want to be and
>we don't need any government stamp of approval. No chemicals here, only
the
>best tasting heirlooms we can find grown in the healthiest soil we can
>make, and as a result we get the highest prices at any market where we
>sell. As always we're still learning from mistakes, but we know one thing:
>flavor sells. All varieties are not created equal.  Among our best
tasting:
>Nantes carrots, old Italian tomatoes & basil, Romano pole beans, red
>onions, heirloom shallots, garlic, & winter squash. Potatoes will be iffy
>this year along with snow peas. We'll see.
>
>paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>------------------------------------------
>
>