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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] the personal side of climate challenge

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: Emery Mitchamore <emitch@att.net>
  • To: Healthy soil and sustainable growing <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] the personal side of climate challenge
  • Date: Wed, 9 Dec 2009 07:03:56 -0600

I really appreciate this sort of statement: This is what I'm doing and why.  Even though our circumstances are different, it somehow helps me to develop the reasons and processes necessary for my own actions.  Thank you!

On Dec 8, 2009, at 11:11 PM, Tradingpost wrote:


My recent stress on global warming, or climate change, has a personal angle. A few years back I read that adding decomposed organic matter makes soil more moisture retentive. Also that so-called biointensive produces more in raised beds for more efficient use of limited garden space. At the same time old timers in southwest New Mexico were describing how they used to have deep snow when they were young. They had cattle and grew pinto beans and other crops, but their climate got drier and by the 'forties homesteaders were failing and moving on. Now living farther north, we learned that this valley used to grow a variety of crops and sheep. A railroad ran through hauling pinto beans, livestock, and other crops till 1970. The rails are gone now and only the rail bed can still be seen in spots. Grain elevators sit abandoned. We get, officially, about 10" precip annually. Some corn and alfalfa survives with pivot irrigation, but the upfront investment is formidable and way too muc
h watering is depleting the closed fossil aquifer. And almost nobody gardens.

What can people do to grow food gardens in this climate - which is supposed to be a bigger challenge in more regions with global warming? How can we feed more people with limited land and water? Here's a ready laboratory to try cutting edge methods other growers have promoted.

For some time we've tried on and off building up alkaline soil, or dirt, with aged horse manure, alfalfa meal and minerals and used simple drip irrigation on less than a quarter acre. We've found that's not enough; mulch is needed to conserve moisture. But in such a climate we don't find grass clippings or leaves. That means finding spent stable hay or buying at the going price. At 6200 elev. we're still trying to deal with a four-month frost free season with row covers, with limited success so far. But now in its third year this small garden with raised beds and two homemade greenhouses supplies two farmers markets in season.

There's another market garden a few miles up the highway where they use field equipment to plow and plant, without amendments or mulch. I'm sure it takes a lot more water, sprays, and weed control. Not to mention equipment and paid labor. I needed to know if a market garden could be profitable with very low capital investment and zero paid labor, but with one other limitation: much smaller space, say less than a quarter acre. That way a lot more people could grow. And sure enough, raised framed beds (with equidistant planting) means that more can be produced in less space at lower cost and less labor. You walk on aisles and don't compact the beds (better for roots), so don't need to buy a tiller, and water, amendments, and mulch aren't wasted on the aisles - unlike wasteful tractor rows. It isn't laid out to allow machinery and doesn't need to be.

There is still a learning curve no matter how you produce food crops. Not all our challenges are worked out to reduce labor enough. This is one of the types of growing that needs to be refined for future food security in various challenging climates.


paul tradingpost@lobo.net
listowner






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E. E. "Mitch"  Mitchamore










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