Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Hamlet, I am opinionated but very far from all the answers. But from recent 
years with this I can outline the parameters. This is a subject few have 
ventured into, but many should share their perspectives on it. It is 
critically important IMHO. My efforts have focused on how much can be 
produced and sold from one sixth of an acre, in a three-four month frost free 
season, starting with poor soil, little rainfall, and very low investment. My 
results are surprisingly encouraging, but on to the parameters in general.

I'm not the best grower either (and I don't know trees or brambles) but I 
study many books and other sources and still make too many mistakes - (but 
not more than once). Whether we can grow enough for a year at home depends on 
several constraints:

garden layout, rows or permanent beds
varieties of produce,
tools, equipment and cost,
season extension techniques and cost,
soil health, amendments and costs,
irrigation needs and costs,
physical energy and simple skills,
knowledge of growing types of produce,
timing of planting and harvesting etc.,

You can think of more. Producing more at lower cost and less work is the 
general idea, of course. I do grow without chemicals or fossil fuel inputs. 
I'm retired with free time but at 67 not the energy of a 19 year old. Growing 
in permanent beds, raised or not, allows amendments, water, and mulch to be 
concentrated on the growing soil, not the aisles - which saves work and money 
on each of those. It also does away with the need to till up a whole area 
each year, and bed soil doesn't get compacted by feet and doesn't need annual 
tilling. I use hand tools. It helps to be on a well without a water bill in 
arid climate. It helps to have free aged horse manure and hay mulch nearby, 
and reasonably priced phosphate and alfalfa meal from a garden supply to 
build up healthy bed soil. Shovel and wheelbarrow (and old pickup truck) are 
adequate for this. The short season challenge requires a greenhouse for warm 
weather varieties like our tomatoes and sweet peppers, and for starting many 
flats of everything for transplant after frost in late May. A commercial 
greenhouse would eat up profits to pay off. I build with cheap cull lumber 
from Home Depot, same stuff to frame beds. The cheapest way to cover is with 
6 mil UV roll plastic stapled to wood frame thru a plastic strip called 
Polytack (yes, petroleum products). This takes some skills and practice, but 
it stands up to very heavy winds and snow load. All wood screws and hurricane 
ties help, and good ladders.

Others recommend that beginners start small. Try a little of everything you 
might want to grow, and get a "feel" for it's growth habit, how to space 
plants, how long they take to produce, and keep careful records of all that 
(I keep too much in my head). To expand, don't take on more than you can do 
properly - doing without tiller or hoophouse expense. Save with hand tools 
and you don't have the expense of a fitness program. But above all, learn 
your soil and climate and adapt, adapt, adapt. This can't be done on a few 
weekends. Walk the garden every day and learn to be observant and see things 
you never noticed before. Work smart, not hard, by finding workarounds and 
easier methods of doing things (good soaker hoses let me water beds on a 
clipboard schedule in rotation while planting, weeding, harvesting etc.). 
THIS is where it pays off to be ruthless with your planning and learning.

For home use stick with things you like to eat, nothing exotic. Learn 
stocking up techniques. Try bookfinder.com for books on canning, freezing, 
cellaring, drying. But don't even think of growing if you can't cook what you 
grow. Here's a good book (bookfinder.com): From Asparagus to Zucchini, a 
guide to cooking farm-fresh seasonal produce, 3rd.ed.

For the growing:
Getting The Most From Your Garden, Rodale Press
High-Yield Gardening, Rodale Press.
And of course anything from John Jeavons.

Finally, for growing to be rewarding takes practice, just like basketball or 
medicine. It's work, and it's honest, honorable work and good for the body 
and spirit. How much you eat from it depends ultimately on how much you put 
into the planning.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net