Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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

Yes, soil is the first thing. Minus healthy soil it's all uphill and probably 
disappointing. And if - or when - millions more get desperate to grow at home 
they'll mostly have limited space. That's the bottleneck Solomon didn't 
anticipate before the economy went south, when he urged using more space 
instead of intensive growing. Before 2007 we did anticipate hard times soon 
while others were still taking out second mortgages to buy RVs. So we focused 
on growing more in less space, with encouragement from Jeavons' and Ikerd's 
publications. Besides it's always hard to get larger fields for growing.

And in my view too many small growers have tried the industrial style with 
expensive tractors, commercial fertilizers, paid labor, and selling 
wholesale, and can't break even. And the cost-price squeeze. Big farms are 
caught between corporate input costs and corporate middlemen buyers (ADM, 
ConAgra etc.), and nobody goes into big farming today. Average age of these 
farmers today is retirement age. And they claim you need a couple million to 
even get started. Which is probably why high school FFA is stuck with show 
animals.

It was drummed into farmers that you have to "get big or get out". But whole 
field cultivation of vegetables with its single rows and wide aisles is an 
incredible waste of space and all the expensive inputs. It's done that way 
for one reason: the distance between tractor tires sets the row spacing. All 
the implements are made for that spacing. Standardized implements got started 
by Jethro Tull (that was his name) 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/tull_jethro.shtml

There are variations on space and input saving intensive growing, and none of 
them call for two million dollars to start. Do the math. Permanent beds and 
aisles are more space and input efficient whether raised or framed or just 
ground level marked off with stakes. Affordable seeders and tillers can be 
used on ground level beds (tho I don't). Amending, mulching, irrigating or 
cultivating the ground we walk on between growing beds would be a dead loss. 
And if we don't compact growing soil with feet or heavy tractors we can get 
away from tilling it up every season. This way inputs go down, profit margin 
goes up. No big machinery needed. It's more manual labor but that saves on 
gym memberships and health care. What about big field crops that can't be 
grown this way? Forget amber waves of grain; most of it goes to cattle anyway 
(or HFCS) and we don't need meat three times a day.

These aren't my insights but others like John Ikerd
http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj
http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/
John Jeavons
http://www.growbiointensive.org/publications_main.html

paul tradingpost@lobo.net


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

On 11/24/2010 at 7:26 AM pbunch@cox.net wrote:

>I was just thinking that sometimes our perceptions are affected by recent
>events and longer term records might provide some guidance as time goes
>along. I like your focus on quality and flavor, When you are working with
>limited space it seems that "efficiency" also would be a high priority.
>There are a lot of variables.
>
>Once we get our soils up to snuff we will probably be selling some of our
>produce. I have found this discussion very interesting.
>
>
>---- Tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net> wrote:
>>
>> No we don't. To me, growing conditions and methods have a lot more to do
>with yield than particular varieties, and all that varies from year to
>year. We don't keep exact records on variety sales any more since we can
>see what sells well, and that varies a lot from week to week.  We do try
>to avoid crops that take a lot of space for the revenue they bring, like
>melons.
>>
>> Actually yield isn't our first priority but flavor and quality which
>keeps repeat customers coming back when there's a lot of competition
>(samples help), and one of our markets has 60-70 produce sellers
>competing. We usually price higher than some others but discount some for
>larger purchases or the disabled, which would skew sales records. Besides
>we stay busy enough selling and restocking the tables.
>>
>> The more important part is guessing how much of each type will sell over
>the season, and planting for continuous harvest the whole time. You don't
>want to have way more of one thing than you can sell in two weeks and then
>little or none of that the rest of the time.
>>
>> paul tradingpost@lobo.net
>>
>> *********** REPLY SEPARATOR  ***********
>>
>> On 11/23/2010 at 7:50 AM pbunch@cox.net wrote:
>>
>> >Paul:
>> >
>> >Do you keep yield and sales records per variety?
>> >
>> >Phil Bunch