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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] new ideas in growing

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: "John D'hondt" <dhondt@eircom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] new ideas in growing
  • Date: Wed, 4 Dec 2013 19:41:19 -0000

Our main problem is very low light intensity in winter. It is usually a matter of getting suitable species in the ground by the end of September and then they will slowly keep on growing until Spring and usually produce greens for picking in the worst of conditions. This year we could not get the summer crops in before the end of October. And I now have all sorts of seedlings about 3 inches high. Much too small to do much before next Spring.
Turnips, kale (especially red Russian), some Asian greens but not all, miners lettuce are otherwise quite reliable.
Spinach and arugula would be a waste of time here even when planted in time. What thrives best here at the moment are dandelion leaves. Some of the plants are even flowering now. Some of the traditional summer crops are hanging on well for now even when we had a good bit of night frost.
John

I'm all for new ideas in growing, and I use some myself, some from
successful growers like Eliot Coleman/Barbara Damrosch (Four Seasons
Harvest book). But we need to hear how some trending systems actually
work out in practice - minus the hype about them. Like community
gardens, how many participants stayed with it to harvest anything
worthwhile. And biochar - where's the scientific analysis of inputs and
effects? Organic hydroponics - but don't they find the organic solutions
need changing too often? How about aquaponics? Do startup costs doom any
hope of profitable outputs? Or not?

What almost all wannabe experts skip over is the basic principles of how
to grow sustainably and profitably, whether for home use or market. Not
surprising if they just don't know how themselves. It's called getting
the cart before the horse. Like anyone else we've had to refine
marketing strategy for ourselves, little good advice out there to be
had. I have a whole library on growing and see endless articles online,
but only a very few turn out to be very useful for my own work. Top two
techniques for us: growing in permanent beds, from Jeavons, and covering
winter beds (with plastic sheeting) INside a greenhouse, from Eliot
Coleman. I've added one trick of my own just now, light bulbs under
cover to add a little heat at low cost to inside beds. So far the
spinach, kale, arugula and Asian greens look luscious. Test comes this
week when outside hits single digits (or lower by New Years).

paul tradingpost@lobo.net




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