Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[tradingpost <tradingpost@lobo.net>]

I don't see how much can grow to harvest in those conditions. But as we say, don't put all your eggs in one basket, so evidently when you have enough variety there something will still make it.

Seems every year we try something that turns out a waste of space, but other things keep producing and selling. We try to ramp up whatever people wanted last year, but also try to grow new foods to have more they can't resist and so sell more. Doesn't always work. What really tastes great and sells doesn't always justify the space and effort it takes, yet some customers expect them so it's a dilemma. Like our Marconi sweet peppers. We still have some under cover in one greenhouse bed, but not enough to baby through the coldest months. As perennials they might regrow come spring. Snow cover here for 2 weeks now and I woke up to -10 F this morning and won't go out all day. Which things will survive is only a guess.

paul

On 12/5/2013 12:57 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Just 52 N latitude Paul. But it is a rather special climate. Any storm from the West, the Atlantic ocean, and we get salt water dumped on us, six miles inland. The average monthly temperature differs only 9 degrees C between the warmest and the coldest. But differences can be much higher in any single day. I mean you can get up in the morning and find everything frozen stiff and half an hour later it can be 20 C  which we would consider warm. Many crops can't take these fast changes.

We had 3 weeks in June this year that the temperature broke records at 32 degrees C, about 6 degrees warmer than anything we had experienced here before. One more sign that things are changing.

 

We used to cut turf/peat here in Spring but in the last ten years there was not one year that we would have been able to dry this turf. In 2011 we never saw the sun two days in a row before September. In 2012 we had constant rain and all our land flooded 6 times. This year the Spring was too cold (temperature never moving above 6C), too wet or too dry. From one extreme to the other and crops just sat there without growing much. It seems to be getting worse from year to year and it is only because we have a huge variety of crops that we did not have a complete failure yet.

 

One extra disadvantage of low light intensities and plenty of moisture is that greenhouses and poly tunnels develop a green algae cover every few weeks.

 

And what  I see more of every year too are "chemtrails". Most people here are still convinced this is a conspiracy theory but I am inclined to belief the evidence in front of my eyes. Yesterday we started with a beautiful blue sky and then I noticed three planes at high altitude flying on parallel courses but staggered at about 10 plane lengths. The "contrails " they left after them stayed and turned into what looked like a mile wide white band with sharp edges and as long as the eye could see. An hour later this white band was still there but by then there were other lines at 90 degrees to this first one. And soon afterwards all the blue was gone from the sky. Today we had the normal dark cloud cover all day with a little drizzle. It would make one SAD.

 

John

Now that's a hard climate, John. You're around 53 N latitude? I'm about 35.

On 12/4/2013 4:57 PM, John D'hondt wrote:

Same here and with a little bit of good weather we grow good crops. Living under a constant cloud for 6 months and never seeing the sun or the moon crops are not so good.

John