Market Farming

[John Wages <jwages AT earthlink.net>]

Take a look at Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway.  The techniques he
describes for sheetmulching work very well and are probably the least
labor-intensive method for bringing new ground into cultivation that I
know of.  The downside is that you may not be able to plant into the
beds without layering on some finished compost or good soil until the
2nd year.  If you are starting now, you could perhaps hope the beds
would be ready by spring.  These are classic permaculture techniques: 
how to grow food with minimal disturbance to soil ecology.

If your plots have been compacted in the past by construction, traffic
(including lots of foot traffic), double-digging may be helpful.  Check
out John Jeavon's How to Grow More Vegetables.  I don't recommend
double-digging except under certain circumstances such as heavily
compacted soil or perhaps as the initial once-and-only-once step of
starting a new garden bed.  Short of chemical farming, repeated heavy
tillage is pretty damaging to soil microflora and fauna.

Another good method that is not labor intensive is to use "chicken
tractors" to pen chickens over the beds.  We have used this method on a
very small scale (4 pens that were each 4 x 8 ft. with 10-12 hens per
pen), to make a few beds without any tillage at all on previously
uncultivated ground.  Let the chickens stay confined in the same place
with plenty of fresh bedding added every couple of days.  Over a month
or two, you will build up a deep layer of well-mixed bedding (straw in
our case) and chicken manure.

A combination of initial tillage with subsequent zero tillage + sheet
composting using clean municipal greenwaste is probably your best
option.  Check previous threads in this list for potential hazards due
to persistent herbicides; our local greenwaste from a community of
40,000 has pieces of plastic and broken glass---we try to catch loads of
grass clippings and especially fall leaves before the city-managed
composting process begins, then we do our own sheet mulching with these
fairly clean materials.  Cover cropping (as described by Hemenway and
many others) is excellent, but may not be necessary in your situation if
you have ready access to lots of greenwaste.

One idea that intrigues me is the use of compost tea (not "manure tea"
but a specially cultured material made from compost cultured under
aerobic conditions to expand the populations of bacteria and fungi; see
www.soilfoodweb.com for more info.) in combination with sheet mulching
to move the process along a bit faster.  It is possible that the compost
tea could seed the sheet mulched beds with the appropriate soil
microorganisms so that beds would be ready for planting sooner.  This is
speculative, of course.

If you don't know about Ruth Stout's books, such as The Ruth Stout
No-Work Garden Book that describes permanently mulched beds, check it
out.

John Wages
Calceterra Farm
Tupelo, MS

Grow19 AT aol.com wrote:
> 
> Hi Farming Friends,
> 
> I'm a lurker on the list, director of a community & youth gardening
> nonprofit in Washington DC.  I thought I'd turn to you all for some
> good advice.
> 
> I'm advising the startup of a new community garden -- its about
> 50'x200', may 1/3 again larger than that; flat, currently growing a
> bountiful crop of weeds.
> 
> I'm looking for practical, low-cost, plan for preparing the soil.
>  There are SO many options, but some cost more than others, some are
> ready for planting sooner than others, etc.  For example, the
> rototilling and amending plan which would cost more and take a long
> time to do.
> 
> I think this group might be a great candidate for a no-till option in
> which they start by mowing down the weeds, smothering the weeds
> (advice please), then 'building' soil by layering up the least costly
> ingredients (composted leaves, soil, manure/sawdust mix, straw, etc --
> advice please!), then letting it sit and settle over the winter, for
> planting in the spring.
> 
> I would really like your advice on this.
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Judy Tiger
> Garden Resources of Washington
> Washington, DC 20009
> grow19 AT aol.com
> ... building community, revitalizing neighborhoods, and educating
> youth through community and youth gardens ...
> 
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