Market Farming

["Beth Spaugh" <lists AT rhomestead.com>]

This talk of mulching pathways reminds of a different approach to vegetable farming. I know of a longtime successful veg farmer on very hilly land. He makes his "fields" 25 feet up/down the hill and up to 300+ feet long. He plants up/down, only 25 foot rows.  Once plants are planted, all weeding is handwork, but they seem to have it under control. I keep thinking of adopting this because it would help control my overplanting. Can reduce the amount of land is aisles.  Not for narrow plastic, but could work with wide landscape cloth.

 

Beth Spaugh

Rehoboth Homestead, Peru, NY

Farm Fresh Food Club CSA - http://rhomestead.com 

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From: market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org [mailto:market-farming-bounces AT lists.ibiblio.org] On Behalf Of Steve Gilman
Sent: Monday, February 21, 2011 1:36 PM
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Market-farming Digest, Vol 97, Issue 43

Hi all,

Here's a write-up of a "biostrip intercropping" method developed back in the 1990's that uses between-the-bed pathways as a resource for mulch material and an ongoing habitat and pollen and nectar food supply to breed up beneficial insects for definitive biocontol of pests.

http://scnyat.cce.cornell.edu/vegfruit/articles/biostrip.htm

best,

Steve

On Feb 21, 2011, at 1:22 PM, market-farming-request AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:23:33 -0500
From: Benjamin Shute <benjamin AT heartyroots.com>
To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: [Market-farming] mulching pathways
Message-ID:
<AANLkTikz9J-iwtojjyeTLmhy+Q_3oFhWciQd=kwADiKW AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

On our 20 cultivated acres we sow dutch white clover and perennial ryegrass
between our plastic mulch beds (which are flat beds not raised beds).  We
mow them regularly--  when we were using a cheapo push lawn mower we needed
to mow almost weekly or else the weeds would get big enough that it would be
a nightmare to mow.  Now we have a walk-behind string trimmer that lets us
mow once every two weeks, and can do a good job getting the weeds that sneak
up next to the edge of the mulch because the string trimmer can reach over
the edge without tearing the plastic (usually).

I know of a large organic veggie farm that straw mulches between plastic
mulch, but they have large equipment to make their own straw and to shred it
into the paths.  They still end up hand weeding their paths when weeds poke
through.  But they also say they get a huge fertility boost in following
years from the contributions of the straw.

--Ben

--
Hearty Roots Community Farm
P.O. Box 277
Tivoli, NY 12583
(845) 943-8699