permaculture

["Anne Erlandson" <aerlandson1972@hotmail.com>]

LL,

I've got a couple of acres that are in abandoned pasture and weeds 
(blackberry, thistle and canary reed grass) that I'm going to want to 
prepare for food production and I was interested in the methods you 
mentioned in your last post.  Are there any books that describe these 
methods in more detail, describing for example how to determine how much 
rock dust the soil can hold and when to apply it, what the "maximum 
allowable quantities" of manure are for a particular piece of land etc.  
Basically, what the 12 month sequence to prepare land in this way would be.

Thanks!

Anne in Seattle

LL wrote:

Grow what can be grown in any particular season locally for local 
distribution
and consumption. Only import essentials like citrus
and apples.

Untold tons of farm wastes are * going * to * waste *. Manure, hay, silage,
other ag waste products: get it from local sources and apply it
in maximum allowable quantities on land to be put in production; same with 
rock
dusts from quarries: put it on by the hundreds of tons,
as much as soil will allow. Jump start land this way then add no more than
occasional top dressing and cover crops tilled under or sheet
mulched from then on or as needed by market operations growing heavy 
feeders.

Till, extensively, once, after adding amendments, then no more or with 
rarely
with minimally invasive equipment.

1) Apply amendments
2) bottom plow, Yeomans plow, cultivate with tillage tool, rotovate
(tractor-mounted rototiller), hill and/or bed - make raised beds (46")
   with hiller/bedder implement [Roll-A-Cone makes the best one available].

Do this once then plant and tilth/cultivate minimally, with hand tools, or
notill, for the next hundreds of years.
Walking paths, drainage channels and water impoundment is achieved along 
with
bed preparation.
3 acres of land can be turned into productive raised growing beds within one
year this way, permanent tilth, compaction never again.

I have achieved this on my land and have some of the finest garden dirt in 
North
Carolina. I spent longer than 12 months in preparation but
could have done it in that amount of time.

LL
--
L.F.London
lfl@intrex.net
http://market-farming.com
http://www.ibiblio.org/ecolandtech

_________________________________________________________________
Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search! 
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/