permaculture

["Lawrence F. London, Jr." <lfl@intrex.net>]

Raquel & Greg wrote:
> Hi all.  As some of you may remember, I started marketing my own organic 
> brown rice this year.  The reasons we took the leap are many--wanting to 
> escape the commodity system, wanting more connection with consumers, 
> tired of letting other companies put their name on my rice, etc.  One of 
> the great benefits of doing this has been the feedback I get from people 
> who have eaten my rice, because they love it.  People regularly tell me 
> that it is the best rice they've ever had, and didn't know rice could 
> taste like that.

How can I buy 2 25 lb. bags or 1 50 lb. from you and get it shipped to me
here in North Carolina?

> This is great, but now I want to figure out why, so that I can repeat 
> it!  One reason could be that I let our rice mature and dry down in the 
> field, as opposed to the normal practice of cutting it green and drying 
> it with air and heat in the bin.  Like tree-ripened fruit, I think it 
> allows the flavor to more fully evolve.

That's probably it.

> But could there be more?  Some organic farmers swear that soil nutrition 
> plays a huge role in making sweet peaches, for example.  Charles 
> Benbrook refers to a "dilution effect" caused by nitrate fertilizers 
> that essentially waters down nutrient levels and flavors.  The article 
> below shows that "specific genes have surprisingly different expression 
> levels in the grain endosperm when nitrogen is supplied either in an 
> organic or an inorganic form."
>  
> Does anyone know of any more work in this field, especially with 
> grains?  What do the rest of you do to grow tasty produce?  Does flavor 
> correlate with nutritive value?  I'd also like to hear any general 
> thoughts on the topic.

Great topic. I grow vegetable crops on four acres using a finely tuned grid 
of raised beds
that cover slopes, curves and flat terrain. This system of parallel rows of 
beds has water/erosion breaks/dams every
50-150 feet to contain rainfall and prevent erosion. Half of the beds are very tall with deep furrows between and the 
other half are lower and wider with shallower furrows but with more growing area and less water impoundment between 
them. So, I get a lot of free irrigation and almost no loss of nutrients and micronutrients to runoff or leaching.
When the furrows fill with rainfall and runoff from the tops of the beds this 
water will be absorbed laterally
back into the beds before going into the subsoil. So, I keep my nutrients on 
site and recycle them.

The equipment in the order used:

1) Yeomans Plow
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/Yeomans-Plow-2.jpg
2) Bottom plow
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/HowardRotavator-50inch.jpg
3) Howard Rotavator
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/HowardRotavator-50inch.jpg
     (there's a pile of quarry rock dust in the background)
4) Tillage tool/spring tooth field cultivator
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/bottomplow-tillagetool-YeomansPlowToolbar.jpg
5) Hiller-bedder with chisel plow shanks
http://market-farming.com/farmpix/raisedbeds/hiller-bedder-3.jpg

Maintenance involves always using 5) and often 3) and occasionally 1)

I grow a lot of "sustainably-grown" spinach each year. Stores I have sold to 
have told me their customers have
commented on its good flavor. A world traveller gourmet diner friend told be that my spinach was the very best he has 
eaten, anywhere, ever. My arugula, lettuce, squash, cilantro and collards also have exceptional flavor.
My crops also look great with robust color, size and yield. I get excellent germination, rapid growth, drought 
resistance, almost no insect predation and no fungal or bacterial diseases or blight of any kind so far.

I think the good flavor of my produce is due to:

1) The extensive use of finely ground rock dusts from rock quarries as soil 
amendments:
When I have manure or compost to put on the gardens I always mix it 50%-50% 
with rock dusts before applying
with a skid loader along the tops of the beds; I then rototill it all in - this leaves the rock dust in the top 12-16" 
of the soil.

I have applied hundreds of tons of this over 4 acres:

Quarry #1 - volcanic tuff (basalt?)
Quarry #2 - granite (grom grey rock with the little reflective sparklies)
Quarry #3 - other powdered grey granite
Quarry #4 - pyrophyllite screenings (an aggregate no larger than 200 mesh 
containing some talcum; .2% potash)

I have noticed that the root systems of my crops are huge and penetrate very deeply. Today I pulled a half inch carrot 
with a 3" taproot and a 3' turnip green plant. The extensive rosette of fine feeder roots that develop on most of my 
crop plants is astounding. If plants are spaced correctly with plenty of room, light and water they will grow to 
enormous size.

Some of these rock powders are so fine that when put into solution with water it turns cloudy and stays that way for 
quite a while. Some people living in high country near Hunza area drink white/grey cloudy water from pure, clean cold 
mountain streams. A high percentage of them live to a hundred and beyond, in robust good health.

2) adequate, balanced plant nutrition using a wide variety of soil amendments 
that include:

manures: chicken, cow and horse, some goat

compost: weed and crop plowdown, baled hay (grass and weeds; broomstraw makes 
the very best for mulch)
This coming year I will be mulching about an acre of beds for tomatoes, potatoes and peppers with unrolled new round 
bales of broomstraw hay.

aragonite, high calcium limestone, azomite, alfalfa meal, blood meal, dried 
kelp seaweed meal, rock phosphate,
colloidal phosphate from: Idaho, NC Black, Tenessee, Florida rock & Florida colloidal [CalPhos]) New Jersey Greensand, 
crab meal, fish meal, dolomitic limestone

3) highly aerated, highly mineralized, well drained raised bed culture of 
crops, eventually highly biologically active
once I kick the rotovator habit (when I have reduced the weed seed bank to the point that I can get a food crop rather 
than more humus from having to till everything under to keep the weeds from going to seed.)

4) I haven't tried enhanced compost tea (Soil Foodweb recommended), EM or IM or Gil Carandang's methods but I feel this 
will eventually be necessary and will make a huge difference in crop flavor and yield.

LL
--
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
Venaura Farm
lfl@intrex.net
info@market-farming.com
IM: lawrence.london@pandion.be & lfl@amber.org.uk
Market Farming
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