permaculture

[Saor Stetler <saor@ycbtal.net>]

Issue # 61 - January/February 1980

Whether the problem is feeding a hungry world or simply increasing the 
productivity of a small backyard garden, the solution might well be ...


       BIODYNAMIC/FRENCH INTENSIVE GARDENING

STAFF PHOTOS

Back in 1966 Alan Chadwick--an English actor, painter, pianist, and 
master horticulturist-- was offered a chance to demonstrate the 
techniques of biodynamic/French intensive gardening on a barren 
four-acre clay hillside at the University of California's Santa Cruz 
campus. Chadwick tackled the little "desert" (land that was so 
inhospitable that few weeds even grew there) with hand tools, a love for 
the garden that he knew the plot could become, and incredible energy. 
Before long the once dead-looking slope was a veritable paradise of 
vegetables and flowers ... and a beacon that attracted students and 
followers.

Since then, biodynamic/French intensive gardening (often referred to as 
"the method") has slowly gained a reputation among organic gardeners in 
North America ... largely through the efforts of Chadwick and John 
Jeavons (of Ecology Action of the Mid-Peninsula in Stanford, 
California). It was Jeavons who eventually took the technique--which 
Chadwick had synthesized from the intensive gardening practiced in 
turn-of-the-century France and the biodynamic theories developed by 
Rudolf Steiner in early twentieth-century Austria--and subjected it to 
careful modification and testing ... always striving to produce the 
optimum yield from the smallest possible space.

And John's harvests have been little short of amazing! His per-acre 
"method" crop production has, for example, climbed to between four and 
six times that of the average U.S. yield (while, in rare cases, the 
biodynamic/French intensive gardens have produced as much as 31 times 
the national crop average for a given amount of space!). In fact, 
Jeavons has gone so far as to estimate that it would be possible for an 
urban, suburban, or rural gardener to net as much as $10,000 a year from 
the produce that he or she could grow on a scant 1/10 acre!

Furthermore, as if such incredible results weren't enough to recommend 
this revolutionary gardening technique, the biodynamic/French intensive 
system uses no polluting, fuel--demanding tools ... no toxic pesticides 
... and no highly processed chemical fertilizers. In fact, the technique 
actually improves the quality of the soil with each crop that's grown! 
And it does so while using only 1/100 as much energy and 1/8 as much 
water as does commercial agriculture.

HOW IS IT DONE?

All the different facets of "the method" serve to allow the gardener to 
produce as many healthy plants as possible on a given piece of land. The 
raised beds that are characteristic of such gardens, for instance, serve 
several purposes.

First, since the growing areas are wider than are "normal" garden rows 
(approximately five feet ... in order to allow the gardener to each 
plants in the middle without stepping on, and compacting, the soil in 
the bed), less space must be wasted on walkways. The rectangular beds 
are raised from four to 10-inches above the original ground level, too, 
and their edges are angled down at a 45* slope ... effectively providing 
more (curved) surface area than if the same piece of ground were left flat.

Most important of all, though, the beds are "double dug" to a depth of 
two feet (see the accompanying photos for step-by-step digging 
instructions). Because of the resulting deep "cushion" of well-worked 
soil, plants can more easily send their tiny root hairs down to gather 
in the water and nutrition (supplied by compost, ashes, bone meal, and 
other such organic plant foods) that are necessary to healthy, 
insect-resistant, nutritious, delicious vegetables.

The arrangement of the plants on the bed is a bit unusual, too ... at 
least to anyone accustomed to more common gardening techniques. The 
seeds (or flat-started plants) are placed in such a way that the foliage 
of each mature vegetable will just barely touch that of all its 
neighbors ... creating a leafy cover (known as "living mulch") which 
keeps weeds down, helps to moderate the swings of soil temperature, and 
improves the bed's ability to retain water. And, of course, such "close 
quarters" planting is another reason for the gardening technique's 
incredible yields.

It's difficult to give a rule of thumb for plant placement in a 
biodynamic/ French intensive bed. Actually, the spacings recommended on 
seed packets will often work out fine, since the heartier "method" 
--grown adult plants tend to spread farther than do their conventionally 
raised cousins. It's best to simply estimate the diameter of the adult 
vegetable's "leaf ball" and use that figure to mark the distance between 
your plants.

Of course, a technique that can enable an average homeowner to raise a 
cash crop in a small back yard involves more than merely digging deep 
beds and planting vegetables close together. Further preparation of the 
soil includes [1] the use of a specially prepared (for at least three 
months) compost consisting of --by weight-1/3 dry vegetation, 1/3 wet 
vegetation or kitchen scraps (you can include bones but not meat), and 
1/3 earth ... [2] an organic fertilization program that's specifically 
designed to meet the needs of each crop ... and [3] daily light 
waterings with special hose nozzles and cans that simulate the gentle 
fall of rain. (For more information on the specifics of these and other 
aspects of biodynamic/French intensive gardening, consult one of the 
volumes listed in the accompanying sidebar.)

COMPANION PLANTING IN TIME AND SPACE

The way in which the growing space is used is at least as important to 
success. ful "method" gardening as is the preparation of the soil. 
Vegetable types are grouped together--in single beds or, if the garden 
is a large one, in groups of adjoining beds-- according to compatibility.

Intensive gardeners believe that different plants -- especially when 
grown in close proximity--affect each other in a number of ways. The 
vegetables must, for example, be placed with a regard for simple 
physical compatibility ... that is, a slow-growing variety shouldn't be 
planted where it will soon be overshadowed by a rapidly maturing plant.

But companion planting goes far beyond such commonsense dictums. Certain 
vegetables, flowers, and herbs--as many of you already know--are 
actually mutually beneficial when grown together ... helping eliminate 
each other's insect pests, and ever, influencing the quality of each 
other's products! (Potatoes, as an example, can--when planted near 
beans--be very helpful in controlling the .Mexican bean beetle ... while 
bibb lettuce will taste better if it's grown in companionship with 
spinach!) Most of the volumes listed in the sidebar contain detailed 
companion planting advice ... as does the article, "Companion Planting", 
on page 34 of MOTHER NO. 33.

In order to make the most efficient use of both garden space and growing 
season, "method" gardeners also practice succession planting ... which 
is a kind of companion planting in time, or a smallscale, intensive form 
of crop rotation. This practice, of course, allows the grower's plot to 
yield the greatest possible amount of produce.

More important, however, is the fact that succession planting--as 
practiced by biodynamic/French intensive gardeners--alternates plants 
that are "heavy feeders" (those that take large amounts of nutrient from 
the soil) with varieties that are "heavy givers" . . . and thus the 
productive technique also helps the gardener return more nutrition to 
the soil than he or she has taken out!

NOWS THE TIME TO BEGIN

Right now--while the snow is level with the windowsill and the chilled 
trees squeal in the slightest breeze--is the best time to begin planning 
a spring "method" garden. Your first plot needn't be a big project, 
either. In his book on the subject, John Jeavons presents a complete 
plan for a sample 100-square-foot bed--a plot only 5 feet wide by 20 
feet long--which, he claims, will be enough space for an accomplished 
gardener to produce a full year's supply of vegetables for one person.

And, come springtime, you car simply smile knowingly when your gardening 
friends question your sanity for working the earth two feet deep with 
hand tools. Because--once the crops start coming, and coming, and coming 
in ... you can explain that there's a "method" to your madness!

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

You'd be hard pressed to find any better sources of information about 
intensive gardening than the following books.

1. How to Grow More Vegetables by John Jeavons (Ten Speed Press, 
Berkeley, California, 1979), $5.95. This is the book on the practical 
application of the biodynamic/French intensive method.

2. Success With Small Food Gardens Using Special intensive Methods by 
Louise Riotte (Garden Way, Charlotte, Vermont, 1977), $5.95. A very good 
source of information. Ms. Riotte also stresses the idea of landscaping 
your yard with shaped intensive beds.

3. The Postage Stamp Garden Book by Duane Newcomb (J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 
Los Angeles, California, 1975), $4.95. Mr. Newcomb presents a number of 
techniques borrowed from biodynamic/French intensive gardening and other 
organic growing methods. The book includes a detailed, alphabetical, 
plant-by-plant information guide.

4. Intensive Culture of Vegetables by P. Aquatias (Solar Survival Press, 
Harrisville, New Hampshire), $5.95. This reprint of a classic 1913 
volume on the original French intensive system has been reissued by 
Leandre and Gretchen Poisson--of Solar Survival, Inc.--who are this 
country's foremost proponents of the traditional French method.

All of the above volumes are available in many bookstores and libraries 
... or for the list prices--plus 95c (three or more books: $2,00) 
shipping and handling--from Mother's Bookshelf, P.O. Box 70, 
Hendersonville, North Carolina 28739. Copies of MOTHER NO. 33, which 
contains the companion planting article, can be ordered for $3.00 
each--plus $1.00 shipping and handling--from THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS, P.O. 
Box 70, Hendersonville, North Carolina 28739.


the plowboy interview

Issue # 62 - March/April 1980

Those of you who read our overview article on biodynamic/French 
intensive gardening (MOTHER NO. 61, page 92) will already be familiar 
with the nature of John Jeavons' work. To summarize some of the 
information from that earlier article, Jeavons has made it his 
responsibility--over the past nine years--to subject the 
biodynamic/French intensive method developed by Englishman Alan Chadwick 
to careful yield and technique analysis.

In the process, John has taken the original system--which combines deep 
(24") digging, organic fertilizers, companion planting, interplanting, 
and so forth--and made it accessible to the backyard or subsistence 
farmer (who can, Jeavons says, "put in 10% of the effort and get 90% of 
the yield ").

MOTHER wanted to learn more about this remarkable fellow. Why, for one 
thing, did he abandon a career in systems analysis to take on the 
next-to-impossible mini-farm project at less than minimum wage? 
Furthermore, how does Jeavons plan to reduce the space necessary to grow 
a $20,000 cash crop to a mere 1/8 acre . . . and cut the land needed to 
produce a balanced one-person vegetarian diet to as little as 700 square 
feet?

Staffer Bruce Woods sought the answers to these and other questions 
during a recent daylong interview with John Jeavons. This edited 
transcript of their talks may well increase your understanding of the 
food production problems that will soon face our world, and it will also 
let you see a few of the ways that the looming dangers can be overcome . 
. . by methods that will enrich the world's soil--and perhaps the lives 
of many men and women--in the process!

PLOWBOY: John, you have, as our tour of the Common Ground experimental 
gardens clearly demonstrated, taken a piece of worse than marginal 
land--in the middle of an industrial park, no less--and transformed it 
into an incredibly productive mini-farm . . . all the while pioneering 
intensive gardening techniques that 'just may help feed the world some o 
day. How is it that you came to be the foremost proponent of the 
practical use of biodynamic/French intensive methods? Did your 
background influence you toward a career in horticulture?

JEAVONS: No, not really. I was born in Texas--into an army family--and 
moved around a lot during my early years. After finishing high school in 
1960, I enrolled at Yale University, majoring in political science. 
During my college years I worked--over summer vacations--as a systems 
analyst for Motorola Aerospace and Electronics. The job involved such 
tasks as reducing the amount of paper work people in the firm had to 
handle . . . sort of helping the engineers do more with less.

Immediately after my graduation in 1966, I took a position with the 
United States Agency for International Development. However, I 
decided--after my first nine months with USAID--that I wasn't being 
allowed to perform as effectively as I could. So, since my wife Betsy 
wanted to finish her degree work at Stanford University, we moved to 
Stanford, California . . . where I took a position with Kaiser Aerospace 
and Electronics, doing about the same kind of work as I'd done for 
Motorola.

PLOWBOY: I can understand how your systems analysis experience helped 
prepare you for evaluating the yield potential of the biodynamic/French 
intensive method, but how did you become interested in gardening itself?

JEAVONS: Well, I raised my first garden--growing vegetables, 
mostly--back in 1963. The "training" for the work I do now, however, 
came from a number of sources and trickled in over the years. I 
remember, for example, visiting an aunt and uncle who had a farm in 
Pennsylvania--this was when I was very young--and being absolutely 
fascinated by their garden.

Also, since my father was killed in the Second World War, I began taking 
on house and yard work at an earlier age than many other children might 
have done. I had any number of outside jobs, too . . . usually involving 
the maintenance of lawns and flowerbeds in whatever neighborhood we 
lived in.

But, as you can see, none of my early experiences with horticulture was 
overwhelming enough to lead me toward a career in gardening. However, I 
was able to notice, for instance, that our grapefruit tree next to the 
chicken coop thrived while its neighbors didn't do so well. I wouldn't 
have had access to such lessons had I been raised exclusively in the 
inner city.

In fact, I'm still amazed at the preconceptions held by some of our 
apprentices who hail from urban environments.

Many of the young men and women almost do believe the old cliché about 
vegetables coming from cans.

At any rate, I had behind me years of interest in gardening--as well as 
a fantasy about eventually leaving the treadmill to try my hand at 
farming--by the time Betsy and I moved to Stanford. So, when a good 
friend of mine at Kaiser actually bought himself a raisin 
vineyard--really went ahead and made the "big move"--my enthusiasm 
snowballed.

PLOWBOY: What direction did your interest take?

JEAVONS: Perhaps partly because I've always been concerned with making 
the most efficient possible use of resources, I became curious about 
just how small an area could provide a complete livingincluding food and 
income-for one individual. The more times I put the question to people, 
though, the more different acreage figures-or plain "don't know's" -I 
received. So one day I decided that, if I wanted to find the answer, I'd 
have to do the legwork myself.

I was lucky, in the fall of 1969, to be offered a job as Chief of 
Business Services for the Stanford University Library system. The 
position involved systems analysis again, but it was a little more 
"human" in orientation than the other jobs I'd held . . . and it put me 
in a position where I could, during "off" time, do indepth research on 
small-scale farming and related subjects.

In the course of such studies, I came upon the assertion that the 
problem of world hunger couldn't be solved, because--given the 
capability of available agricultural techniques--there wouldn't be 
enough arable land in the world to grow food for everyone!

The thought haunted me until I looked up the current United Nations 
estimates on just how much arable land did exist in different parts of 
the world, and divided the figures by the amount of space needed to grow 
one individual's yearly supply of food in the various lands.

I discovered that the United States had about 4.2 times the amount of 
cropland deeded to feed our populace, given our usual diets and 
agricultural practices, while-worldwide-there was only 1.9 times the 
required acreage available. The study served to focus my attention more 
precisely upon the possibility of producing significant amounts of food 
in very small amounts of gardening space. Then, in 1971, a sequence of 
events began that eventually led me to the work I'm doing today.

PLOWBOY: Can you summarize those happenings for us?

JEAVONS: First, in September of that year, I attended a four-hour class 
in the biodynamic/French intensive method--I often just refer to it as 
biointensive-instructed by Stephen Kaffka . . . who was Alan Chadwick's 
senior apprentice. Alan is, as I'm sure you know, responsible for 
developing the method.

I had, of course, read a bit about biointensive horticulture in the 
course of my studies, but Steve's class really made the abstract 
concepts seem workable to me. I followed up on that lecture by visiting 
the garden that Chadwick and his helpers had established in Santa Cruz. 
It had been reported--in various journals--that Alan was producing four 
times the average commercial crop yield in his specially prepared beds. 
However, nobody had bothered to do the work necessary to document the 
size of the yields or even how--in terms of specific techniques--the 
results were achieved.

It was obvious to me, from the gardening I'd done, that the beds were 
producing at least four times what a conventional garden could from the 
same amount of space . . . so I decided to experiment with the method on 
my own.

To that end, I took part in a series of classes that Chadwick offered, 
read everything about intensive gardening techniques that I could get my 
hands on, began practicing in a backyard garden of my own, and so on.

I found, however, that there seemed to be a number of "holes" in the 
available information . . . details that appeared contradictory because 
some information had been left out during the classes and presentations. 
In order to fill in such gaps, I visited Alan and spent three two-hour 
sessions clearing up the specific "missing" points I'd noticed.

Then, in January of 1972, I became involved with an environmentally 
oriented citizens' group--Ecology Action of the Mid-Peninsula--that my 
wife had worked with on a recycling program in 1971. The project had 
been a successful one . . . so much so, in fact, that Ecology Action had 
eventually turned its ongoing recycling center over to the city and had 
a little cash left to invest in another program.

Among the ideas considered were an organic gardening supply store and a 
community gardening area. As you can imagine, the plans appealed to me. 
I approached the group's board of directors about the possibility of my 
handling the project and undertaking a biointensive research program on 
part of the proposed community garden's site.

It was agreed that I could do so, but the board members pointed out that 
the available start-up capital--a total of $4,000--would have to be used 
to establish the store . . . and that Craig Cook, who signed on as 
codirector, and I would have to raise any additional funds ourselves.

Of course, we also had to find a piece of land on which to locate the 
gardens.

After three months of searching, we were able to work out a no-cost 
lease, with free water, at the Syntex Corporationa pharmaceutical firm 
that had helped Ecology Action with the recycling program--giving us 
access to the four acres we're using today.

Alan Chadwick came out to inspect the land before we went ahead with the 
deal. He felt the site was atrocious, which I have to admit it was. 
We've been able to improve the soil over the years, of course, but--when 
we began--it contained about 30% rock and 30% clay . . . had no 
nitrogen, no organic matter, and only a trace of phosphorus and potash . 
. . and registered a pH of 8. Worse yet, I couldn't force a spade more 
than 1/16 of an inch into the ground.

As you can imagine, the decision as to whether or not to go ahead was a 
difficult one to make . . . considering the long odds that we would have 
to face. We decided to take a stab at the project--of course--and as it 
turned out, all the cash that Craig and I had managed to raise was gone 
before we had dug the first bed. In fact, Betsy and I went $8,400 in 
debt just trying to keep the garden alive for the first two years. We 
never would have made it without faith and the help of a very dedicated 
staff.

I was determined, though, to find out just how effective the method 
could be. And when you're trying to learn something that nobody else 
knows, you just have to settle down and do it . . . regardless of how 
difficult the educational process might be.

PLOWBOY: It must have been frightening to leave a relatively big-dollar 
professional job to take on such a long-shot project at less than 
minimum wage.

JEAVONS: It was, but we had a few hidden advantages from the start. 
Betsy and I had this goal--that dated back to the beginning of our 
marriage--of learning how to live comfortably on $1,000 a year. We 
wanted to accomplish the aim through careful planning, however, rather 
than by just heading back into the woods to half-starve. So, with that 
ultimate goal in mind, we'd been stacking the economic cards in our 
favor for some time. We'd established ourselves in a house with a low 
monthly payment, for instance, and generally tried to stockpile resources.

Of course, the survival of the garden has been a result of plain old 
luck on occasion, too. Back in 1973--when Betsy and I were in debt, the 
Common Ground coffers were flat empty, and a bulldozer was literally 
standing by the gate to scatter our compost piles--a psychic walked up 
to me. The woman claimed she'd read about our project nine months before 
and had recently had the feeling that we needed help. She gave us 
$1,100, which--along with matching funds from a number of other 
sources--enabled us to hang on until we got the first edition of our 
book, How to Grow More Vegetables, in print. Now we're able to bring in 
from 50 to 80% of our "keepin' on" income from our publications.

PLOWBOY: Although curiosity about how small a piece of land could 
support one personas well as your fascination with the biointensive 
method--must have had a lot to do with your tackling this job . . . 
simple curiosity doesn't seem to be reason enough to devote nearly a 
decade to such hard and often unrewarding labor. Were there any more 
urgent concerns that drove you to keep on trying when it looked as if 
there was no hope of success?

JEAVONS: Yes, I guess you could say that the drive came--partly at 
least--from intuition. By reading between the lines of the research that 
I was doing back in the early 1970's, I sensed a pressing need for 
small-scale growing methods that were very productive and ecologically 
sound. And, of course, the nature of that need is now becoming more and 
more apparent every day.

PLOWBOY: Could you be more specific?

JEAVONS: Certainly . . . we're facing a number of really frightening 
problems today, and many of them relate to world food production.

The first--and perhaps the most serious--danger is that of 
"desertification". The United Nations published a study in 1977, showing 
that approximately 45% of the earth's land surface could be classed as 
desert. Worse yet, the report stated that an additional 19% of our 
planet's land area could be desertified by the year 2000 . . . 
totaling--in my own very approximate figures--up to 60% of Mexico, most 
of Egypt, as much as 30% of India, a large portion of mainland China, 
and even much of the U.S.!

To bring the danger a little closer to home, though, California's San 
Joaquin Valley--where 25% of all the table food and 40% of all the 
vegetables consumed in the U.S. are grown--is, according to a recent 
state study, in the early stages of desertification. In fact, California 
in general is losing as much as an inch of topsoil every 25 years . . . 
and it takes nature 2,000 years to build even such a thin layer of 
fertile earth!

The San Joaquin Valley is also suffering from salt buildup, or 
salinization. Huge amounts of water are brought into the area--by way of 
miles of canals--to irrigate the crops. As the liquid flows slowly 
along, some of it evaporates. The process concentrates whatever salts 
are in the water, and they're eventually deposited in the soil.

In addition, the cropland in that area is cultivated in such a way that 
there's often hardpan created at a depth of about 12 inches. So the 
water can't percolate through the soil as it should, and even greater 
concentrations of the salts are retained at a level where they can prove 
toxic to plants.

Further aggravating the situation is the salinization caused by overuse 
of chemical fertilizers. In almost all of America's croplands, steadily 
increasing amounts of such materials are necessary to maintain yield 
levels. For example, the amount of chemical fertilizer used to grow 
Illinois corn increased tenfold between 1948 and 1969 . . . but, during 
that period, the crop yield only doubled.

The same practice is increasing the salt levels in soil in the San 
Joaquin Valley, while there are other problems associated with the use 
of such fertilizers--particularly chemical nitrogen preparations--too. 
According to a recently completed study sponsored by the National 
Academy of Sciences, 70% of the chemical nitrogen applied to croplands 
ends up toxifying the water table, salinizing the soil, and escaping 
into the atmosphere where it depletes the ozone layer!

PLOWBOY: Don't the "powers that be" in commercial agriculture recognize 
such problems?

JEAVONS: There are signs that they're beginning to come around. Articles 
on companion planting--described in professional terms--have begun to 
appear in the scientific journals, and I've learned about tests 
performed at the University of Michigan and Michigan State to study the 
advantages of using more organic material in agriculture . . . along 
with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, of course. Unfortunately, such 
tentative investigations will have to be radically accelerated if 
they're to do much good.

Because, again according to U.N. statistics, as much as 90% of all the 
agricultural land in developing nations may no longer be farmable by the 
year 2000, yet 80% of the world's population will then be living in 
those areas.

PLOWBOY: And the areas in question are marked by widespread malnutrition 
and starvation today.

JEAVONS: Definitely. In fact, there are already 21 children and 7 adults 
dying of malnutrition--caused diseases, worldwide, every minute . . . 
and a large percentage of the deaths occur in developing nations.

And the situation can't help getting worse . . . because coupled with 
the problems of desertification and salinization is the ongoing 
destruction of forests. In the last 25 years, a full half of the 
forested area in the world has been laid bare.

Since there aren't trees to use as fuel in such cutover areas, the 
people may spend as much as six hours a day merely collecting brush to 
burn. And the deforestation syndrome follows a steadily worsening 
pattern. When no wood of any kind is available--as is the situation in 
parts of India today--the people use manure for fuel. The organic 
material, then, isn't allowed to nourish plants or to help build the 
soil, and--as a result--less food can be grown per unit of area. Also, 
because there's no healthy, spongy organic layer to allow rain to 
percolate to the water table, the topsoil washes away in the yearly 
monsoon rains.

Finally, to compound the array of agricultural problems, the developing 
nations will also suffer from increased urbanization by the turn of the 
century. Since the population in those lands will be growing rapidly, 
there will be more and more homes, roads, and so forth built. Naturally, 
the construction activity will further deplete the forests and 
accelerate the whole disastrous treadmill.

So, to summarize a bleak scenario, there are a number of factors causing 
the drastic reduction of the world's farmable acreage . . . including 
desertification, salinization, deforestation, and urbanization. Now if 
the U.N.'s projections are close to being correct, each man, woman, and 
child in the developing nations of the world will have as little as 
2,200 square feet of arable land--by 2000 A.D.--on which to grow all the 
raw materials to provide him-or herself with food, fuel, clothing, and 
shelter. Of course, the acreage won't likely be evenly divided, but the 
scale of the coming crisis is easier to understand if we deal with the 
land shortage on a per-person basis.

Now, to my knowledge, the smallest amount of space on which any of the 
world's accepted agricultural systems can grow one complete balanced 
diet--let alone fuel, clothing, and shelter requirements--is about 4,800 
square feet. That much can be accomplished by Japanese farmers . . . who 
typically use the great amounts of water and heavy applications of 
chemical fertilizers and pesticides required by modern "green 
revolution" seeds.

Even if the U.N. predictions are off by a factor of two--so that 
there'll be 4,400 square feet to supply each person's needs--the 
presently accepted agricultural technology won't be able to do the job . 
. . and starvation, as well as world unrest, will increase.

PLOWBOY: Why do you specify a balanced vegetarian diet?

JEAVONS: The reason all of my minimum growing-area figures presuppose a 
nonmeat diet is simply that it's possible to raise such a food supply in 
about half the area that would be required to produce a subsistence diet 
including a significant amount of meat. We're talking about methods that 
could help starving people survive, so we have to pursue the threshold 
or "entry point" . . . which, of course, is the smallest plot of land 
that can provide a healthful diet. And, as I said, even that minimum 
appears to be beyond the reach of any commercial agricultural system in 
the world.

We've been playing a very dangerous game of ecological Russian roulette 
for some time now . . . and most of the rest of the chambers appear loaded.

PLOWBOY: As you've outlined it, the future looks pretty grim. Has your 
decade of research at the Ecology Action minifarm yielded any 
information that might help us deal with the coming problems?

JEAVONS: Well, we've at least achieved some results that offer promise, 
although more research has yet to be done.

Before I go into detail about our projections, however, let me point out 
that they are all based upon yields that we've already obtained at our 
mini-farm research area or that have actually been achieved--by some 
form of agriculture--on a large scale elsewhere.

We're at the point now that--in a short four-month growing season--we 
should soon be able to raise a complete, balanced vegetarian diet on 
2,800 square feet . . . and with as little as 28 minutes of garden labor 
a day! I want to stress that we're not doing so yet, but we hope to 
reach that particular plateau in three years. Our wheat yields are 
already close to being in line with the projection. We've had small 
plots produce at a rate of 20 to 30 pounds of grain per 100 square feet 
. . . which works out to from five to seven times the average U.S. 
commercial farm's yield. And, at the same time, the protein content of 
our grain actually increased.

Now once we apply several additional factors to the predicted 2,800-foot 
food garden, the figures can become even more impressive. We're 
currently experimenting with miniature greenhouses, for instance. Such 
structures can extend the growing season in a temperate climate from 
four months to as long as eight months . . . effectively doubling the 
maximum possible yields. The little hothouses could, then, cut the 
minimum amount of space needed to grow a vegetarian diet from 2,800 
square feet to as little as 1,400 square feet!

In addition, there are other possibilities--still a good way down the 
roadthat may let us reduce the required square footage even further. At 
present, more than half of the area in our experimental mini-farms is 
used to produce the recommended daily allowance of calcium. But we've 
discovered that there are tribes in Africa whose members consume--on the 
average--just 200 milligrams of calcium per day . . . about one quarter 
of the recommended allowance. And the adults in such societies show no 
signs of calcium deficiency in their teeth and bones.

So, if it is proved that most humans can get by on such minute amounts 
of calcium, we'll be able to eliminate the approximately one-half of our 
mini-farm acreage that produces the thenunnecessary three-fourths of the 
calcium requirement . . . reducing our minimum area--given an 
eight-month growing season--to as little as 700 square feet.

PLOWBOY: It seems clear that biointensive farming has the potential to 
provide a lot of nutrition from a very small space, but how will it help 
us meet the environmental crises that the future has in store?

JEAVONS: The method is an inherently thrifty--in terms of all the 
resources brought into playway of growing crops. We use, on the average, 
only about one-eighth the amount of water per pound of vegetables 
harvested--and somewhere near one-third per pound of grain--that would 
be consumed using conventional methods.

In the case of added purchased nitrogen fertilizer . . . as opposed to 
the nitrogen from green manure crops, compost, and so on: We use from as 
little as none at all up to twice as much fertilizer per unit of 
area--in the form of blood meal, fish meal, and so forth--as does 
commercial agriculture in the U.S.

The latter figure, however, is a bit misleading. In a test conducted 
this year, for instance, we used twice the weight of purchased organic 
nitrogen fertilizer on our cucumber beds as agribusiness methods would 
have specified for the crop. However, we produced 14 tunes the yield 
usually achieved by commercial growers. So you see, our added nitrogen 
requirement per pound of cucumber was about 1/7 of the amount normally 
used by a conventional farmer.

PLOWBOY: It should be relatively easy to keep track of fertilizer use, 
but how are all your water consumption figures computed?

JEAVONS: Like many of our "usage" figures, the quoted water consumption 
is estimated on the conservative side. We measure-using a gauge that 
records in tenths of gallons-the liquid used during two weeks in 
midsummer . . . taking readings from a sampling of 20 beds that 
incorporate a variety of crops at all stages of growth. Of course, we 
use significantly less water during the cooler and damper spring and 
fall months, but we quote the hot-season figures in order to keep any 
error well on the side of conservatism.

PLOWBOY: Energy consumption is, of course, going to continue to be of 
major concern in the years to come. Just how does biointensive farming 
compare to traditional agricultural methods in terms of its energy 
requirements?

JEAVONS: We usually state that we use 1/100th as much energy-per pound 
of cropsas does U.S. commercial agriculture. We're probably using much 
less than that-even taking into account everything from the number of 
calories burned by the gardener to the fuel needed to truck the produce 
to market-but again, we've tried to be conservative in what we claim.

PLOWBOY: So the widespread use of intensive methods could possibly help 
us keep ahead of-for a time at least-some of the future's environmental 
problems?

JEAVONS: Yes, I think it could, andperhaps most important in that 
regardmethod gardening nurtures the soil as it produces large yields! In 
fact, the continual improvement of the earth's ability to support plant 
growth is absolutely key to biointensive farming.

And a lot of organic gardeners today arewithout knowing it--employing 
ecologically unsound practices. Consider, for example, the grower in 
California who treats his or her plot with manure from horses that ate 
grain grown in North Dakota. The organic matter isn't being allowed to 
help rebuild the soil that produced it . . . so the North Dakota earth 
is depleted just a little bit more, and--at the same time--great amounts 
of scarce and polluting fuels are consumed to transport the manure from 
one place to another.

The fact is that the original Biodynamic gardeners of Europe wouldn't 
classify a growing operation as Biodynamic unless it brought in less 
than 10% of its resources from beyond the grounds. I think that's a 
good, though admittedly difficult, goal for all organic gardeners to try 
to achieve.

PLOWBOY: How close are you to meeting that requirement at Common Ground?

JEAVONS: Well, while we were getting started, we produced at best only 
about 1/3 of our organic matter on site. By 1978, though, we were able 
to supply about half of our needs with our fava bean cover crops, and 
about another 1/6 from vegetable wastes and so forth . . . making a 
total of 2/3 of our organic material requirements.

The ultimate aim, of course, is to develop the potential for a mini-farm 
that can provide food and income for one person working 40 hours a week 
for eight months of the year . . . and yield enough organic matter to be 
completely self-sustaining. That's the point we hope to reach 
and--considering the results we've achieved so far--I think we'll be 
able to make it.

PLOWBOY: But can biointensive techniques work on a large scale?

JEAVONS: Of course. The mainland Chinese have been using similar methods 
for centuries, although-from what we've been able to determine--they're 
not as productive as we are. On the other hand, a group of people could 
simply work together in aggregated mini-farms--and sell through a 
jointly owned co-op -to maintain, effectively, a single large area under 
cultivation.

Our specific goal, however, is--as I've said--to find out how small a 
self-contained food- and income-producing minifarm can be. Whether we 
eventually determine that such an operation can be run on 700 square 
feet or on 7,000 square feet, we need to work out the details and make 
such information available . . . because large numbers of the world's 
people may soon have to turn to mini-farming to survive.

I don't want to overstress the gloomand-doom factor, though. You can't 
motivate with fear for too long without losing your motivation. Besides, 
I personally think it would be wonderful and satisfying, once we've put 
the pieces together and made it possible, to be able to grow enough 
produce to supply enough food and cash for one person on as little as 
1,100 - square feet-that's figuring on a 700-square-foot food farm, with 
the rest of the area devoted to a cash crop-and still be left with 
leisure time!

PLOWBOY: Are you actually bringing in income from your experimental beds?

JEAVONS: Yes, we're marketing produce regularly . . . though the process 
did begin slowly. In 1980, we hope to bring in as much as $8,000--by 
selling crops at wholesale prices--from our 1/8 acre mini-farm. So far, 
our buyers consist of restaurants, health food stores, and an organic 
produce distributor in Palo Alto. We've occasionally been able to sell 
to supermarkets, too . . . but such outlets are still resistant to 
wholistically grown produce.

PLOWBOY: Then you are quite close to having an operating $10,000-a-year 
minifarm. Will you stop trying to improve the profit potential at that 
point?

JEAVONS: No, because I think it's going to be easier to move from a 
$10,000-a-year test plot to a $20,000-a-year minifarm than it's been to 
approach the first plateau. Part of the increase will, of course, come 
from improved yields, but much of it will be a result of careful marketing.

For instance, it's sometimes possible to get as much as three times the 
usual price for celery--in our San Francisco Bay area--if you have a 
fresh crop to sell during the first two weeks of December. And, as you 
noticed when we visited the gardens, our miniature greenhouse-protected 
celery beds are mature and ready to take advantage of that bonus market.

In fact, celery provides a good example of just how productive a 
mini-farm may eventually be. Projections indicate that, optimally, 1,000 
pounds of celery may be produced from one 100-square-foot bed . . . in a 
four-month growing season. That crop would wholesale--at today's 
"normal" prices--for 20¢ to 35¢ a pound.

So a single bed could produce between $200 and $350 worth of celery 
during each half of the greenhouse-augmented growing season . . . for a 
total income ranging from $400 to $700 from one bed. If you multiply 
those figures by the 40 such beds that--with their necessary path 
space-could be placed in a 1/8-acre minifarm, you can see that the 
potential to earn $20,000 a year from 1/8 acre is very real . . . 
although our present celery yields are still far from optimal. (Of 
course, there are other crops which can do just as well--such as 
lettuce, cucumbers, and zucchini--and we do recommend a mixture of 
mini-farm crops rather than monocropping.)

However, at this point we still have our work cut out for us in getting 
the rest of the way to a smoothly functioning $10,000-per-year minifarm.

PLOWBOY: Needless to say, your project hasn't been one long string of 
successes . . . what sort of pitfalls have slowed your progress?

JEAVONS: We've had failures all right . . . some of 'em were pretty hard 
to deal with, too. For example, we went through a period when nothing 
would grow in this soil. We were using an experimental digging technique 
at the time--called "super digging"--in which we put organic matter 
throughout the whole cultivated 24-inch depth . . . and mixed sand into 
the upper 12 inches.

And not a single thing would grow. We couldn't imagine what was wrong.

We were, as always, placing compost on the bed before we dug it. 
Eventually, we were able to determine--through close observation and by 
taking soil tests at a number of different depths--that the sand was 
allowing the water-soluble nitrogen in the compost to leach down to the 
12-inch level very rapidly. The plants' roots couldn't grow fast enough 
to reach it!

So we made one simple change . . . and this is a good example of how 
delicate the balance between success and failure can be: We put the 
organic matter on the beds after we double-dug--concentrating it in the 
upper two to three inches of the soil to slow the leaching--nd the crops 
grew beautifully.

We're also having slug and snail problems now--particularly in our 
lettuce beds--that are going to require a good bit of work to solve. The 
best I can figure is that we brought the pests into the garden on 
"imported" organic matter . . . a fact which presents another good 
argument for becoming self-sustaining and producing your own compost 
material. I think we'll be able to eradicate most of 'em by handpicking, 
but we're also looking into reports concerning a carnivorous snail that 
preys upon its crop-eating cousins.

PLOWBOY: The biointensive farmer will have to face the same kinds of 
problems that most gardeners tackle, then.

JEAVONS: Exactly, and the last thing I'd want anyone to do is read this 
interview . . . say, "Wow, that sounds fantastic!" . . . and invest his 
or her life savings in trying to set up a commercial mini-farming 
operation.

Such a person would be far better off to start with a single bed the 
first year and--if that project is a success--expand to between five and 
ten plots the following year . . . continually learning and expanding, 
as long as the venture proves successful, until he or she is able to 
work part time as a mini-farmer and part time at a "normal" job.

Naturally, the ultimate goal would be to quit all outside work and step 
into an established, minimal risk, "pocket farming" operation. The 
approach is cautious, but we're talking about dealing with living 
biological systems. Growing cropsby any method-can't be approached like 
a paint-by-number picture.

Of course, a lot of folks have no interest in commercial farming at all. 
But I really encourage everyone who has the slightest curiosity about 
the method to try one small raised bed--it doesn't have to be more than 
three by three feet--in his or her back yard. Because--after a little 
practice--he or she should be able to grow enough carrots, for instance, 
for one person for a full year . . . right in that tiny nine-square-foot 
plot in the course of a three-month growing season. And even such a 
small step toward self-sufficiency can be an incredibly exciting and 
inspiring experience.

PLOWBOY: Can you tell me what courses of action are available to folks 
who might want to come to Common Ground as apprentices . . . or to 
support your work in some way?

JEAVONS: We do offer apprenticeship programs of one, two, and three 
years. But I want to emphasize that we can afford the time to instruct 
only people who are interested in becoming teachers of the biointensive 
method themselves . . . and would want to go out to train other 
instructors or to become permanent Common Ground staffers. Anyone who's 
willing to make such a commitment can simply write Ecology Action of the 
MidPeninsula for application forms.

However, people who just want to learn how to use the method in their 
own gardens would be better off buying our book, How to Grow More 
Vegetables, and learning on their own. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Folks who'd like 
to learn biointensive techniques for their own use might also look into 
MOTHER's two-week apprentice programs. See "The Seasons of the Garden" 
on page 162 of this issue for details.]

Actually, the very fact that we're offering longterm apprenticeships 
could probably be construed as wishful thinking, because we have a bit 
of a problem facing us right now. Syntex Corporation is planning to 
double the number of its employees--at the plant where Common Ground is 
located--by 1983, so they're proposing to build a parking lot in the 
area where our experimental minifarms are now.

As you can imagine, the news came as quite a blow to us. We're in our 
ninth year of working with and improving the earth in our 120 test beds 
. . . and we have complete records of soil analysis, yields, digging 
methods used, and so forth for each of them. There's just no way to 
replace the established plots, and we've found that it would take as 
much as $150,000 to properly move the beds as they are. Such an expense 
is, of course, out of the question.

So we're looking for a new home. We'd like to find a 30-acre site where 
we could set up sophisticated low-technology housing to match our 
approach to food raising . . . and eventually establish a complete 
demonstration low-energy, high-productivity living system.

Regardless of where we go from here, though, we're bound to encounter a 
period of increased financial need. In order to try to raise cash, we're 
offering taxdeductible Common Ground memberships--for $30 apiece--that 
will entitle the donors to receive our bi-monthly newsletter . .. which 
has some local Ecology Action news as well as updates on our latest 
mini-farm research. I know the price seems steep, but it's the 
equivalent of only three or four long-playing records--or a small order 
of groceries--and the money will really go a long way here.

I guess--to put it simply--the fact of the matter is that we need help 
if we're to get our job done in time.

PLOWBOY: Could you be more specific about the nature of that task?

JEAVONS: We're here to make mistakes so that--when the times get worse 
for us all--those specific errors won't have to be made. I think that if 
Common Ground is able to survive today, we'll all know a little more 
about survival in the future . . . when such knowledge may well be 
invaluable.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Anyone interested in applying for an apprenticeship at 
the Common Ground experimental minifarm--or in sending a 
donation--should write to Ecology Action of the Mid-Peninsula, 2225 El 
Camino, Palo Alto, Cali fornia 94306.

John Jeavons' book, How to Grow More Vegetables, is available from the 
some address for $6.50, postpaid worldwide, with an additional $2.00 
charge if you want it delivered by airmail . . . while copies of MOTHER 
NO. 61--which contains the article on biodynamic/ French intensive 
gardening--can be ordered, for $3.00 apiece plus $1.00 shipping and 
handling per order, from. THE MOTHER EARTH NEWS®, P.O. Box 70, 
Hendersonville, North Carolina 28739.

Prepare the soil in your raised bed in 1/6 the time!

BUILD R U-BAR

Because the good folks at Common Ground feel that even intermediate 
technology is often beyond the financial reach of the people who need it 
the most, they're constantly looking for sophisticated low technology 
solutions to the problems presented by small-scale agriculture.

One such innovation--the "U-bar", shown in the accompanying photos and 
drawings--was designed at John Jeavons' request by two Stanford 
University engineering students ... who worked from traditional French 
and Canadian designs for similar tools. The digging implement is used 
after a bed has been initially well prepared with a spade and fork, and 
can--for all subsequent preparations--reduce the required digging time 
from approximately two hours per 100-square-foot bed to 20 minutes or less!

        

John has graciously allowed us to publish these drawings of a U-bar . . 
. so anyone who wants to try biointensive gardening can cut his or her 
labor time while keeping yields up.


Issue # 121-January/February 1990

KEEPING THE FAITH

JOHN JEAVONS: DIGGING UP THE FUTURE

By Pat Stone

For 17 years, this California grower-researcher has been extending the 
frontiers of sustainable agriculture.

PHOTOGRAPHS©PAUL FUSCO/MAGNUM PHOTOS

"Think big, grow small." By learning how to get fantastic yields In 
minimal space, Jeavons tackles both world hunger and environmental disaster.

WITH HIS HUSKY BUILD AND SOFT 1, deep voice, John Jeavons seems at once 
strong and analytical. Crops and calculations are the mainsprings of 
this man's work-and on both counts he's been astoundingly successful. 
Jeavons has repeatedly demonstrated that deep, hand-dug, biointensive 
garden beds can produce yields two to six times higher than standard 
American agriculture, while using only a fraction of the water, 
fertilizer, and energy.

John has blue eyes, a trademark straw hat, and a gentle manner, but 
these fail to mute his overriding personal intensity. Not much for small 
talk, he jumps right into the latest gloomy estimates of our worldwide 
environmental crisis and points out ways his own work might help address 
the problem. Indeed, one of the most striking things about Jeavons is 
how he connects talk of global disaster with that of maximizing yields 
of a five-foot by 20-foot garden bed. "Think globally, act locally," 
advised former British environmentalist E.F. Schumacher. "Think big, 
grow small" must be Jeavons's personal version of that maxim.

For the better part of two decades, John's been blazing the trail of 
biointensive agriculture. Step by step, with little more than garden 
fork, spade, and compost, he's dug out an alternative that may, indeed, 
help answer the planetary problems our soilmining agricultural systems 
have created. As former secretary of agriculture Bob Bergland once said, 
"John Jeavons is out of the mainstream of American agriculture-he's 10 
to 15 years ahead."

Nowadays, though, the world is beginning to catch up-at least with where 
Jeavons was. His early books have been translated into five languages 
and used in over 100 countries. Biointensive projects have been started 
in Mexico, Kenya, Russia, India, China-the system is even taught in the 
Philippine public school system! But Jeavons isn't standing still. He's 
forging ahead, learning how to raise a complete diet in a minimal space, 
grow compost and "income" as well as food, live out a low-impact 
lifestyle, and more. (He refused to talk on record about some of his new 
directions, arguing that they would sound too radical for today-but 
would be more acceptable in as few as two years.)

At his research minifarm in Willits, California, Jeavons teaches an 
apprentice special ergonomic tricks that can make digging a garden bed a 
lot easier.

In 1990, MOTHER intends to honor a number of people who've stuck to 
their environmental guns, who've kept their sights on helping us all 
mend our wounded planet, whether that ideal was in vogue or out. We're 
proud to introduce this series by presenting the following discussion 
with John Jeavons (whom we first interviewed 10 years ago in MOTHER No. 
62), a dedicated researcher who for 17 years has been steadfastly 
"keeping the faith."

MOTHER: John, I've really been looking forward to the chance to meet and 
talk with you.

Jeavons: Me, too-there's a lot to talk about. As you know, environmental 
problems have been hitting the front pages a lot lately. But the 
situation's even worse than you might think. The earth's lost 
three-quarters of its trees. As a result of this and other factors, by 
the year 2000, according to conservative estimates, 62% of the earth's 
land surface will be desert-up from 43% in 1977. One-third of that is 
supposed to happen in the United States. California's San Joaquin 
Valley, which produces approximately 30% of all the food in the U.S., is 
already in the early stages of salinization and desertification.

Mexico may become 60 to 80% desert. Indeed, during the last 12 months, 
Mexican crop production has dropped 20%. The country is in a stress 
situation (it already imports $5 billion worth of food annually). 
Russia's crop yields are down even more: 40%. One of Gorbachev's top 
economic advisers has said there's a good likelihood of famine in the 
Soviet Union within two years. There're indications that China, 
Bulgaria, and Poland are not much better off.

To top all this, according to Robert Muller, former under secretary for 
the United Nations, some Russian scientists recently estimated the earth 
may become uninhabitable in as little as 16 years. An English scientist 
who was doing a similar evaluation disagreed: He thought it might be 20 
years. Then the UN Environmental Program officers were presented this 
information, and they said, "Oh, no, no, this is way too pessimistic. 
It's 50 years."

MOTHER: The earth may become uninhabitable in 16, 20, or 50 years? 
That's a pretty solemn way to start a onversation, John.

Jeavons: We don't have much time. As Lester Brown of the Worldwatch 
Institute has said, "We have years, not decades, to turn the situation 
around." We have to find ways to make positive changes, and soon.

And we can do it. The Chinese had too many houseflies in the 1950s. 
Their solution? They asked everybody to kill a few flies each day, and 
they asked some people to spend all day killing flies. In two to three 
years, they virtually eradicated the problem.

Keenly aware that the earth needs help soon, John tirelessly promotes 
his ideas for growing food efficiently and sustainably.

Some households even reported having no flies at all.

The solution is really that simple and that difficult.

MOTHER: Let's back away from global problems for a moment and talk about 
your system of biointensive agriculture. Almost everybody who's heard of 
it knows that it involves double-digging: removing the top foot of soil 
in a growing bed-one trench at a time-loosening the second foot of 
depth, then replacing the original soil. That way the ground is loose 
and friable two feet down. What else is special about this method?

Jeavons: Biointensive minifarming uses water, soil, fertilizer, seeds, 
and sunlightlike any other method-but it puts them together in a 
different way. It preps the soil differently. It uses close, precise 
plant spacing. The microclimate created by that helps the soil hold 
water and produces an envelope of CO, under the leaves that stimulates 
growth. The system also uses lots of compost to build up a living soil. 
The compost also holds six times its weight in water and will keep soil 
nutrients from leaching away. It uses light daily watering to keep an 
even supply of moisture in the soil.

As a result, this method consumes from one-third to one-eighth, to even 
as little as one thirty-second, the water per pound of food produced as 
commercial agriculture does. It consumes a maximum of one-half the 
purchased nitrogen fertilizer, and often needs none at all. And it 
requires only one onehundredth the energy. All this, while producing two 
to six times the yields.

This method can be one way to help turn global scarcity into abundance. 
In California, agriculture uses 86% of the state's water, and in the 
mid-'70s, there was a three-year drought. If everyone had been using 
biointensive agriculture, there wouldn't have been a drought: One year's 
worth of water would have lasted three to eight years.

MOTHER: But don't we often hear that U.S. farming practices are the most 
efficient and effective in the world, that they're counted on to feed a 
hungry world?

Jeavons: If you check the statistics, you'll find that, most years, we 
import more calories, calcium, and protein from the Third World than we 
export to it.

And this "very efficient and productive" agriculture has many hidden 
costs. U.S. commercial farming practices deplete the soil eight times 
faster than it builds up naturally; in California, 80 times faster. In 
the last 200 years, we've lost half of our soil base, and that half took 
1,500 years to build.

Look at energy. To put one calorie of food energy on our table, modern 
farmers require six to 20 calories of energy, both in human and 
mechanical, petroleum-based forms. How long would you stay with a bank 
if you gave them $20 and then at the end of the year they gave you one 
dollar back and said the rest of the money was gone? Compare that with 
Chinese wet rice agriculture, which requires only one-fiftieth of a 
calorie per calorie of food energy produced. That's 300 to 1,000 times 
more energy effective.

And money? It generally takes about $500,000 to capitalize the average 
500-acre farm in the U.S. The return on investment is about $8,600 a 
year, or 1.7°10. Any normal business run that "efficiently" would go 
bankrupt. And many farmers are having just that problem.

How to Grow More Vegetables ($15 postpaid). The classic explanation of 
the biointensive gardening method. A detailed primer that covers 
compost, fruit, and tree crops as well as vegetables.
The Backyard Homestead, MiniFarm & Garden Log Book ($12 postpaid). This 
sequel to the above book covers small livestock, grains, minifarming for 
income, crop testing, herbal lawns, basic biointensive tools, garden 
record keeping, and more.
One Circle ($13 postpaid). Subtitled How to Grow a Complete Diet in Less 
Than 1,000 Square Feet, this unique guide enables you to analyze both 
the nutritional and space effectiveness of crops.

THE 21-BED MINIFRAME

MOTHER: What about the current trend toward organic farming? Isn't that 
an improvement?

Jeavons: Generally, to grow food organically, you have to do just two 
things: Don't use chemical fertilizers, and don't use pesticides. You 
may be depleting the soil just as fast as a chemical farmer would. 
Consequently, the food may not always be very nutritious. After all, if 
you're not building nutrients in the soil, they won't be in your crops.

Organic food, in some instances, may even be toxic. An organic farmer 
may add a beneficial amendment like manure. But if that manure isn't 
fully composted, it can contain excessive nitrates-in a form that's 
easily picked up by a leaf crop like lettuce. So some organic lettuce 
could possibly give you nitrate poisoning.

Lastly, let's say you're an organic farmer who uses properly cured 
compost and manure, but imports those materials from offsite. Maybe the 
manure's the residue of grain grown in North Dakota. Then using that 
manure actually helps deplete the soil in North Dakota.

We need to find out how to grow our food sustainably--without draining 
any area's resources-over the long haul. It's possible to do that on a 
closed-system basis; that's what's so exciting. It requires diligence 
and dedication, but in the long run there's not really any other choice.

To accomplish this, the first thing we have to do is stop growing crops.

MOTHER: I beg your pardon?

Jeavons: We have to start growing soil. To do that, we will have to grow 
crops, but we have to get our priorities the right way around, because 
the goal is a living soil. Likewise, when we water, we shouldn't water 
the crops-but water the soil. One dime-sized amount of living soil 
contains billions of microbes and other miniature life-forms. It can 
store nutrients and water better than almost anything else. That's what 
we need to invest in.

To do so, we're going to have to grow compost crops; not just 
nitrogenous ones, like vetch and fava beans, but others as well, such as 
wheat and rye, which produce a lot of carbon. If you want to have 
sustainable soil fertility, approximately three-quarters of your farm 
needs to be in compost crops all the time. Better yet, rotate crops and 
have all your farm in compost three-quarters of the time. You also have 
to recycle all wastes. And you can probably export for income only about 
10°70 of the crops you grow.

MOTHER: In other words, you grow your food and income crops on 
one-quarter of the land and your soil crops on the other threequarters. 
That would have the advantage of being sustainable, but wouldn't it end 
up taking as much space as conventional agriculture?

Jeavons: We think it eventually will be possible to grow all of a single 
individual's food, money, and compost crops in as little as 21 beds: 
2,100 square feet plus path space. That's based on test yields. It may 
be a little optimistic; perhaps it will take 4,200 square feet. Since, 
however, commercial farms currently produce the average American's 
dietwithout growing compost or incomeon from 45,000 to 85,000 square 
feet, we're definitely talking about the miniaturization of agriculture. 
We've been miniaturizing electronics in the San Francisco Bay area 
nearby, so it's not unreasonable to expect that as we all become more 
sophisticated in our understanding of biological principles, we,can do 
the same to agriculture. Of course, we didn't invent these techniques. 
They were used by the ancient Chinese, Mayans, Greeks, and some North 
Africans thousands of years ago.

Many people say there will not be enough land in the world to grow food 
for everyone. But if biointensive yields work out over time (that's an 
important qualifier; it's not going to happen right away) you could grow 
all the food for the United States on just its 19 million acres of 
lawns, golf courses, and cemeteries!

MOTHER: What biointensive projects are under way now?

Jeavons: Individuals are using our more than two dozen publications to 
teach themselves how to biointensively microfarm in over 100 countries. 
There are also several formalized teaching projects. In Mexico, the 
Family Planning Department is teaching biointensive techniques in 19 
states under the auspices of its Menos y Mejores [Less and More] 
program. In Kitale, Kenya, the Manor House Agricultural Centre has a 
twoyear apprentice-training program. In the Philippines, the Department 
of Education has committed to spread the method throug the public school 
system-as a result of the work of Julian Gonsalves and the International 
Institute of Rural Reconstruction. There are also teaching and research 
programs in India, China, Togo, and Benin.

top: When Jeavons arrive at Willits, he could hardly dent the soil with 
a spade. Now you can sink your arm into a freshly dug bed.Below: 
Spaceefficient hexagonal planting helps maximize yields. Below right: 
Research extends into exotic crops, such as these high-yielding tree 
collards.

"We've been miniaturizing electronics in the Bay area; now we're talking 
about the miniaturization of gardening."

In the USSR, the 2,000 members of the s Soviet Experimental Youth 
Gardening Complex [EMSK] voted to include biointensive practices as a 
major part of their program throughout their 116 acres of gardens around 
Moscow. At Ohio University, Steve Rioch, our East Coast Mini-Farm 
director, has helped obtain approval of the first four-year 
university-degree program, under the auspices of the botany department, 
with a major emphasis on biointensive minifarming.

And, of course, there are our own research gardens in Willits, 
California. When we first arrived, our steep-hillside soil was rated, at 
best, intermediate for grazing-you could hardly dent it with a spade. 
After our eight years here, you can sink your arm almost up to the elbow 
in a freshly dug bed.

MOTHER: You mentioned growing one's own crops, compost, and income. Is 
anyone doing that?

Jeavons: Not yet. There are a few people living out the economic part. 
For instance, Kona Kai Farms in Berkeley, California, used biointensive 
practices to set up a minifarm that grossed $276,000 from a half acre in 
1988 selling high-priced crops to restaurants. They're not yet farming 
in a sustainable manner, however.

Generally, our research is five to 10 years ahead of public acceptance. 
For example, during our first project in 1973, we realized we were using 
half the normal amount of water per pound of food produced. At the time, 
no one believed us. About five years later, though, the result was 
widely accepted. In 1985, we published David Duhon and Cindy Gebhart's 
One Circle, the book with the concepts for growing all your nutrition in 
the smallest area, and I think it'll be as late as 1995 before a number 
of people are implementing it on a routine basis.

It was just two years ago that, based on field tests and bookwork, we 
developed a detailed understanding of the sustainable soil-fertility 
concept-how you could grow all your compost on a closed-system basis. 
It'll probably be 1997 before that will begin to be used regularly in a 
significant way.

We've spent 17 years trying to develop agricultural models for obtaining 
the highest yields using the least resources in a manner that sustains 
soil fertility on a closed-system basis. Now, I think, we have most of 
the initial biointensive road maps needed.

MOTHER: So what's the next step?

Jeavons: One of our main emphases in the next five years will be to 
begin to live what we've been researching-to grow more of our food, 
compost, and money. Right now, we spend 75 to 80% of our people-hours on 
siteresearching, teaching, writing, fund-raising, and corresponding with 
people around the world. I'm hoping that by using some new 
100square-foot growing-bed training models we're developing and by 
having other staff handle some of the mail and outreach, we can free up 
enough time to completely practice what we preach.

MOTHER: That sounds great. But do you think many other people will do 
something similar?

Jeavons: For that to happen, we have to change the image of farmers. 
Right now, farmers farm so they can afford to send their children away 
to college or technical school so they won't have to farm. This is true 
in the Third World as well as here. In the U.S., twotenths of 1% of the 
population will soon be raising 70% of the food-that's one person in 
500. The average U.S. farmer is 57 years old and generally knows how to 
grow only one or two crops while using resourceineflicient techniques.

We need to increase this skill base. We need to realize that farming is 
one of the most nourishing, important, sacred occupations anyone could 
have. Cities are wonderful places, full of ideas, music, culture, and 
education. But you can't be safe in cities if your farmland's being 
depleted.

MOTHER: Even if most people would be willing to say they thought farming 
was wonderful, I don't know that they'd want to tackle the physical work 
involved-especially using your hand-tool techniques.

Jeavons: Well, starving isn't easy, either. That answer may sound harsh 
to you, but millions of people are starving right now. And it's likely 
to get worse. I mentioned the drops in Mexican and Russian food 
production; U.S. food production is dropping too: We had an 89-day grain 
reserve in 1987, a 68-day grain reserve in '88, and a 63-day

Man of the Trees ($14 postpaid). Selected writings of the renowned 
British ecologistforester Richard St. Barbe Baker.

Booklet 14: The Complete 21-Bed Biointensive Mini-Farm ($3 postpaid). A 
preliminary model for exploring how to produce all your compost, a 
complete diet, and a small income in as little as 2,100 square feet.
All these books and booklets are available for their postpaid prices 
from Bountiful Gardens, 19550 Ridgewood Rd., Willits, CA 95490. In 
addition; Bountiful Gardens offers a fine, free catalog of garden seeds 
and supplies and gratefully accepts supporting memberships for the 
Ecology Action research minifarm. A membership, for a tax-deductible 
contribution of $30, includes a quarterly newsletter.

reserve in '89. Some analysts expect crop losses for 1990 and'91 as 
well. Other scientific estimates indicate that due to the globalwarming 
greenhouse effect, the average U.S. temperature may be 9°F higher in 
2030 than it is now-and that such a rise could cut our crop production 
in half.

Still, I know that the most controversial issue of my work is labor. 
Most of us aren't used to physical labor. We don't want to farm, much 
less farm manually. And when we have those kinds of feelings, we set up 
mental blocks and decide, emotionally and understandably, that it can't 
be done, at least not without overworking or stressing out. The question 
we need to ask is how can we easily raise our food with manual 
techniques. This question will bring the insights necessary to simplify 
the process to where it is humanly effective as well as resource effective.

Double-digging a bed-especially the first time-is work. But consider the 
fact that the Irish call double-dug beds "lazy beds." After all, if you 
get four times the yields, you have to double-dig only one-quarter the 
area you'd otherwise single-dig. You have to water, fertilize, and weed 
only one-quarter the area. And the soil's so loose the roots come out 
with the weeds, so you usually don't have to reweed.

However, I think the best motivation for biointensive farming is that 
working with these life forces, even though it is physical work, is 
really rewarding and exciting. Even if there weren't world 
environmental, food, and soil problems, I would want to live this way. 
At our Willits site, we may eventually have 400 terraced beds, with 
cascading strawberries, wheat, pumpkins, flowers, and herbs-a beautiful 
living tapestry full of fragrance and good food.

MOTHER: How much time does biointensive minifarming require?

Jeavons: From everything I've seen over 17 years, and I don't expect 
anyone to believe this-I wouldn't if I were hearing it for the first 
time-as refinements occur, it's going to be possible to grow as much 
food, income, and nutrition per hour by hand as it is with machines, and 
without detrimental environmental effects.

It's already possible for a person to grow all of his or her vegetables, 
and I think, eventually, you'll be able to raise all your food and 
compost with less than two hours of labor a day. Initially, that goal 
would probably require eight to 16 hours a day. But you shouldn't try to 
do it all at once; you'd stretch your resources and yourself too thin. 
Instead, set yourself goals, like getting 10% of the way there the first 
year, 25% the next, and so on. Don't try to raise a complete 21-bed unit 
the first year. Do a scaled-down three-bed version. Or, maybe better, do 
just one bed and go from there.

"Biointensive's no panacea.

And tree culture's no panacea.

We're the panacea.

MOTHER: In other words, be patient.

Jeavons: Yes. It takes five to 10 years to build up the soil and about 
that long to build one's skill. Also, since we've depleted our country's 
soils about 1,500 years' worth in 200 years, it's not unreasonable to 
expect it to take 200 to 1,500 years to fully rebuild them. For example, 
at our Willits site we have a poor, sandy, porous soil with excesses of 
magnesium and sodium. Initially, it had very low levels of most 
beneficial nutrients. In addition, our nighttime temperatures are 
generally too low, and our daytime temperatures often too high, for the 
microbial life in the soil and crops to thrive. Consequently, our first 
alfalfa plantings grew only an inch or so high and gave only two 
cuttings a year. Eventually, as we built up and balanced out our soil 
nutrients, the alfalfa cuttings produced yields as high as two to six 
times the U.S. average.

We still have a lot of crop failures as we try to improve our soil and 
our skills and as we learn to work with the climate, but each problem 
usually shows us the way to the next improvement. Because we've grown up 
in a world of instant results, the patience required to build up soils 
and to learn to work in harmony with living biological systems 
continually stretches our limits! We need a long-haul perspective. And 
making the changes within ourselves to get that kind of perspective is 
perhaps going to be even more difficult.

MOTHER: You seem to be in for the long haul yourself.

Jeavons: Years ago when I began this work, one of my intentions was to 
set up constructive agricultural alternatives so that when the 
environmental pressures built up and people awoke to the crisis, we'd 
have a sustainable agricultural model ready to implement. There'd be 
positive models for people to put their energy into rather than simply 
feeling overwhelmed.

I think that time has come.

MOTHER: John, you're keenly aware of a host of ever-worsening 
environmental problems, but you keep plugging away at solutions. How do 
you find the strength to keep going?

Jeavons:Well, the first step is to face the problem. We have to realize 
just how vulnerable and threatened we are-that humanity's existence 
depends on preserving a six-inch layer of healthy topsoil. Then if we 
will actually look the problem full in the face, we'll work right 
through it and come up with a solution, because problems always contain 
the seeds for their solutions.

MOTHER: Still, if you personally work hard on the solution and live an 
efficient lifestyle, but everybody else keeps wasting resources like 
they'll last forever, then your individual acts will have very little 
larger effect. What good is that?


Jeavons:It's not easy. I sometimes get discouraged because people don't 
seem to care about themselves and the planet, especially if they know 
what the problems are but don't act on solutions. But because the 
problems seem insurmountable, I don't act on many of the solutions I 
know aboutand I'm certainly not perfect, either.

I may not change the world, but I want to vote for life with my life. If 
I wasn't acting positively about these problems-Good grief!then I'd 
really be depressed.

MOTHER: Do you get personal strength from any spiritual beliefs?

Jeavons: his eyes start to tear] Yes, I'm a Christian. And I feel this 
is what I'm supposed to do.


MOTHER: I'm sorry. I didn't mean t upset you.

Jeavons: That's all right. My faith is a ve personal thing; I never 
mention it unles someone asks me. I'm not embarrassed about being a 
Christian, but people use the ter in such funny ways, so I'm very 
careful abou talking about it. Still, I'm sure it's the only thing 
that's continue goin through all the hard work and hard times: almost 
went bankrupt twice about thre years ago.

We have also worked with Buddhists and people of many other spiritual 
paths. I feel having a spiritual dimension to one's work is important, 
but I don't preach religion.

don't even preach biointensive minifarming I'm just trying to describe 
one solution. I think one of the best solutions to raising enough food 
is for more individuals to raise their food locally and on a small-scale 
basis. But I'm sure there are lots of other good potential solutions, 
and people should take the ones that make most sense to them. Some that 
hold a lot of promise if practiced sustainably are wet rice-paddy 
agriculture, Asian aquaculture, biodynamic farming, agroforestry, 
Fukuoka culture, and biointensive minifarming. If someone came up with 
another good method for growing food that fulfilled the functional, 
environmental, human, and soil needs we're talking about, I'd farm that 
way tomorrow.

People often cast me into the mold of believing I've got the 
single-recipe answer. Biointensive's no panacea. Since it gets four 
times the yields, it can also deplete the soil four times faster-if you 
don't recycle wastes and grow compost crops. Tree culture's not a 
panacea. Instead of strip-mining the soil one, two, or three feet deep, 
trees can stripmine the soil 50 to 150 feet deep and moreunless they're 
grown the right way.

We're the panacea.

MOTHER: What do you mean?

Jeavons: Walt Kelly's cartoon character Pogo was talking about the 
environment once and said, "We have found the enemy, and the enemy is 
us." Well, now we have to discover our allies. That is us, too.

We don't have to continue what we've been doing. We can be pioneers in 
an opening field of miniaturization of agriculture, of a sophisticatedly 
effective use of resources, of building up a fantastically abundant 
ecosystem on this planet.

It's difficult to see how one person can be part of a solution to the 
environmental resource depletion and human hunger problems so rampant in 
the world today. And, true, these problems taken as a whole are 
insurmountable to one person, but broken up into individual-sized 
portions, we can each easily become part of the solution.

The portions all added together can be a whole solution. The earth is a 
large garden, and each of us needs only to begin to care for our own 
part of it for life to be breathed 1 back into the planet, into the 
soil, and into ourselves.

I The choice is ours. The individual becomes important again. And the 
work begins now.