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  • From: "Thomas Paul Jahn" <tpj@life.ku.dk>
  • To: <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [permaculture] Svar: Re: Vegetable crops to follow sod/grass
  • Date: Wed, 05 Jan 2011 23:07:25 +0100

Poor draining could becontrolled by digging a number of trenches. A friend of
mine has hisgarden in an area with high water table. His neighbors' lawn is
forseasons pretty much in water. Not in his garden. he can grow
rootvegetables without problem. For him, water control was the key tosoil
fertility. (Another one was import of wood chips. The latter heconsiders less
relevant.)In fact, he would suggestnot to till but to dig some trenches. The
excavation can be used torase the beds to some extend. For him it proofed
good to have anabout 50 cm (2 feet) profile that would never experience
logging.Then mycelium and earthworms will become active and serve
soilfertility.
Finally you would have amuch greater choice in crops.


You can see some picturesfrom various stages of his work here:
http://permakulturforum.ning.com/photo/albums/henriks-have


cheers
Thomas




>>> David Muhl 05-01-11 19:17 >>>
Hi Sam,

Dieter offered some good suggestions for cover crops...ones that will give
you a little nitrogen boost in your soil. I couldn't tell if you were
inquiring about cover crops or annual, raised bed crops(?). I grew all of
the crops you listed this past summer, although the beds we used weren't
raised per say, just slightly mounded. Although we added various nutritive
amendments, the biggest factor (that I observed) which affected yield was
soil structure/porosity/drainage issues. We have quite a bit of clay in our
fields and not a significant amount of humus/organic matter build-up, as we
were only in our second season of production.

In poorly draining areas, we sometimes only got a few smallish potatoes,
whereas other ares we would get 6 to 10 (medium to large ones) per plant.
With carrots, poor drainage caused about 60% to rot right in the ground, but
our better draining beds had almost no loss. The beets were pretty tough,
but germination was slower in the mucky areas, and certain weeds just
out-competed them in the more distant areas of the farm that received less
attention.

Not sure if that info is of use to you, but just in case...

David Muhl
Colorado

--- On Wed, 1/5/11, sam bucus wrote:

> From: sam bucus
> Subject: [permaculture] Vegetable crops to follow sod/grass
> To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Wednesday, January 5, 2011, 2:47 AM
> Hi,
> This spring i will be developing a property in Maine, zone
> 5, within a mile fo the coast, foggy, cool summer temps.
>
> We will be starting from an overgrown field with weedy
> sod/grass/perennial "weeds".
>
> Our primary objective will be using cover crops to bring
> the weeds under control before implementing a permaculture
> plan with mostly tree/shrub crops.
>
> However, we will be doing a rather tradtional veggie plot
> using some regular old raised beds. Can anyone offer any
> advice on what crops would do best following sod? We are
> looking largely to do as many storage crops as we can
> (potatoes, winter squash, carrots, beets, etc.) but I have
> also read about a lot of problems from pests in addition to
> the unimproved soil.
>
> The soil is silty loam at 0-7 inches moving to silty clay
> at 65 inches. Its main restrictive feature is that it holds
> water quite late into the spring. According to a Kinsey Ag
> soil report
> the pH is 5.8, humus content 4.1%, and called for additions
> of protein meal, sulfur, rock phosphate, dolomite, potash
> sulfate, borax, manganese, copper and zinc sulfate.
>
> Over the long run we have a good soil improvement program
> going. But does anyone have
> any suggestions for putting in right after sod?
>
> Thanks,
> Sam
>
>
>
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