I'm still tinkering and will probably experiment with how I want to approach tillage and planting in the future. In the past, I've had quite a bit of success using a type of heavy mulch tilling, which generally involves keeping the soil covered, especially in the fall/winter, with leaves and grass clippings, and building compost heaps in the gardens themselves. I found this method really helps keep the weeds down, and the soil was so nice and loose--seed ready--when I pulled back the mulch in the spring.
However, this method requires a great deal of organic matter, I've heard it can eventually result in imbalanced levels of certain minerals--potassium, I think--and does seem to create a breeding ground for certain bugs that like to live under the moist mulch if you keep it on during the growing seasons. I'm not sure how feasible this will be on the size of gardens we have (probably 3/4 of an acre or better this coming year), but we do have lots of hay that I might clip and simply fork on to the gardens like we did this year with potatoes. I also want to experiment with organic material out of our woods--the top 6 inches is often really nice, broken down compost. The important word is "experiment" this year. I'll leave some of the garden in more traditional style, and will till and hoe the weeds, but I want to try different things.
Attached are a few updated pics that show the finished garden plots, or nearly finished plots.
Have you ever heard of Anne and Eric Nordell of Beech Grove Farm and the "bio-extensive market gardening" techniques they use?
ReplyDeleteI first read about their techniques in Small Farmer's Journal where they usually wrote a column in each edition. I'm not sure where you could go to find any of those articles now, but it might be worth going online and searching.
Greatly simplified, they plant cover crops to build their soil and provide fertility. Cover crops are rotated with the vegetable crops, usually with half of the farm growing cover crops.
Buckwheat is used to make phosphorus available, sorghum-sudangrass is used to suppress weeds and provide organic material, winter rye is used for its organic material and allopathic properties, etc. And, composted horse manure and bedding turned by a couple of pigs is usually only used as a light topdressing for certain vegetables.
I don't have a market garden (although I do have a farm), but I use alot of their techniques in the gardens and find it is much less work and more effective to grow most of my organic material instead of hauling it in (still use straw at times) or turning a giant compost pile.
There is an online article about their farm at:
http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/1204/nordell/index.shtml
And a video about their techniques at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3dEnbKNaUY
Thanks for those links, Rich. I hadn't heard of them, or their method before. I would not be surprise if, down the road, I'm farming with horses or mules, but for now, I'll put up with the gas powered tools. I've experimented very briefly with cover crops--I did some buckwheat in my garden the one year and liked the results, but haven't been able to stay in one place long enough to work them in on a rotational basis over a longer period of time. Hopefully that will change now that we have the land we've always wanted. Half of my tillable ground I bought this fall and it was in conventional corn this year, so not close to being organic. I've been brainstorming on what to do with it next year. I had thought about seeding it to a hay/pasture mix, but I'm considering a cover crop for the spring and then seeding it later. I won't be using it for vegetable production for a few years, so I'm trying to figure out the best way to get it to organic and in a condition I want it in for future cultivation.
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