How to Grow More Vegetables…Part Three

As promised, today I’ll explain about how this Grow Biointensive way of planting as explained in How to Grow More Vegetables can improve your garden. As I mentioned this style of gardening has been rediscovered and studied for over thirty years by Ecology Action, up in Northern California. But it’s originally the ancient 4,000 year old Chinese Biointensive way of farming which is patterned after nature’s own intensive biological plantings.

Scott and I figure, if its worked for the Chinese for all those years, it might just in fact make our garden a better place. And while we don’t follow the method exactly, we add a little bit more of the method’s theologies every year. And it has improved our garden greatly. The man who initially brought this method to attention in the States, Alan Chadwick, wisely said, “Just grow one small area, do it well. Then, once you have got it right, grow more!” So, let’s learn this method already, okay?

Here are the components:
Deep Soil Preparation. This is the most important part. Loose soil structure enables the roots to grow deep down in the soil and a steady stream of nutrients can flow into the stem and leaves. Double digging your soil is admittedly back breaking, but it can be done is small steps and the benefits last for years and are certainly worth the effort.

Composting. “In nature, living things die, and their death allows life to be reborn.” (See, Compost really is proof that there is life after death!) Composting is an important way to return carbon, nitrogen, magnesium, sulfur, calcium, phosophorus, potash, and trace minerals back to the earth. These elements are all necessary to maintain the biological cycles of life that naturally exist. So ahead make that compost pile, it’s easy!

Close Plant Spacing. Nature doesn’t grow it’s plants in long, spaced out rows, why should we? We waste a lot of space growing things so far apart.

Companion Planting. This is a fascinating subject to explore. It’s one of our favorite garden explorations. Basically, you want to grow things together that will enhance each other, such as beans and cucumbers.

Plant Carbon-Efficient Crops. Planting your garden in about 60% of the growing area with seed and grain crops will produce large amounts of carbonaceous materials for compost and provide significant amounts of dietary calories. Have you ever thought about growing crops for not only your consumption, but also to return back to the soil? That’s a new one, isn’t it? But a great one.

Plant Calorie-Efficient Crops. Remember, this methodology is taught to show people how to grow their entire diet in one 4,000 square foot plot (a vegan diet of course). So thinking of planting the most calorie rich vegetables is important. You want to plant about 30% of your garden to potatoes, burdock, garlic, and parsnips which produce a large amount of calories for your diet.

Open-Pollinated Seeds. Use these to preserve genetic diversity.

A Whole, Interrelated Farming System. This Grow Biointensive food-raising method is a whole system and it’s components, when used all together create high yields that nourish not only yourself but the earth.

Cool system, isn’t it? What I’ve written about is only a taste of what you find in the actual book, How to Grow More Vegetables. Its full of incredible information on starting from seed planting with lunar cycles, charts like you wouldn’t believe, and diagrams of how to lay out your garden. Step by step illustrations on how to start small and eventually grow a plot into a 4,000 sq. foot self sufficient garden of Eden, or Garden of Eatin’ as it were.

I can’t tell you how much you need to read How to Grow More Vegetables. Add it to your Amazon wish list or check it out at your local library. You’ll love it too!

Read Part One & Part Two.

7 Things to Improve Your Soil

We’ve been thinking a lot about dirt lately. Or, rather ‘soil’ as we gardeners like to say. We’ve been thinking about weeds and learning about how you can tell a lot about your soil by what weeds grow in it. We’re just starting to learn about this so we’ll keep you posted. But it’s gotten me to think about how as gardeners we are truly stewards of the soil. Any organic gardener knows that your plants are only as healthy as your soil, so its important to take excellent care of it. The best way to ensure your soils health is to add plenty of organic matter. Sure, we know that the three big soil nutrients are nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but macro and micro nutrients are also critical because those are are what break down the organic matter to release the nutrients to your plants. Here’s a list of things you can easily do to improve your soils health.

1. For new garden beds, mix one inch of compost or 3 inches of grass clippings into the top 6 inches of soil.

2. Mulch around plants with 2 inches of grass clippings, coffee ground or compost which will slowly add nutrients to the soil and encourage earthworms and other soil organisms

3. Apply a spray of compost tea. Compost tea is low in nutrients but high in micronutrients

4. Plant a living mulch this summer such as oats or white dutch clover around your vegetables. Their roots will loosen compacted soil and concentrate nutrients for your vegetables to feed on.

5. Dry out eggshells and crumble them into the soil for a boost of calcium and micronutrients. (via katrina)

6. Start a compost pile, bin or vermiculture box.

7. Double dig your soil about 2 feet deep, blending in compost as you go. The benefits will last indefinately. This will improve drainage, aeration, improve root growth, encourage earthworms and allow nutrients to be evenly spread through the root zone.

All these ideas are pretty easy things that you can do this weekend. I hope you try a few!

free fertilizer vs. $16,000 fertilizer

We a seemingly endless amount of weeding and thinning this weekend which gave us a nice amount of amaranth, pursulane, chinese mustard and micro-greens to have for salads. A small reward for all the time spent on our knees.

Scott also mowed our lawn and used the grass clipping in our newest experiment in the broccoli/cauliflower bed. We read a great article in Mother Earth News this weekend that explored the different types of organic fertilizer on the market. As you know, fertilizers must be labeled by their Nitrogen, Phosphorous and Potassium (N-P-K) levels. Being that nitrogen is a likely deficient in many soils, the author compared the fertilizers based on their per pound of nitrogen. She compares 17 different store bought organic fertilizers, the cheapest being SoyBean Meal (7-2-1) at $4/lb of nitrogen and the most expensive being TerraCycle Plant Food (.03-.002-.02) at a whopping $16,987/lb of nitrogen.

Or she says, you can just use ordinary grass clippings which contain anywhere from 2% – 5% of nitrogen. In most areas you can work in about half an inch into your soil, or put a 1-2 inch layer as a mulch on your garden bed and that will provide all the nutrients most crops need for a full season of growth! Not only will it provide nutrients, but the grass clippings as a mulch act as a good weed prevention and as a moisture retainer.

Usually we just put our grass clippings into the compost pile and let them compost. Doing that dilutes the nitrogen power down to about 1%, but the benefit of compost is that it departs its nutrients into the soil over a matter of years rather than in just one growing season.

Either way, obviously, is beneficial. And obviously much, much cheaper than buying organic fertilizer, wouldn’t you say? I don’t know, free vs. $16,987, you make the call.

Will this coffee cup really compost?

One of our favorite places to stop for a coffee here in town is the Fig Pantry. Not only is the cutest little spot to stop, but their lattes and pastries are incredible. Recently we’ve found that they made the switch to these compostable cups. We were intrigued so after we’d finished our lattes we tossed the cups into the compost pile on top of the favas and grass clippings. I’ll report back and let you know if the truely do compost.

I did a bit of research and the web address on the bottom of the cup led me to this page here. It seems as though they are building the inside layer with corn instead of with a petroleum product. Great! So now when we forget to bring our cups at least we don’t have to feel quite so guilty.

compost

I mentioned the other day that I would talk about our compost pile. Or should I say ‘piles’. We use the pile approach as opposed to putting it in a bin. I think because it’s easier, we have the room for them and it makes them so much easier to turn. We put our kitchen scraps in it, our grass clippings, leaves and any other weeding and pruning we do. They say a good compost pile should have a ratio of 25 parts brown, carbon-rich materials (such as dry leaves, straw and wood chips) to 1 part green, nitrogen-rich materials (such as kitchen scraps and grass), but we are more relaxed than that. We’ve never been very scientific about our ratios and we seems to come out with a good mix.

We usually have three piles going. One that is finished compost, like the picture above, one that is actively composting, and another one to throw new materials into. In the fall as the leaves drop, Scott will just mow over the leaves, to break them up before adding them to the pile, this helps them to start composting faster instead of matting up and turning sour. You know when your compost isn’t actually composting when it smells. A properly behaving pile shouldn’t smell at all because the complex arrangement of organisms of worms, bacteria and insects will keep it breaking down naturally.

Now that spring is here and we are preparing the beds, we keep a custom made (by Scott) wood frame with wire mesh over the wheel barrow to sieve out any big pieces before we wheel it to it’s intended bed. Using our compost and supplimenting with some mushroom compost we’ve purchased (we have a big yard!) has greatly improved our soil. When we first moved here, our soil didn’t retain moisture at all, but now I think we’ve got it at an ideal stage. It holds moisture long enough for the plants to soak it up, but without being muddy and clay like. Perfect for growing.