The Helpful Gardener
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Ch. 22 Growing Annuals and Vegetables

A timely chapter for many of us deep in the throes of annual containers and vegetabel gardens (I know I am).

The converse of the previous chapter, we are now in the realm of bacterial soils and plant needs. Jeff starts with the finest explanation to date of why we need to stop tilling. Sure it =made sense in fungally dominated soils, but those are GONE. We now till and set ourselves back from neart perfect soils to such bacterially dominanted soils that weeds are given preference. And then we wonder why we have to invest so much time weeding? Thanks for that Jeff; I will be quoting this section often...

The bits on preserving insect life in the garden are really well done as well; I am surprised to find myself sayiing that this may be my favorite chapter (probably swayed by the vast amount of time I have been spending in the veggies lately). But I really do like this chapter heaps and mounds, and y'all know how I like those...

HG

garden5
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Well, the authors made their stance on soil maintenance official: "No More Rototilling." Actually, their reasoning is quite compelling and I liked the story on how the practice of tilling become popular and wide-spread. I was surprised to learn, that straw mulches are considered "green," however. I always though they were considered "browns." Perhaps they are some of the more carbon-rich "greens."

The concept of inoculating plants with endomicorrhizae was new to me though. I'll have to do a split-test with it next year and see just what happens.

Finally, on page 198, the authors said what I knew was coming : "Avoid compaction; try to stay out of the garden beds, and limit and direct pathways through them." I think this is the main thing stopping me from fully teaming with microbes. My main garden is one big rectangle. I walk in-between all of the rows so much for suckering, harvesting, etc., that I have to take a hoe and cultivate in-between the rows at least once a week because the ground becomes so compact. This keeps water from pooling up, but I'm sure is even harder on the microbes. Not only are they getting compacted, but then the tops 4 in. or so are getting all churned up right afterwords.

I think that any more gardens I put in will have to consist of separate beds that are about 6 or 7 feet wide. This will allow me to lean in from one side or the other and avoid compacting the soil and, thus, avoid the subsequent tilling of it. Surely a hand-print here or there is much much better than constant footsteps. It looks like no-till gardening really is the better method.

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rainbowgardener
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Most people that are doing beds make them 4' wide. It's hard to reach much farther than that, unless you are very tall with long arms.

You aren't really sacrificing as much garden space as you would think, because you don't have to plant that 4' in rows. You can plant the whole thing and you can space your plants closer in good loose rich soil. (Maybe your next book needs to be Square Foot Gardening? :) ) So your beds and paths probably hold at least as many plants as your rows did. And less work, because you can stop all that cultivating between those rows.

You do not have to build boxes for all those beds, just make mounds. Dig out all the top soil from your paths and pile it on the beds. If you plant the sides as well as the top of the mound, it will help hold it together through the season, as well as giving you more planting space.
Last edited by rainbowgardener on Mon Dec 13, 2010 4:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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applestar
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Yep. Back to Emilia Hazelip and Ruth Stout, as well as John Jeavons (in terms of bed design, not so much no-till I think considering he advocates the double-dug bed? but there are tips to be learned from his methods as well) :wink:

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Jeavons advocates double-digging the bed ONCE only. Thereafter, nevermore...

Cynthia H.
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applestar
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Well, that's true :D I'm too lazy/weak to do the first double-digging although based on a few garden beds that I *did* double-dig ages ago, I do believe there are benefits.

OTOH, the beds that were created by sheet mulching recently are doing well too, albeit not as deeply as the double-dug beds, so I guess it's a question of degrees.

garden5
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RBG, your right. I just tried it out with a yard stick and a 5 ft. wide bed would be the most I could handle. I thought about what you said and remembered that I could plant everything equidistant and not have to worry about walking spaces. You can also intercrop by planting radishes in the tomatoes, a few onions between the peppers, etc. When You think about it a 20x5 bed that is intensively planted with a three foot path on either side may not hold as many vegetables as an 20 x 11 garden with wider spaced rows, but perhaps it will yield more fruit due to healthier soil.

With my gardening style, I pack my plants in even though I have to squeeze between them, so I'm sure I wouldn't be able to have as many plants if I converted my existing garden into two beds. However, I also, as I mentioned before, compact my soil all around the plants and then, as a result, have to till it. So, although I may have fewer plans, I'll bet I may get a bigger harvest since the soil biology will be better.

Where it gets tough is for the gardener with limited space who wants to make use of just about all of it. All of those pathways are potential crop rows, but I guess it is just a matter of ingenuity (container gardening, planter boxes, hanging baskets, etc.). I like to get all the yield I can, but I think I may be able to benefit from the increased yield from fewer plants. I'll hopefully break even, at least, with a lot less weeding and cultivating.



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