This is the only way to garden, square foot gardening. This is the first year I tried it and this will be the only method from now on in my garden. Weeding is the nightmare the ends most gardening hobbies. I planted a 36 foot long, 4.5 foot wide raised bed with Roma Tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Artichoke, Cabbage, and Broccoli - but packed them in very tight. The only place I have a problem with weeds in this bed is where a plant didn't make it. The vegetables crowded out the weeds. I have 30 tomato plants, 20 Cabbage, 24 broccoli, 6 pepper, and 6 artichoke plants in the bed. I could have packed in a few more.
Notice the black ground on the next bed? I lost my spinach and carrots to a weed infestation and had to start over. So I placed dry straw very thickly on the bed and burned it. No more weeds OR weed seeds. I may have to do this several times to get ahead of their cycle seed production.
From the other side:
This is one of those potato circles planted in 12 inches of straw 6 feet in diameter. City folks may have forgotten but potatoes are a ROOT vegetable. Those leafy green shoots you see are the top side of the potato plant. I expect each patch to yield 30 to 60 pounds of excellent organic potatoes. A patch of Tomatoes, hot pepper, and sweet corn is behind it.
My wife gave me this sign as a present today, and we hung it at the farm entrance:
The vegetables that I started indoors are coming in very strong, the pole beans had to be restarted, and the corn is just poking through. I grow field corn for the chickens and sweet corn for the table and freezer.
Tennessee has the worst soil possible for vegetable gardening. Hard, red clay, baked to a brick like texture and consistency by the sun and reduced to clinging cement like slime when it rains. If you look at one of the shots of the raised bed you will see my "compost pile" covered by a tarp in the background. The "compost" is literally tons of manure and wasted hay (hay the horses littered the ground around their hay ring with and excreted upon), it was well over my head a couple weeks ago (and I am 6'5", or nearly 2 meters), and was 20 feet wide and 12 feet thick at the base. My neighbor helped by using the front end loader on his tractor and moved the pile 30 feet from the winter corral to the garden. This compost will fill 2 raised beds when mixed with some course sand and soil that has been sifted through a "screen" of sorts. Without that compost and other amendments, I would be wasting my time trying to grow things in earth better suited for building pyramids. I expect to be able to use that compost in the Fall.
From the other side:
This is one of those potato circles planted in 12 inches of straw 6 feet in diameter. City folks may have forgotten but potatoes are a ROOT vegetable. Those leafy green shoots you see are the top side of the potato plant. I expect each patch to yield 30 to 60 pounds of excellent organic potatoes. A patch of Tomatoes, hot pepper, and sweet corn is behind it.
My wife gave me this sign as a present today, and we hung it at the farm entrance:
The vegetables that I started indoors are coming in very strong, the pole beans had to be restarted, and the corn is just poking through. I grow field corn for the chickens and sweet corn for the table and freezer.
Tennessee has the worst soil possible for vegetable gardening. Hard, red clay, baked to a brick like texture and consistency by the sun and reduced to clinging cement like slime when it rains. If you look at one of the shots of the raised bed you will see my "compost pile" covered by a tarp in the background. The "compost" is literally tons of manure and wasted hay (hay the horses littered the ground around their hay ring with and excreted upon), it was well over my head a couple weeks ago (and I am 6'5", or nearly 2 meters), and was 20 feet wide and 12 feet thick at the base. My neighbor helped by using the front end loader on his tractor and moved the pile 30 feet from the winter corral to the garden. This compost will fill 2 raised beds when mixed with some course sand and soil that has been sifted through a "screen" of sorts. Without that compost and other amendments, I would be wasting my time trying to grow things in earth better suited for building pyramids. I expect to be able to use that compost in the Fall.
I cannot imagine how one would do self sufficient, organic gardening capable of feeding a family without animal manure - and LOTS of it. Composting grass clippings, "humanure", leaf litter or kitchen compost just wouldn't cut it. I am talking TONS of organic matter here... what is one to do, bring in 6,000 pounds of leaf litter in the family car?
Once your beds are established with a high content of organic matter it is not too hard to maintain their fertility. But that is just a kitchen vegetable garden. Keeping your farm fields fertile without chemical fertilizers requires a great deal of effort - and manure.
Most urban folks don't know that hay, grass grown for livestock, is America's third most valuable crop (just google it). If a farmer continues to take hay off of his fields and NOT return the manure from the animals he fed it to... it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what is happening in his soils. Yes, he can continue to fertilize those fields with chemical fertilizer (he would have to, or he would not be able to grow hay in a few short seasons), but he is on borrowed time. If you remove soil nutrients, they are gone and unavailable for future crops unless you replace them or "recycle" them. Crop rotation really means letting your animals graze on your fallow fields, letting them "fertilize" as they go, as well as planting legumes.
We are buying 20 "bottle" calfs to raise this summer and sell in the late Fall/early Winter. They will come to the farm at less than 100 pounds and leave just under 500 pounds in weight. They will leave us with no shortage of Manure. They will be my 16 year old son's summer job.
Fun fact to know... most of the Nitrogen from animals is in the urine, not the manure. The manure provides the organic matter, the urine provides the N (not to worry, the animals will be happy to mix it up for you). Unfortunately, N is easily lost in evaporation or in transport into the atmosphere, so it is better to have the material coming right out of your barn or corrals.
Lastly, we are expanding the garden, and rather than fight with the weeds and grass in the new area we are expanding our hog's area. I have been told by others that in less than a couple of weeks a single hog (Wilbur is about 225 lbs) will turn over a 1/4 acre and eat every root, weed seed, and blade of grass. I will let you know, and will try to take before and after pictures.
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