Jeff Marchand

I have read Mark Shephard's book with great interest.  I seem to recall his complaint about corn is when its grown in massive industrial hundred acre plantations and the GMO varieties bred to maximize sucre content for cattle feed and ethanol production. Those corn plants are not food. Humans would die trying to survive on just that corn. But those are not the corn I am growing and I not growing just corn!

I am talking about open pollinated heritage corn with much higher protein grown on a garden scale with beans , squash and sunflowers.  Those four sisters sustained meso-america for millennia before the Spanish came.  So its hard to argue that they are not food or unhealthy.

We need carbohydrates for energy.  Yes we can grow potatoes and I do but the Irish found out the hard way what happens when you rely on potatoes too much.  Corn is easier to store than potatoes or squashes too .  Variety is the spice of life and diversity is safety.

paul wheaton wrote:Crop rotation has been proven, over and over, to be an excellent strategy ...    for monocrop systems.

A few positions I think about in this space (and the "you" is "me"):

  - if you are thinking of crop rotation, you are doing it wrong

  - if you are thinking of a block of monocrop, you are doing it wrong

  - corn it out

  - wheat is out

Move to a system that will pump out food without any seeding, fertilizing, irrigation ....   without any care at all ... the only effort is on harvesting.  That is the permaculture goal.  To design a system so well that years can pass with zero care.  And with zero care it grows more food and is spreading.

Geeze I dunno I have seen videos of Geoff Lawton's Zatuna Farm's kitchen garden and he seems to grow in blocks and certainly his interns seem to weed and water and do plenty of work. Is that not permaculture?

Why would corn be out if a person does a three or four sister's garden?

I believe a for a person to grow their own calories with varied crops (who wants to live off of just potatoes?) they would need a fairly substantial size garden say 1/8th of acre per person if it were space efficient and weeded to maximize production.  Many people are not lucky enough to have that much space to allocate to a garden.  A weed infested higely pigely garden with zero maintance would have to be much much larger no?

I know what you propose worked for Master Fukuoka but for how many others? Is that how you are getting your calories?

There are millions of small scale gardens who rotate crops to break pest cycles and to not deplete soil nutrients who leave the soil richer than when they found it. Elliot Coleman describes a garden rotation in his books where each preceding crop benefits the next proceeding crop in a virtuous circle . A management system that can be done on the land indefinitely while improving soil health and the local micro and macro fauna seems to me to be the very definition of a permanent culture.  

Finally a well managed vegetable garden can be a thing of beauty and peaceful place for a hardworking gardener to  bask in the glory of his or her hard labours at the end of the day. For me if my permaculture farm and garden is neither beautiful nor peaceful I am doing something wrong.  Of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder so other's  mileage may vary.

Just my two cents.  

Sounds lovely Oliver.   I had to re-read "usual spring drought" twice.  Where I live in Eastern Ontario spring means rain.  Spring drought just did not compute!

problem with the fallow approach is you have no hope of ever controlling  weeds.  One approach I want to pursue once I have chickens next year is the 'dueling gardens' technique.  Keep chickens where last years garden was and where it will be again next year.

I found this thread today on a break from building mounds for a three sisters garden.  As I was digging up soil to make the mounds I was thinking "This sure is a lot of work, I dunno if want to do this every year as I rotate through my garden!"

I think where it's easy to rotate crops then why not? But if you need to make special infrastructure  like mounds or supports for vining plants etc then don't bother and research landrace cropping and seed saving to evolve past any local pathogens.

just my 2 cents and for what's it's worth I'm no master gardner😀

That is an awesome observation Christopher! After my last post I did some more research on the St-Hubert pea and they need a long growing season. In a 3 sisters garden you need to wait a few weeks before planting the vining plant so the corn can get a head start. I dont have that kinda time so my idea wont work.  Back to beans it is.  Enough with the over thinking things Im just gonna plant the beans with the painted mountain and see what happens .  Experiments=science=learning!  Ill report back.

I'm also growing St-Hubert soup peas (traditional variety my French Canadian ancestors used for pork and pea soup) and maybe I could substitute them for beans?

Hi I was excited to get some painted mountain corn to plant this year for my three sisters garden.  Ive never raised them before.  But I had nt realized that they only grow 5 feet tall.  Seems  kinda short to grow beans on.  I am also growing sweet corn so maybe Ill use those in the three sisters garden and painted mountain elsewhere.  I am on the fence whether this is right variety for me as I like idea of 3 sisters..  Maybe I wont bother keeping trying to save their  seed and get different variety next year like bloody butcher.   Any corn varietal recommendations for 3 sisters?

Thank you all for the great encouragements.  Its very satisfying to hear that root veg make tasty snack when dried.  I would never have guess that dried turnips were tasty.  Are they peppery?  I made turnip kraut one year and it was very peppery.  I watched a video recently where they said in medieval times people dried apple rings on strings indoors over the fire place.  I have planted an apple orchard that will come in production this year and will try that too!

Keep the suggestions comming!

Hi I am exploring the idea of preserving as much of my garden produce with a dehydrator (DIY solar or bought commercial TBD) but I am a little concerned that I wont like the dried food.  No point in drying it if I wont eat it.

I'd love peoples feed back on A) cook books featuring dehydrated foods and B) which food staples dry well and taste good when cooked.
My garden staples are tomatoes (OK I know those taste awesome when dried, esp cherries) but what about turnip, beets,  squash and potatoes?
Do you have any personal recipes to share?

Many thanks.