An accidental year-long polyculture

I was pretty bummed that we didn't have irrigation in time for me to plant fall and winter crops and that the rain started so late in the rainy season. I was really hoping to at least get some daikons, carrots, turnips, and greens in the ground but we just didn't have the soil moisture for it. Well, I ended up planting a couple hundred favas to overwinter and put down my first batch of compost from my deep litter system. Well, I had winnowed about 2.5 combined pounds of turnip and daikon seeds in my chicken pen and now they're coming up between the favas as a happy little accident. I think I'll broadcast a few more handfuls of daikons to really fill in the space. I'll harvest some of the roots, but most of them I'll chop and drop as the favas really start to push in spring. That'll give the daikons some time to break down before I plant the squash that will eventually be mulched with the remains of the favas. I imagine the soil would be pretty soft at that point and could be planted with the fall and winter carrots. Maybe some cabbages to and then peas in the spring? Followed by tomatoes? I'm not sure where it's going yet, but my garden is developing a mind of its own.

Hi Mathew,
Your unintentional polycrop sounds great 😄
How is it going now? Did the seedlings make it through?

I’ve had a heap of kale, mitzuna, rocket, amaranth and borage volunteer after replanting a bed. The seeds were in the soil from past experiments and took the chance to come up. They are waaaay healthier and growing much better than any time I planted seedlings I reckon.

I’d love to hear how your gardens going now, and if according to your plan above? Any pics?

Thanks,
Caitlin.

Caitlin Mac Shim wrote:Hi Mathew,
Your unintentional polycrop sounds great 😄
How is it going now? Did the seedlings make it through?

I’ve had a heap of kale, mitzuna, rocket, amaranth and borage volunteer after replanting a bed. The seeds were in the soil from past experiments and took the chance to come up. They are waaaay healthier and growing much better than any time I planted seedlings I reckon.

I’d love to hear how your gardens going now, and if according to your plan above? Any pics?

Thanks,
Caitlin.

It's been a moderate success so far. I only ended up having one daikon come up in two whole beds of favas. My turnips are just starting to size up, though, so that's a win. Unfortunately, daikon seeds are large enough that without a layer of compost or mulch over them the birds ended up finding and eating them all. I'll have to save a larger quantity of daikon and turnip seeds so I can try it again next year, and at that point I should have something to use as what Geoff Lawton calls a scatter mulch. Hopefully that keeps the birds from finding the seed.

My favas are still growing well, so I'm still planning to chop and drop those as mulch for the squash and cucumbers. It won't be quite as good without the daikon, I think, but it should be a good start. I'm starting to think about my succession in terms of getting some sort of legume into each bed at some point during the year to ultimately use as mulch for the following crop. We'll see how I change and adjust that plan as the year progresses. The timing might not work out very well for some of the combinations I'm trialing this year, and there are purportedly allelopathic effects between some of the crops I'm pairing together, so I'm pairing them with seeds I don't mind losing just in case that ends up being true. When I get a chance, I might post the combos I'm testing out this year.

Daikon or rather radishes in general are a big part of my gardening process, they take the place of a tiller. I rake them into most of the beds in early spring and then use them as mulch as I plant other stuff but always let quite a few grow on to maturity. I eat a lot of the flower tops and young seed pods, collect what seed I need for the next spring and scatter the rest.

The scattered ones go ahead and take off and I pull any that are in the way of something else. They often grow to near maturity for another crop of seed pods to munch on but mostly they are just to till the soil. Then I plant a lot more in late summer to early fall along with a lot of turnips. This crop is only to till and improve the soil. The radishes freeze out later and the turnips keep going to make seed the next spring.

I discovered this process a few years ago and it works great. The radishes sometimes get really big before they freeze and the tops drop down and cover the soil with a nice mat of leaves which are still there in spring and help keep early weeds from coming in. Most of the turnips are just chopped off with a hoe in spring and left to rot as other crops are planted with some left to make more seed.

My gardening has become more productive and less labor intensive since I quit using that tiller and doing this instead. The weather has been really nice here last few days and my garden is largely ready to plant. So nice to spend that time prepping growing beds instead of spending time and money screwing with that stupid tiller.

Yeah. I used a tiller exactly once. I spent more time working on it than I didn't running it, and it didn't run great one I had it running... but wasn't worth the additional effort it would have taken to get it running any better than that. Of course, I was replacing lawn with a garden and didn't have the materials to sheet mulch it, so it's probably one of the few instances a tiller justified it's existence. It was the difference between having a garden or not. It was also good experience with smash engines, but that I hope to use that experience a whole lot.

Going forward I'll broadcast my daikons before I add the bit of compost that I add, rather than the other way around like I did this year because I hadn't planned on putting daikons there. After all, it's the one that ended up in my compost that actually sprouted and made it to a good size. Always learning and adjusting...