Jesse Roberts

Mathew Trotter wrote:I honestly found Intelligent Gardener kind of underwhelming. Gardening When It Counts has the most information on dry farming, and that provided way more value for me.

Interesting, I will have to check out the former when I find some time.  Thanks for your thoughts.

That is an interesting thought in regards to soil moisture, but we average 43". We had decided to plant a cover there as it was a very hard clay spot that didn't hold moisture well.  That very well played a part...yet I still remember burning my hand on the black hose that was down on the crimped cover.  I still think that crimped cover caused excessive heat following tarping.  My best guess is the thermal conductivity of the now dry cover was raised from the rain event.  Paired with scorching heat of august it just created a deadly hot zone.  

Mathew Trotter wrote:Did you crimp and plant in the same day?

I'm assuming you've read Steve Solomon, since you're dry farming?

No, I followed the method of crimp, tarp for 4/5 weeks then transplant.  Have you had any experience planting into freshly crimped cover?  

I saw some other farms further south try melons and squash like that and did not have great yields.  They used an actual crimping tool on their tractor.  I think that was the main deterrent from trying on the long rows.  It would have been a lot of work by hand!!

And yes, good call on the book.  Haven't read his older book, but definitely read Intelligent Gardener.  We lucked out in a sense and have the cows/sheep, and high tunnels on the same well as the house.  So that pump can only handle so much..thus learned how to dry farm and plant with rain without much say.

Abstract Background: Not sure this topic is of interest in this group.  I have been on and mostly off lurker on here for 5 plus years.  Used to be more into permaculture and fell into the allure of market gardening for a living.  Now that we have a customer base and known demand for what we grow.  I am getting back into my love for perennials and fruit trees.  Looking forward to all the variety we are bringing onto the farm thanks to the time savings of switching from 100% human power to using a tractor.  The plan to reduce the number of market garden "tarped" areas by over 60% to grow mainly greens and certain root crops and some solanaceous crops in the remaining "market garden" style beds.  

Experiment in no till cover-crop:
One major complaint with market gardening was the use of tarps essentially stopping any photosyntheisis and creating a lack of oxygen through occultation.  Another concern is the fact that we imported loads of compost to get CEC and OM numbers up.  So considering that we are not totally leaving market gardening methods. We decided to experiment an early spring cover cropped to a plot that was due for compost.  We had seen other farms crimp their cover crop, then transplant fall brassicas, for example, into the crimped residue.  (See photos below). The result was a fail in our context.  

We dry farm our veggies that are transplanted past the first 10 days to settle in.  In short, this is near impossible in crimped cover residue.  The heat of August was reflecting off the residue and killed the majority of the transplants.  The only way the would have survive would have been 2-3 watering a day (just seems a bit excessive).  (Important to note that I transplanted winter squash the same day (before rain) on the first set of transplants.  One set into the crimped cover and the other 100 feet away in a cultivated bare soil bed.  I did not do any additional watering to the bare soil transplants, yet the ones in the cover crimp all died.  Despite efforts to cool them off.  After two separate failed sets of transplants.. we had to rake the cover into the pathway just to get other transplants to set in.  Thus a total failure in terms of adding carbon to the beds.  Only positive note was the huge reduction of weed pressure.  But that was definitely not the goal considering brassicas are fairly easy to cultivate.  

Experiment with cover crops and tractor

As we try to figure out how to utilize the tractor on less than ideal land available due to slope.  Living tire paths have been implemented to carry the weight of tractor, allow soil life to repopulate tilled area, roots to catch runoff when bed tops are bare, leave spiders etc in the field and continue adding carbon whenever the sun is shining.  These long rows in the pictures with the pond beneath were first year beds.  The cover crop being the first thing planted in them.  There are still efficiencies to figure out and tools on the wishlist.  But, I was thrilled with the success of the early spring cover crop that was spaded in without any heavy labor beside attaching implements.  We harvested loads of winter squashes, watermelons, pumpkins and more without any cultivation tools even.        

Moral of it all is that my permaculture principles of never wanting to till, kept me from having the time to start an orchard..etc etc! But of course, starting small makes sense to build customer base before throwing money at tools!

Interested on your thoughts of the tractor beds or if you are able to make cover crops work with no till in quick rotations.  Always learning. And yes I know the slope sucks but at the moment this is what we are working with!

Also is it possible to imbed the photos in the writing to illustrate what your talking about?

Agroecology Caravan Trip

Exploring Europe's family traditions in farming and community building along the way.

Would you like to help in planning or become part of the team for this summer's European Caravan Trip?

As part of launching our webpage, the alternative farmer.com, we plan to pick up the caravan in Germany mid July and head into Eastern Europe, to Southern Europe and finish the trip towards Portugal. The main purpose of the trip is documenting forms of alternative farming (permaculture, horticulture and any innovative methods of designing sustainable systems with ethical land and resource use. Each member will take part in planning, fundraising (possible kickstarter), and overall having a great time! We will also offer to get our hands dirty wherever we go, conduct interviews, meet great people and have a great time as a team. Ideas are more than welcome from participating or non-participating parties Our experiences will be translated into films and articles for our news feed and we hope to find farmers to collaborate with in the future.

Editor/Journalist Correspondent
We are looking for a young editor or journalist to correspond with us throughout the agroecology caravan trip through Europe mid July to August this summer. This is a unique opportunity especially for international students and may be rewarded with a stipend. If you would like to apply to work together with us please send us your resume/cv, a short statement of interest and a sample of writing. Background or experience with agroecology, horticulture, permaculture etc would be great but not required. Look forward to hear from you!

All the best,

Jessman

Greetings everyone,

I wanted to start a thread extending the question of what are underutilized or forgotten crops that you have knowledge about?

These are plant species that have been used for centuries or even millennia as food, fibre, fodder, oil or medicine, but are no longer very common. Many of these crops are of great value for nutrition, climate resilience and risk diversification. The globalisation of food systems, however, has led to a situation where currently a mere fifteen crops provide 90% of the world’s food, with three crops - rice, maize and wheat - making up twothirds of this total (FAO).

As 2016 has been announced as the International Year of Pulses:

What are your favorite pulse crops and what makes them important for growers, families, or for the local market?

What are some of your forgotten recipies with forgotten crops or pulses (fermentations? stews? brews?)

Also if you may be interested in submitting an article for Farming Matters magazine email me at Outreach@ileia.org before the first of April to find out more!

Cheers,

Jessman