Lowest Cost with least Quality Compromise for Commercial Organics?

[VerdantGreen]

any veggie garden will get tilled when you plant and harvest potatoes anyway.

i can see some arguments for not tilling, but there are some good ones for tilling.
bringing clods of soil, especially clay, to the surface allows the action of cold and frost to break it up over the winter. no amount of topdressing will have the same effect.
also heavy rain can cause compaction and capping of some soils, tilling will help.

my soil gets tilled every 3-4 years and i still have loads of worms, ants , everything you can mention. i also double dug it when i started out.

VG

 

[ixnay007]

Tilling is not automatically a bad thing. These beds needed to get mixed, and the green manure must be turned under. The tool that I have to do that is a tiller, and I use it.

I'm not too precious about breaking fungal hyphae several months before I plan on planting my annual plants. It's just the beds, the surrounding soils are left intact, it's not a huge area being tilled over and over and over again. Nor is it being tilled deeply.

I'll suggest checking out what Eliot Coleman has written on market gardening, that's what I'm basing much of my work on, with a smidgen of Bill Mollison, et alia permaculturists.

What it adds up to is that, for me, being a purist in any one method is too restrictive, especially with regard to cultivating and maintaining a market garden. (In fact, I may have a customer for my Romanesco cauliflower, and I think she's going to want to buy it all!)

Mmm, romanesco is so good, as is purple cauliflower..

 

[SeaMaiden]

Eliot Coleman has some interesting things in his books. I believe I have 4 of them. I once tinkered with the idea of being a market gardener. That didn't last long.

We're empty-nesters and desperately (and I do mean DESPERATELY) needed more tax deductions. Schedule F is for Farmer, and it's saved our asses. I don't sell much, only grow enough to feed a few families, but it's a little cash income and it's a HUGE deduction. We have a few years before we're required to show any profits, too, IIRC.

I know he suggests to use a broad fork to break the ground. Which would be a form of tilling.

He does! And I would do that IF we could get a broadfork down into the ground. Our earth is comprised of rock and clay interspersed with rock.

I am not big on being a purist at any one thing. I was just wanting your take on why you tilled.

Gotcha, no problem. It was a debate I had in my head before I finally said, Fuck it, I'm gonna mix the beds!

I just talked with some friends this past weekend about gardening. One is almost 80, and the other is mid 60's, and they had someone till their garden that had not been tilled in 5 years. The person thought they were helping them. Now they have no worms. I laughed. It was pretty funny considering they have worked this piece of land for 40+ years. They shit more garden knowledge than I encompass in my entire existence.

Give yourself some time, it'll happen.

Do you do anything to help repair the damage done by tilling? Reintroduce fungal hyphae, bacteria, worms, Compost tea's, etc..? Or do you just let nature take it's course?

Absolutely. I inoculate with beneficials, and if I till I'm always tilling something IN, only removing rocks (which I've pretty much given up on, you can spend your life moving rocks on this land and if you decide that's what you're going to do, you'll get nothing else done). I think I mentioned green manuring, I'm using a lot more of that each year, as well as still bringing in bulk compost (organic certified), and continuing to add in rock dusts, mostly those that will offer P and Ca.

The worms are there, we're crawling with them, so I don't have to concern myself with replacing those numbers. Honestly, I gauge the life of the soil by how long it takes for stuff to break down, and I figure that if my green manures are broken down in 2-3mos I'm doing ok, all things considered.

I've tried to take the gardening knowledge of *my* ancestors, but it's all tropical/subtropical experience they have, and not much of it applies to a place with four true seasons. It's really kind of weird for me, living where I CAN grow apples, but not bananas.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Mmm, romanesco is so good, as is purple cauliflower..

I couldn't do all the cole crops I saw seed for but wanted to grow, so I chose Romanesco, Brussels sprouts and broccoli. We eat SO MUCH broccoli in this house that if there were a company that sold stock in broccoli, we'd buy it and make ourselves rich. Wait a minute... would that work? It works with pork bellies!

Some of my first Romanesco, growing despite the fucking cabbage aphids (those things are gross).

 

[heady blunts]

Tilling is not automatically a bad thing. These beds needed to get mixed, and the green manure must be turned under. The tool that I have to do that is a tiller, and I use it.

green manure does not need to be tilled in. it works great as a mulch or in your compost pile.

 

[ClackamasCootz]

green manure does not need to be tilled in. it works great as a mulch or in your compost pile.

^^^^word

 

[SeaMaiden]

In our location I can achieve the results I want a lot faster if I till, months instead of years. I'm not willing to wait years to see the kinds of results I'm achieving in a year of work on a given area. If I bother to move green manure to a compost pile I've just undone exactly what I'm after--less effort with more gains--because in order to get it back to the location where it's needed it must be moved once again. That's too much handling, from a managerial point of view, for me.

Turn the GM under and it's gone in months. I like that.

Remember, heady, I'm not working in relatively small containers, I'm working land. With a bad back and knees to boot!

 

[heady blunts]

sea have you ever come across this book?

The Ruth Stout No Work Garden Book

she is one badass mulching machine. might be right up your alley.

here's a short article on it from mother earth news.

I have veggies in the ground so I'm not strictly a container gardener. and green material will break down much faster than 12 months IME

 

[SeaMaiden]

I have not, thanks for that!

In my location the earth was stripped down pretty bare when the house was built. I've been spending that time rebuilding the earth as much as I can. I've also had to 'develop' other areas of our land, which has required a good amount of earth moving. That left me with two large tracts that were just subsoil (I'm using the term soil very loosely here), again requiring building back up. I've tried just leaving green matter where it lays, and it takes several months to break down depending on the time of year. When I turn a little bit of soil over it, that time is cut by half to two-thirds. And, I have seen green material that I left on the surface in autumn in much the same wholeness the following spring through summer. Perhaps it depends on what it is specifically, but these have been my observations in my location.

Also, to reiterate, it's not just organic matter that this 'soil' needs, but also some remineralization, mostly in the form of available P and Ca. I don't know how to get that into the soil without tilling. I know that just sprinkling or spreading it on top doesn't work well at all.

However, in one season of working these newly developed areas I can see a huge increase in vigor of the vegetables grown down there, with little supplemental feeding needed outside of Ca. Oh, I have been giving foliar feeds of Sea-90 to those plants that were showing blossom end rot, and all except the Roma tomatoes have ceased producing fruit with rotted ends. I am also going to experiment with using milk as a foliar feed.

I forgot to mention that, based on jay's strong suggestion, I have added cover crops, which I won't plan on turning under, to the currently growing plants showing BER. Mostly I let the low-lying weeds that don't produce foxtails or burrs grow, instead, and then they're cut down as time and weather allow.

Oh! I almost forgot to add some pix. I'd like to show off my heirloom squash, Marina di Chiogga (as it was labeled by Territorial Seed Co, which also labeled the Romanesco cauliflower as Veronica broccoli, it ain't broccoli). I got these squash late last year, too late to get a single fruit from, so I planned on them from the start this year. However, these things get GINORMOUS. I feel positively Lilliputian whenever I go into the enclosure with the MdC. The leaves are in the 12"-15" range, and stand easily 12"-15" high on a vine that seriously spreads, I have some that have gone 10' out.

***Edit*** That took too long, left stuff out. These squash are being grown on a 3'-5' layer of wood chips, on top of which I made soil mounds, amended with minerals, topped with compost. The last two pix show the lower gardens that we just did last year, the first pic showing my current crop of tomatoes and the trellises we made for them, the last pic showing my bush beans. Just the appearance and condition of the soil from last year and this year is quite different. I think that the more it's worked, the less it will need to be worked (tilled). Got more to share, but maybe that's better left to its own thread. The point I want to make, though, is that I spent the most money creating the area and fencing it, NOT on soil and amendments, feeds, etc. Those were only a few hundred dollars and I managed to produce about 30lbs from the four raised beds.

 

[c-ray]

on a 50 lighter using all organic custom ideal soil mix, spent around 1000 bucks for amendments and 1000 bucks for pro-mix

 

[heady blunts]

on a 50 lighter using all organic custom ideal soil mix, spent around 1000 bucks for amendments and 1000 bucks for pro-mix

wooooo!!! i wanna see pics of that!

 

[OrganicOzarks]

I have not, thanks for that!

In my location the earth was stripped down pretty bare when the house was built. I've been spending that time rebuilding the earth as much as I can. I've also had to 'develop' other areas of our land, which has required a good amount of earth moving. That left me with two large tracts that were just subsoil (I'm using the term soil very loosely here), again requiring building back up. I've tried just leaving green matter where it lays, and it takes several months to break down depending on the time of year. When I turn a little bit of soil over it, that time is cut by half to two-thirds. And, I have seen green material that I left on the surface in autumn in much the same wholeness the following spring through summer. Perhaps it depends on what it is specifically, but these have been my observations in my location.

Also, to reiterate, it's not just organic matter that this 'soil' needs, but also some remineralization, mostly in the form of available P and Ca. I don't know how to get that into the soil without tilling. I know that just sprinkling or spreading it on top doesn't work well at all.

However, in one season of working these newly developed areas I can see a huge increase in vigor of the vegetables grown down there, with little supplemental feeding needed outside of Ca. Oh, I have been giving foliar feeds of Sea-90 to those plants that were showing blossom end rot, and all except the Roma tomatoes have ceased producing fruit with rotted ends. I am also going to experiment with using milk as a foliar feed.

I forgot to mention that, based on jay's strong suggestion, I have added cover crops, which I won't plan on turning under, to the currently growing plants showing BER. Mostly I let the low-lying weeds that don't produce foxtails or burrs grow, instead, and then they're cut down as time and weather allow.

Oh! I almost forgot to add some pix. I'd like to show off my heirloom squash, Marina di Chiogga (as it was labeled by Territorial Seed Co, which also labeled the Romanesco cauliflower as Veronica broccoli, it ain't broccoli). I got these squash late last year, too late to get a single fruit from, so I planned on them from the start this year. However, these things get GINORMOUS. I feel positively Lilliputian whenever I go into the enclosure with the MdC. The leaves are in the 12"-15" range, and stand easily 12"-15" high on a vine that seriously spreads, I have some that have gone 10' out.

***Edit*** That took too long, left stuff out. These squash are being grown on a 3'-5' layer of wood chips, on top of which I made soil mounds, amended with minerals, topped with compost. The last two pix show the lower gardens that we just did last year, the first pic showing my current crop of tomatoes and the trellises we made for them, the last pic showing my bush beans. Just the appearance and condition of the soil from last year and this year is quite different. I think that the more it's worked, the less it will need to be worked (tilled). Got more to share, but maybe that's better left to its own thread. The point I want to make, though, is that I spent the most money creating the area and fencing it, NOT on soil and amendments, feeds, etc. Those were only a few hundred dollars and I managed to produce about 30lbs from the four raised beds.

Nice looking garden. You definitely do not have an ideal situation. Seems as though you have a few elements that you have to overcome on your land.

It is some what similar to where I am. We are rock with some dirt maybe in some places. Also Everything is built on hills, and mountains. To grow anything around here you have to build raised beds. One of my 10' raised beds starts out 1' deep then on the other end it ends up 3' deep. 2' drop in 10' sucks balls to deal with.

My garden is actually built on a huge pile of rocks. You would not be able to tell that at first look though.

I love seeing people garden in less than perfect conditions. It makes you appreciate the bounty that much more.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Thanks, OO. Last year was very difficult because I tore out my ACL. Had no idea just how important the knee is to just living, now I do. You're right, a 2' change in elevation over 10' has got to suck, that's when I start thinking, "Dig it outta tha hill!"

I spent some time and put together an public album that will hopefully show some more of what I'm working with and how I'm doing things in different places. For example, I made a more level area for that heirloom squash by having tree trimmers dump a load of wood chips, then I pushed them out over the hill. In other areas it's raised beds, and in others, where I can, it's native earth broken up by tilling and amending, because frankly, even if they are known for sending down deep tap roots, the mustard just didn't cut it! I have one bed that was only possible *because* I was able to use the tiller to create a flat space on which to grow.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=39367

The lower gardens seen in this album obviously came with some cost. The biggest costs were renting the equipment to grade, and the fencing. Spent over $1,100 on just the fencing. Spent maybe a few hundred between soil and amendments, and I think that the beds that I use for cannabis were about $200 to construct. The soil and amendments were for the entire area, not just the cannabis beds, so if you want to grow nothing but cannabis... be careful. I could see 100-200lbs being grown in that area. D'oh! That's a lotta trimmin' for the winter.

 

[MileHighGuy]

This is getting interesting!

Thanks for all the input guys.

I'm getting some great Ideas to think about.

 

[FunTimesIndeed]

So you're going to give us some pics, right?

 

[idiit]

the major cost for organic supplements that we can't glean from nearby terra for free is shipping costs. a good organic coop will take your order as a drop shipment combined with other organic farmer's drop shipments and everybody working together buys enough to get bulk shipping discounts.

search the net for a good organic coop within driving distance and combine your purchases with others for the seasonal drop shipment scheduled dates.

 

[Sinkyone]

So you're going to give us some pics, right?

Pics from two weeks ago, person in the pic is 6' 2" to give a sense of scale. There were grown with cheap, mostly locally sourced materials like dairy cow manure, green compost, some dry amendments like feather meal, bone meal, etc, a few top dressings with guano, and ACT once a week. Only other inputs have been a few soil drenches with fish hydrolysate, humic acid, a locally made organic carb loading type product, seaweed, plus a few foliar feeds with organic humic acid, nitrogen, Cal-mag and seaweed. I figure it costs me about $150-$200 per bed for the entire season to grow a plants like these, including the soil prep, pest control, soil drenches, ACT, and foliar feeds. This year is looking to be the biggest bang for out buck though, have not gotten them quite this large in the past. You can definitely grow nice plants for cheap with organics.

 

[Dkgrower]

Organics in my mind is using local products and chicken manure would be a good option

u dont need a battery off diff amendments, soil and some manure and u are rdy to go

I did very fine just with pigion shit, wood ash and molasse

If u grow big u need to keep it simpel or els its just a pita

Other near free amendments are Nettel, Alfalfa

Ever think off making a greenhouse

 

[SeaMaiden]

I can link to the study that showed that a combination of urine+wood ashes outperformed chemical salt-based fertilizers. It amazed me, that's for sure!

Actually... I'm liking all the Google Scholar hits I get using this search query: urine wood ash fertilizer.

 

[Dkgrower]

I can link to the study that showed that a combination of urine+wood ashes outperformed chemical salt-based fertilizers. It amazed me, that's for sure!

Actually... I'm liking all the Google Scholar hits I get using this search query: urine wood ash fertilizer.

Idk if u can but urin is really a good source off fertilizer so is woodash