Above: Early July view across the mini-farm towards the house. You can see the two sets of solar hot water heating panels on the roof of our 1938-built home which we have been gradually retrofitting to reduce our fossil-fuel dependence

   aspects include:
      • Agroforestry (e.g., the Permaculture of Bill Mollison)
      • No-till Fukuoka food raising
      • Traditional Asian blue-green algal wet rice farming
      • Natural rainfall or “arid” farming
      • Indigenous farming

Above: At left is Masanobu Fukuoka (photo from http://www.permaculture.com/drupal/node/140 - be sure to read Larry Korn’s articles). The books are staples in this field.

2.2 Distinguishing Features We Have Taken From Permaculture

Bill Mollison, founder of the Permaculture school of thought, coined the term to stand for a “permanent agriculture.” He defined Permaculture as “the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people, providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” Permaculture can include the sustainable practices of biointensive minifarming, but its focus includes the broader context of the entire property and how it functions.

The goals of Permaculture design are to:
   • Minimize use of manufactured energy
   • Return nutrients to soil, rather than mining it.
   • Conserve water - using it sensibly
   • Optimize use of nature’s gifts
   • Restore and increase biodiversity
   • Live within the limits of Nature (including population limits): Reduce ecological footprint!
   • Aim to put 70% of your land in “forage” crops (for suburban context: “edible” landscaping)

In our suburban context, we can realize at least the first five. The last two require some further elaboration.

With regard to forage crops, Mollison had in mind putting pasture animals out to graze and forage on larger farms, as well as to ensure adequate vegetation for some wildlife. In suburban settings, we change the meaning of forage to encompass edible landscaping. Building a rich, biodiverse edible landscape can provide food for wildlife and possibly some extra berries and nuts for we humans to enjoy as well. We’ve peppered our own yard and mini-farm with such plants: hawthorn, nannyberry, Joy bush cherry, for example. [Robert Kourik’s book Designing and Maintaining Your Edible Landscape, Naturally is an excellent reference on this topic and exemplifies the application of many Permaculture principles.]

How do we know if we are living “within the limits of Nature?”
At our previous PASA talk (in 2006), we used Ecological Footprint Analysis to look at the amount of land needed per capita to sustain our activities and consumption. The average American requires approximately 25 acres of ecologically productive land to provide all the resources and to absorb all the wastes associated with their lifestyle – food, housing, transportation, consumer goods, etc. Here in Centre County, PA, if we take all of the ecologically productive land available and divide it by the current population, there are only 4.5 acres per person available. Our ecological footprint is more than five times the area available locally, which means we’re “borrowing” ecological services from other countries, other species, and from future generations.

Our 25-acre footprint looks even worse if we consider the entire state of PA. Taking the entire state of PA as ecologically productive land (which is being generous) and dividing by our population, we physically have roughly 2 acres per person available, which is 12.5 times less than the area of land needed to truly sustain our lifestyle and activities. There are two parameters that can be tweaked here: the area of land needed to ecologically and functionally support each of us, and the population size. The main point here is that most of us in suburbia are living well beyond Nature’s limits and have plenty of room to downsize our footprints!

Transforming your suburban property into an edible landscape and mini-farm could significantly reduce your food footprint and somewhat reduce your transportation footprint. Applying the principles of biointensive and Permaculture around your home would reduce your overall ecological footprint.

In Permaculture you pay close attention to the natural patterns and flows on the land to learn how best to work with them.

Above: Our property site map overlaid with Permaculture zone and natural flow information (see Appendix below for symbol key).

Imagine a circle around the house (zone 0) and note the sectors for prevailing winds, solar access and water flow and how these natural flows change in the course of a year. A Permaculture design for a site strives to meet the goals listed above in harmony with these flows. To clarify functions on a site, there are a gradation of Permaculture “zones” from the region of most human activity and influence (e.g. zone 0 = the home) to the region of the least human activity and influence (e.g. zone 5 = “wilds”).

Our 0.8 acre site steps down from the foothill of Mt. Nittany in roughly three tiers: an upper level, middle level (on which house and garage sit), and lower level. It was fortunate that there was already a nearly ideal Permaculture-like layout of the house and landscape upon purchasing it in 1989:
   • The house had the longest side and most roof area facing south for optimal solar access
   • Tall pines and cedars buffered the north side of the house and backyard gardens from the

     prevailing north and northwest winter winds
   • Mature maple trees to the east and tall pines to the northwest reduced the oppressive summer

     heat on the house
   • Two wild patches serve as our token Permaculture “zone 5”: rabbits take refuge and deer will bed

     down there sometimes
   • Unlike our neighbors, we kept a porous gravel driveway to capture and reduce rainwater run-off

To clear up the solar corridor for improved solar hot water heating in winter and increased sunlight on our mini-farm, numerous trees were removed from the backyard, most recently a 70-feet tall hemlock and a large Norway maple (November 2006). We used much of this biomass as mulch and firewood.
Note: more detail about the symbols on the map above are provided in the Appendix at the end of this section

Above: Our property site map. There remain a large number of mature conifers, maples and cedars along with lilacs, Japanese honeysuckle and other shrubs and trees. Our main contribution to Permculture design of the site has been building our biodiversity around this existing vegetation.

We have been working diligently to build biodiversity and to provide some edibles for wildlife. We grow some 40 herbs, 30 fruit and nut plants, about 25 vegetable crops and hundreds of different flowering plants among the remaining numerous shrubs, maples, pines, cedars, yews, two black walnuts, a single hemlock and an oak tree. We planted hawthorn, nannyberry (a viburnum) and Joy bush cherries for the birds; chipmunks steal our gumi berries; squirrels have taken all of our hazelnuts so far! 

 Above: Sampling of our biodiversity - clockwise from upper left: Echinacea in full bloom, curing our butternut squash after harvest, purple balloon flowers, and Sea Buckthorn “seaberries” (known for their medicinal value and exceptionally high vitamin E content).

We’ve built a biodiverse vegetable community in our main mini-farm and biodiverse plant communities around the rest of the property.

Above: Our biodiverse vegetable community
Below: Biodiverse plant communities fill our yard and landscape.

Signs that we are successfully building a healthier, biodiverse ecosystem come to us mainly in the form of fewer insect pest problems and quite a few new insect friends.

Above: Sampling of our biodiverse insect community includes the predatory wheelbug (upper left), the blue blister beetle (lower left chomping on our Japanese anemone leaves), and other insects we have yet to identify! We’re always pulling out Cranshaw’s Garden Insects of North America to learn more about our insect friends (or foes!).

Note: One British permaculture site, replete with publications, is
http://www.permanent-publications.co.uk/index.htm

Appendix: Applying Zoning and Sector Analysis to our own Home Mini-Farm

On our own home mini-farm, a 0.8-acre lot which steps down the mountain in roughly three ¼-acre tiers, the Permaculture zoning was not planned, but rather has evolved in tandem with solar access, working with existing tree stands, and with how easily areas can be accessed from Zone 0, the house. From sector analysis, we see note that the sun rises far to the northeast at the summer solstice and sets far to the northwest at that time (“S” sun graphics). At the spring and fall equinoxes, the sun rises due east and sets due west (“E” sun graphic). By the winter solstice, the sun rises far to the southeast and sets far to the southwest (“W” sun graphic). Our prevailing winter winds are from the north and west (wide blue arrows), while water draining down the slope must be diverted away from the foundation of the house (thin blue lines).

The areas outside of Zone 1 are labeled “Zone 2+” because they are regions of dry shade that do not require much management and but still host our compost piles, wood stacks and other debris piles that are used in various ways. Two patches are intentionally kept “wild” but don’t exactly fit the Zone 5 criterion for “wilds” since they border the neighbors’ yards. Still, deer will sometimes bed down for the night in one of the wild patches; rabbits seek them out for cover and coolness in summer.

In general, Permaculture is geared toward working with, rather than against, Nature, restoring and rebuilding biodiversity. Before you can undertake conscious design, then, it is important to become familiar with the natural flows and processes of a giving parcel of land – a study that requires at least a full year to understand seasonal variations and to design accordingly.



2.3 Distinguishing Features We Have Taken From Eliot Coleman

Eliot Coleman is best known for his The New Organic Grower and Four Season Harvest, as well as for his Winter Harvest Manual. Because of his success in farming throughout the year in the cold northeastern U.S., there are a number of valuable lessons for the serious backyard mini-farmer. Those we have found useful to integrate into our practice include:

Optimal crop rotations. Over the years, Coleman has found certain vegetables do better or worse if they are planted in the same location where, the previous year, a different crop was grown. Through careful record-keeping of yield, plant/soil health and insect populations, he noticed patterns (See Ch. 7 of The New Organic Grower) out of which he developed his various plant rotations:
   • We built on his 8-year rotation: potatoes follow sweet corn, which follows cabbage-family plants,

     which follows peas, which follow tomatoes, which follow beans, which follow root crops, which

     follow squash, which follows potatoes
   • Coleman provides sufficient information to aid you in developing crop rotations that may be more

     suited to the crops you want to grow.

Above: Our garden beds are divided into three sections each into which different crops are planted each year according to our rotation scheme adapted from Coleman’s.

Winter Harvest – Coleman, without the use of heated greenhouses, produces winter greens for market in Maine. Four points we employ in our practice are as follows:
   • Plant the winter crops in late July or early August so that they reach maturity before the light

     levels drop and the cold sets in. Thus, crops are not grown in winter, only harvested.
   • Cold-tolerant crops are the only ones planted, which include a wide variety of greens and root

     crops
   • Two layers are required to adequately protect the plants: an outer single-layer greenhouse shell

     (or high tunnel) and a lower-level poly-weave cover over the row or bed (low-tunnel). More than two

     layers restricts daylight access to the plants and is not healthy for them (or for us).
   • Harvesting is best done at post-peak light times of a sunny day, e.g. 2pm-3pm, so that the

     greens have the lowest levels of nitrates in them.

Above: How we have adapted Coleman’s winter harvest principles in our backyard. Gene designed and constructed our 10’ x 28’ greenhouse from ½” EMT conduit, giving the structure the flexibility to be erected on our 12-degree land slope and to flex in strong winds without damage. We erect the greenhouse by mid-October and take it down in mid-March, depending on the weather. This prolongs the lifetime of the plastic, since it does not endure the summer’s heat. It also allows the winter garden bed to be rejuvenated by the summer rains, natural insect populations and our summer soil-building cover crop. The inner low-tunnels are constructed of 9-gauge wire hoops, a poly-weave fabric to allow diffuse light transmissivity while ensuring heat retention, and clothespins to hold it in place on the hoops. The bed is located in the center of the greenhouse so that the surrounding paths act as a thermal buffer to the outdoor cold – it takes much longer for ground-freeze to reach the winter bed. Above right: Gene begins to harvest some root crops in January. Note the full-coverage of the garden bed and how the matured crops are now ready for winter harvest.

We have integrated wisdom and practical tips from Coleman, Mollison and Jeavons to produce our own year-round backyard mini-farm. The next section gets down to specifics of what we do and how we do it. 

PART 3. HOW WE DO IT: THE PRACTICES OF BIOINTENSIVE, PERMACULTURE AND WINTER HARVEST

We mentioned earlier the seven features of biointensive minifarming. Here we give some details:

First – deep soil preparation – the permanent double-dug bed. Jeavons describes in is “How to Grow More Vegetables” alternative procedures for double-digging garden beds. The benefits are three-fold: (1) deep root penetration, which provides maximum volume for roots to grow; (2) improved drought-resistance; and (3) absorption of excess water during heavy rains without soil washing away.

Above left: Gene double-digging new beds using digging board, spading shovel and fork.
Above right: Tania double-digging bed – the first trench


Second – improving soil fertility. Biointensive growers improve soil fertility by planting cover crops for carbon and nitrogen. We grow grasses for carbon and legumes for nitrogen. We crop both, leaving the roots in the soil to break down, and compost the tops. Cropping the tops while green allows us to add nitrogen to our compost pile, the “greens” that are mixed with the “browns”. We also compost plant debris.

Below is the chart of cover crops from Bountiful Gardens. www.bountifulgardens.org   You can also find informative tables on cover crops at Fedco (http://www.fedcoseeds.com/forms/ogs30_cat.pdf ) and Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply ( www.groworganic.com – click on ‘products/browse main catalog’ then scroll down to ‘cover crop seeds’ and click on ’cover crop solutions chart.’)”

Below: 4-shot sequence showing cover crops – rye, young fava, mature fava, full summer garden 

 Above left: fava plant going to flower. Above right: exposed roots of fava showing nitrogen fixing nodules

Above: cutting compost – rye and vetch – prior to “skimming” the bed to sever the grass stubble from its roots. These thin sod-like squares that are skimmed off will be stacked in a pile to compost and generate soil for our potting mix

 Above: Tania is watering the pile a bit after turning in cut fresh rye and vetch, and covering when done to prevent drying

Above left: turning compost on second and final turn onto tarp to prevent shallow-rooted maples from growing into compost.  Above right: finished pile on tarp.

Above left: making a tent with tarp to keep rain off and allow air to circulate, as micro-organisms respire and require oxygen.  Above right: composting turf.

Below is Elaine Ingham's chart on compost, which accords with the latest PCO recommendations. Elaine spoke at PASA in 2000

It is important to test the soil to correct deficiencies. For information on how to get a soil test, click on “Organic Gardening Primer” on our website and scroll down to PART 2. Soil Tests. Below we show one of the reports done by Timberleaf Soil Testing on our soil. 

We work in compost and minerals using a U-bar, also called a broadfork (shown in picture below). This aerates the soil. We do not use a rototiller. We can aerate a 5x24’ bed in about 1 ½ hours. The design is from John Jeavons. Contact us for a copy of the design, which you can take to a machine shop. Locally, we have gotten two made for friends at Miller Welding in State College (contact Bob Miller at 238-2950).

An important detail is how much cover crop seed and compost we use. We have worked out a table, taking recommendations from Jeavons and Fedco, adding a margin for lower germination from broadcasting, chopping in, older seed.  We show this table below.

Third – we practice close plant spacing using the whole bed. We do not plant in rows. There are two reasons for close space planting.


1. First, to maximize yields. Yields in biointensive are up to 4 times higher than in conventional row gardening. In biointensive, we plant in triangles. Through considerable research over a thirty year period, Jeavons has worked out the optimal spacing for vegetables, cover crops and other plants to maximize yield per unit area. These extensive tables are available in his famous book, “How to Grow More Vegetables”, now in its 7th edition. We recommend the spiral bound edition; it lies flat, and will take more abuse. 

Above: Set of planting triangles

Above left: using planting triangle to plant mache.  Above right: planting triangle with more mature mache, showing living mulch

2. Second reason for close space planting: to grow a living mulch, which has three benefits:
   • reduces water evaporation;
   • shields the soil from the sun;
   • reduces weed germination.

Our total weeding time in the beds for the two of us is less than 1 hour all summer.

Above: early planting showing triangular pattern
Below: later in season, showing how crops have filled in creating living mulch

Above: early planting of carrots and beets at 3”; above these is a planting of turnips already showing living mulch property

Of course, we produce clean compost!! This means we do not compost weeds or plants with seed heads. We learned this lesson the hard way after waiting too long to crop and compost our forget-me-not debris, lemon balm stalks, and wonder berry debris!

Close space planting using the whole bed rather than rows depends on supporting practices:
   • Planting in flats rather than direct-seeding in the beds; and
   • Transplanting seedlings. No thinning, and you maximize yields.

Below: Gene planting corn in flat. We use chicken wire secured taught in a rectangular frame that overlays the wooden flat as a hexagonal planting grid. A dibble hole (for the seed) is placed at the center of each hexagon yielding approximately 300 seedlings spaced on 1-inch centers in each flat. Gene is skipping some of the holes to provide additional room for the large corn seeds to germinate.

Above: Mini-greenhouse following Jeavons design as detailed in his Backyard Homestead book
Below: flats inside mini-greenhouse

Above: Gene transplanting spinach into winter bed while Tania transplants lettuce
Below: completed winter bed with row cover to protect crops from summer sun

The Fourth feature of biointensive is companion planting in time and space. Many of you are familiar with traditional companion planting as put forth in such books as “Carrots Love Tomatoes” by Louise Riotte. Basil, chives, mint, horseradish and gooseberry also like tomatoes, so we have choices here. This is “companion planting in space”, and gardeners can improve yields and reduce pest and disease pressure by placing certain plants next to each other. Two other books on companion planting in space: Pamela Allardice, “A-Z Companion Planting” and Bob Flowerdew, “Complete Book of Companion Gardening.”

Companion planting in space relies on some beneficial effect arising from propinquity. The effect could arise from a chemical secretion, some physical property, or an indirect effect through attracting beneficial insects. Thus, root exudates from dahlias and some marigolds repel certain nematodes. Nasturtiums control aphids. Borage helps suppress fungus infections in strawberries and improves their flavor. Broad beans will help shade spinach. The pollen of caraway flowers attracts beneficial insects early in the season when vegetable seedlings are most susceptible to pests and there are few other plants blooming.

There is a second kind of companion planting we backyard gardeners would do well to emulate. John Jeavons calls this companion planting in time. Traditional and organic farmers know this practice by the term “crop rotation” (e.g., corn-oats-wheat-hay).

One of the most important benefits of companion planting in time is adding nitrogen to the soil. Thus, nitrogen-fixing plants such as alfalfa, clover and bell beans are planted before other crops such as corn and tomatoes, which are heavy feeders and require lots of nitrogen. Remember to plant your nitrogen-fixing crops with the appropriate nitrogen-fixing bacteria (Fedco has a nice selection of cover crop seeds and inoculants).

A second benefit of companion planting in time is disease and pest suppression. Bell beans (vicia faba) suppress verticillium wilt fungus. Plant bell beans in early spring (1st-2nd week of April); chop stalks and turn under when you plant your tomatoes. Barely and rye roots immobilize the carrot root nematode, which causes forked carrots. Plant barley in the late spring before a fall planting of carrots, or in the fall before a spring planting of carrots.

A third benefit of companion planting in time is adding carbon to the soil. Gardeners can follow on a small scale what farmers do on a large scale: broadcast oats or winter rye in the late summer or early fall, or buckwheat during the summer. Oats and rye produce large amounts of carbon, both in the tops (stalks) and in the root mass left behind to decompose in the soil. Both cover crops may be combined with a nitrogen-fixing crop such as Madison Hairy Vetch (which is not the invasive crown vetch of highway slopes). The combination of oats, vetch and field peas is also a great soil builder when planted in spring (mid to late April).

You can realize a fourth benefit of companion planting in time by using dynamic accumulators. These act by bringing up through their roots minerals in the subsoil. These minerals are stored in the plant’s stem and leaves and released when you harvest and compost the plants and return the compost to the soil. Of course, plants cannot concentrate minerals that are not in your subsoil, so get your soil tested if you suspect deficiencies. Robert Kourik has a good chart on accumulators in “Designing and MaintainingYour Edible Landscape Naturally.”

In the hands of organic vegetable farmers growing a diversity of crops, companion planting in time can acquire considerable sophistication. Eliot Coleman (“The New Organic Grower”) has determined sequences of vegetables that improve yield.

Not all effects in time and space are beneficial. Avoid planting members of the sunflower family among other vegetables, as their root exudates retard the growth of other plants. In our garden, we restrict our Jerusalem artichokes to one small corner of the garden. Wormwood is a great small animal repellant, but its root exudates also retard growth. Therefore, plant wormwood in a border. The sunny buttercup exudes a substance that destroys clover in dilutions as low as one part in a billion. Most of us have heard of the injunction against planting tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant or raspberries near black walnut trees (or near their drifting leaves!).

In applying the principles of companion planting in time and space, you will want to experiment and note what works for your soil, growing conditions and crops. For our own garden, we have created a one-page chart synthesizing companion planting in space and time. We show this below.
 

Fifth Feature of biointensive – using carbon-efficient crops. Carbon-efficient crops produce a lot of carbon per unit area, and are therefore desirable in providing carbon to the soil and carbon for your compost pile. If these produce edible crops, you can grow food and carbon at the same time (e.g., sweet corn). From the Jeavons tables, low yields, we find the following carbon content per 100 sq.ft. for the top ten crops (see table below left). Keep in mind that annual grasses (oats, rye, barley) produce as much or more biomass below the surface in their roots as they do above the ground.

The way Jeavons incorporates this carbon into the soil is skimming the top or turf and composting that in piles, and letting the root mass decompose. For heavy root crops like rye, this takes about three weeks in the spring, and produces a wonderful loamy soil texture. For fall-planted crops such as oats, the winter kills the plants, and the roots decompose over the winter and early spring. The soil is ready for early spring crops such as lettuce and spinach. [For additional cover crop yields, see Fedco page (http://www.fedcoseeds.com/ogs/covercrop_chart.htm ) ]

Sixth feature of biointensive – using calorie-efficient crops. Here, the object is to produce the most calories per unit area. The best crops for this tend to be root crops. From the Jeavons tables, low yields, we find the caloric content per 100 sq.ft. for the top ten crops in the image above right.

Seventh and final feature – using open-pollinated seeds so that you can save your own seeds, and adapt them to your own soil and climate conditions. Jeavons’ goal here is to help food growers reassert their independence from the growing control of seed companies over the genetic stock of what we eat.

PART 4. YIELDS, EXPERIMENTS AND WHAT WE DO WITH OUR PRODUCE

4.1 Yields

We’ve kept track of our yields over the years. Our biggest constraints have been dry conditions and insufficient sunlight. Last year we took down two mature trees that shaded our garden, and yields jumped for most crops, often dramatically. Root crops increased the most: beets 156%, potatoes 100% over the previous high, carrots 65%, onions 55%.

Among other crops, beans ↑ 30% from the previous high, and corn was up 17% from the previous high.
We had actually stopped growing potatoes because yields were so low: from 1.4 to 3 lbs for every pound planted, depending on variety. Yield ratio jumped to 6.5 this past summer using Kennebecs.

Below left: Tania weighing potatoes. Below right: Recording number and weight of corn picked for dinner.

Below left: onions drying. Below right: garlic drying

We report our yields in our chart below (“Yields at Club Lemont” ). Column 2 (blue text) shows the Jeavons yields: L for low, M – medium, and H – for high. With our increasing sun, we have moved to the medium range on many of our crops. We exceed Jeavons high yields with beans and, earlier, with raspberries. We have abandoned parsnips. This root crop has never done well. Our soil is too heavy.

Bottom row (red text) shows one of the most important indicators of performance in biointensive: the cover crop ratio. This is the percent of time that your beds are in cover crop during the year. Jeavons has determined that with a percentage of 60%, you can build soil fertility without adding any additional carbon. Since we have many hardwood trees in our yard, we compost our leaves and this allows us to reduce the cover crop ratio. We have averaged 40% over the past nine years. Achieving this ratio requires considerable discipline in harvesting crops, cleaning beds, and seeding to cover crops. We follow the calendar here. Thus, we do not leave our tomatoes and pole beans in until the last ones can be pulled from the vines. To do so would stint the time required for fall cover crops. For us, our cover crops are every bit as important as our food crops. Without good cover crops we cannot get good food crops.

Below: our spring cover crops showing rye and rye/vetch combinations. Where pea trellis is visible we had grown a fall crop of oats, which winter-killed in time to decompose for early planting of peas

Using cover crops and compost, we achieved a nitrogen content of 150 ppm (0.015%) and a carbon content of 7.8% (5-6% desired) at the end of the season! No additional fertilizer was required. Commercial compost might have an NPK rating of 0.5-0.5-0.5. One worm casting brand was 0.5-0.5-0.3. Our own compost compares quite favorably at 1.2-.08-.14.

In the chart below, we show an example calculation for the cover crop ratio.

4.2 Experiments

We’ve conducted numerous experiments over the years. We summarize the results here:

1) Sheet Composting. One of the claimed shortcuts to digging a bed is to use sheet composting. In this technique, you lay cardboard or newsprint on top of the area you wish to dig. You then pile compost on top of that, and finish with a layer of mulch. You wait. In our case, the grass was clearly killed, but the area below was the yellow greasy clay we had before. When I thought about it, I realized no self-respecting earthworm was going to leave the richness of compost to burrow into yellow clay. We concluded that sheet composting doesn’t work where it is required, and works where it isn’t necessary. It is a waste of compost, better dug into your garden bed.

Below: winter bed with sheet composting experiment

2) Crop Spacing. Since our yields of root crops were so low prior to removing the two trees, we conducted experiments on crop spacing, and determined the following. With beets and carrots, we could increase both size and yields by increasing spacing – from 4 to 5” for beets, and from 3 to 4” for carrots. With onions, we could get either higher yields at 4” or larger onions at 5” but not both. This coming year, we will experiment with snap and snow peas.

3) Verticillim wilt. Many years ago I introduced a diseased Early Girl tomato plant I purchased at a greenhouse. Unknown to me, it had verticillium wilt. I thought the wilted look was just due to dry conditions, but didn’t think much about it. I composted the debris, and unwittingly used the diseased compost in the following year’s tomato bed. That year I lost ¾ of our tomatoes to wilt. I then took a diseased plant to the pathology lab at Penn State, and got the diagnosis. I remembered that Jeavons wrote that fava (bell) beans counteract wilt, so the next year I planted fava beans in early April, and put the same tomato varieties in the same bed. Mortality dropped to ¼. Since that time, we always precede tomatoes with bell beans. We have reduced wilt even further.

4) Experiments with peas. We had poor germination due to seed rot on planting. I tried neem and cayenne pepper to no avail. Finally, I thought to plant peas in a flat with a sterile mix of peat moss and sand, 50-50. We achieved excellent germination, but we had to transplant. Small price to pay for spring peas. Our peas also suffer from Aschochyta blight. We tried several fungicides, including neem, copper, and potassium bicarbonate, to little avail.

5) Controls against oriental fruit moth in peaches. Many gardeners who are otherwise organic in vegetable production often throw in the towel when it comes to tree fruit production. The first year our two peach trees came into production, we had wonderful, disease-free peaches. Then the oriental fruit moth found our trees and took up residence. The fruit was wormy, and covered with dried sap ooze. One year I tried pheromone traps, one in each tree. Results improved markedly. The traps were full of dead moth.

6) Potato experiments. Over the years we’ve conducted careful same-season tests with potatoes. These have included comparisons of early, mid and late season varieties; comparisons of traditional row-hill vs. hexagonal bed planting following Jeavons; and comparisons with finished vs. unfinished compost. We were intent on improving our poor yields. We collected excellent data, but in the end gave up on potatoes. No method overcame what we concluded was an underlying limiting factor: insufficient sunlight in our shaded back yard. When we removed two large trees shading the garden, yields jumped dramatically – doubling over the previous high. Our yield ratio is now 6.5, enough for us to return to growing potatoes.

4.3 What We Do With Our Produce

1) First, we eat well. Our food is fresh, right from the garden, as pictured below.  We have many vegetarian cookbooks. One of our favorites is “From Asparagus to Zucchini: A Guide to Farm-Fresh Seasonal Produce” produced by the Madison Area Community Supported Agriculture Coalition.

2) Second, the addition of our winter greenhouse enables us to eat fresh greens through much of the fall and winter. This has taken the pressure off having to store or put up vegetables from the summer.

3) Third, we store food in several ways (see chart and photo series below).

Below: Harvesting St. John’s Wort and turning it into tincture.

Below left: washing Ashwaganda roots. Below right: chopping valerian roots prior to soaking in vodka

Above: finished tinctures
Below left: dried herb mixtures. Below right: horehound cough drops

Above left: canned vegetables, jams, including row of green beans being preserved by lactic fermentation.  Above right: Jerusalem artichokes being preserved by lactic fermentation.

PART 5. HOW YOU CAN GET STARTED

5.1 Lessons We Have Learned

1) Concentrate your food-growing in one area, so that you can water, fence, maintain, harvest and watch things easily. We learned this the hard way by digging beds all around the yard. It looked nice, but became a major maintenance headache, which we are now correcting. When we started, we did not realize that Central PA tends to the dry side, and that suburban gardens attract a lot of animal pests, including bears, deer, raccoons, groundhogs, possums, skunks, rabbits, squirrels, voles and chipmunks.

2) Pick the sunniest location for your food growing. Sounds obvious, but more sun gives you higher yields. Pay particular attention to the way the sun’s location changes during the course of the day and the growing season. It pays to do a sun chart to identify the best area.

3) Work yourself into a congenial school of thought.

4) If possible, come up with a plan and garden map which incorporates your vision, but start small and work out the principles before expanding. You will learn so much, and it is good to incorporate your own lessons as you acquire them. If you do everything at once, you have short-circuited your own education. You are likely to exhaust yourself, waste time and money, get frustrated and give up.

5) Avoid the seduction and rhetoric of 100% self-sufficiency. You are never going to grow enough calories in your backyard, sustainably or otherwise. We grow 90% of our vegetables and 20% of our fruit, but only 6% of our calories. On the other hand, since vegetables and fruits are largely water, by growing your own, you avoid importing water from distant places such as California, Mexico, and Chile.

5.2 Getting and Keeping Yourself Organized

1) We got ourselves a big three ring binder, with nice D rings. There are tabbed sections for each garden year, then subject tabs for soil tests, garden designs, and trees and shrubs. We keep this notebook in the garage where our garden tools and workbench are. We keep more detailed information in file folders in a separate garden drawer and reference books and catalogs in a bookcase.

2) In front of our garden notebook is a simple log sheet. Here we enter important information – rainfall, new bug sightings, pest sightings, bloom times, etc. From these logs we have compiled our Garden Calendar which we put in an accessible location – for us, the bulletin board in our kitchen. We will email the complete Calendar to any who contact us.
 

3) We do our garden planning for the year in January, and order required seeds and supplies at that time. We update our garden map and planting schedule and put them in front of our garden notebook section for the current garden year.  We have separate schedules for summer, winter, and cover crops all shown below.
 

4) The first page in our current garden year section is our “metrics” page to which we often refer.

5) The standard Jeavons bed is 5 x 20 or 100 sq. ft., but you may find a 4’ wide bed easier to reach into. Our beds tend to be 25 feet long, as we are trying to maximize the growing area available. The longer the bed, the more inconvenient it is to walk around to the other side. Of course, you should not step on your beds as that compresses the soil.

6) Our tools. We use a number of useful but simple tools. Here they are.
 

Above left: Our larger tools include digging board, D-handled spade and fork (behind board), U-bar, homemade wooden seed flats, framed chicken wire “planting grid”, and sifter. Above right: smaller hand tools. We especially recommend use of a good bypass pruner (Felco are superior) and a Japanese trowel (which has an extra thick blade and one serrated edge).

Below: Where we start our seedlings. At left is the indoor three-tiered plant stand for warm-weather crops (tomatoes, peppers, basils) that need to be started early; at right is the outdoor mini-greenhouse for cold-tolerant crops and those warm-weather plants that get started in May (like cucumbers and squash).

Above left: winter greenhouse frame of electrical metal tubing (emt) held together with machine screws

Above right: winter greenhouse covered with Tufflite IV, UV resistant 6 mil greenhouse plastic. Our plastic is in its 10th season. We take it down in April and store it until October.

Below left: view inside our greenhouse. Below right: greenhouse under snow cover

We hope you’ll dig in!  Please visit the rest of our website to learn more about our work and offerings.  Contact us at NeoTerraExpts@aol.com or via our contacts webpage if you have any questions on our PASA 2008-09 presentations.