The "design a smallholding" thread.

[Nicko]

I haven't dug soil for about thirty years but that's because I'm a lazy bitch and you don't really need to dig to grow good food.

Just do what you think is right, don't worry about what other people do.

Start a dug patch and a no-dig patch and see what happens. Either way, you'll get crops from the garden.

Thats exactly what I did on our heavy clay soil. One bed very deep horse muck with some soil on top, the bed just next to it double dug with compost worked in.
The no dig was easier to build and performed better for the first couple of years(less slugs, more moisture retention) .10 years later after treating them the same since that initial build(just mulching the surface) they are performing pretty much the same.

Charles Dowding's books are worth a read to balance the digging argument.

Nick

[Catweazle]

The deep dig is only for the initial preparation of the soil, after that it's minimal disturbance as long as the soil doesn't get compacted. By the time the bloody solicitors get their act together the soil will be frozen solid, so this is academic at present.

[Nicko]

Just by coincidence I bought the book myself tonight. I am hearing much talk about biointensive growing and thought I better give it a read. I am interested in methods to produce fertility on site.

Nick

[biffvernon]

I am interested in methods to produce fertility on site.

Start by trying to work out the nutrient pathways. Where do the various elements come from, how are they stored, how do they become accessible to plants, how do they become inaccessible, where do they leak out of the system and how can this leakage be replenished.

Easy.

[Nicko]

I am interested in methods to produce fertility on site.

Start by trying to work out the nutrient pathways. Where do the various elements come from, how are they stored, how do they become accessible to plants, how do they become inaccessible, where do they leak out of the system and how can this leakage be replenished.

Easy.

I am not listening to you, I've seen the size of your garlic!!
Just kidding.

I think I mentioned fertility because I didn't want anyone to think I have bought the book because I have decided to double dig over my garden.
I am always open to reading about other people's experiences and this book seems to be having a bit of a come back. So I thought I would give it a read to see for myself.

Nick

[biffvernon]

If you will plant elephant garlic....

[Nicko]

If you will plant elephant garlic....

...they would be 5 times bigger than yours rather than just twice the size.
(sorry, couldn't resist)

Nick

[biffvernon]

Ok, ok. But it is an interesting thing.

I think you probably space yours out further than I do, so we need to compare yield per square metre rather than size of individual bulbs. Then there's the issue of flavour. We're not growing garlic for their contribution to our calorie intake. Your land with it's clay subsoil is going to retain nutrients, more easily than our light sand (but there are some other advantages with sand). Nitrogen retention is perhaps particularly significant when it comes to bulb size and you inputs of horse manure help there. We don't import any material like that., rather we export hay to feed other people's horses.

[Nicko]

You export hay - and therefore fertility from your land. I suppose its good for the orchids though.

I like to see using soiled horse bedding which used to be burnt or driven several miles across the village and dumped in a big pile to leach out into the water course, as more recycling a waste stream rather than 'importing' anything. Same for the woman who used to bribe the bin men to send her chicken bedding to landfill(she bribes me now with eggs to use it in the garden!) and the other neighbour who used to fill their green bin with duck bedding. I am reducing my nieghbours carbon output by locking it into my soil in the form of humus. Maybe you could help out the neighbours and increase the nitrogen holding capacity of your soil at the same time?
Having said that,the organic matter in my soil is quite high now I reckon, and the clay broken up to a good depth. I am pulling back on the muck and focusing more on using my own organic resources, which are starting to mature and produce a good yield of nutrient rich material(willow, hedging,comfrey, weeds etc).

And yes I do plant garlic further apart, but I also intercrop with salad, beans, and brassicas towards the end of the garlics life. This would have to be measured as an output aswell.
I would also suggest that my garlic gets more light than yours. Apart from being 7 miles closer to the equator, my garden is, should I say, less 'mature' than yours

[Catweazle]

One of my future neighbours will be a riding school, I'm hoping that they will give me plenty of horse manure to build a big heap with. Other neighbours keep sheep but collecting their droppings would be more of a task ( I nearly wrote "big job" there ), if they even let us.

I think we will have to import organic matter for a couple of years, apart from about 1/4 acre veg plot the rest of the land has been grazed by horses and sheep for years. We aim to use HWH's methods of letting chickens and ducks looses in the veg plot to keep weeds and insects down and fertilize at the same time. Another method, from John Seymour, is to grow a big patch of artichokes and let a couple of pigs dig them up and manure the soil ready for a crop.

Ultimately we would like to be self-sufficient in compost and have a surplus of produce for trade, this may take some years.

[biffvernon]

I am reducing my nieghbours carbon output by locking it into my soil in the form of humus. Maybe you could help out the neighbours and increase the nitrogen holding capacity of your soil at the same time?

I do sometimes consider going out on an alternate Wednesday night and stealing everybody's green wheelie bin contents. Come the Great Climacteric, there'll be real value in those bins and nobody will ask the council to take garden 'waste' away.

Light levels? Did the Sun come out this summer? I think I may have missed it. I must say I'm a bit wary of some folk's claims for 'forest gardens'. Our main garlic bed is in an area that gets full sunlight, unlike the smaller one you saw me planting out recently under the conker tree.

[featherstick]

John I've already asked our neighbours for teabags but they gave me "that" look. I'm going to bring a small caddy to work though to gather the teabags from there - there must be couple of dozen per day on our floor alone. Teabags are good for fruit trees according to Lawrence D. Hill - the tannin slows their rate of decomposition, so a six-inch layer at the bottom of the hole before planting the tree will provide nitrogen for years.

[woodburner]

Not sure nutrient at the bottom of holes for trees is a good thing. I have read it is better for root development not to put it there, but to put it a foot or two to the side and all around.

[Little John]

Not sure nutrient at the bottom of holes for trees is a good thing. I have read it is better for root development not to put it there, but to put it a foot or two to the side and all around.

That sounds like it makes sense

[Catweazle]

Not sure nutrient at the bottom of holes for trees is a good thing. I have read it is better for root development not to put it there, but to put it a foot or two to the side and all around.

Although many tree seeds are carried afield by animals there are also many that grow where they fall - in a nice soft bed of leaf litter from their parent. It makes sense to mimic this, so I think you're right.

I was told that the deep rotted leaf litter from ancient woodland is the best compost you can get and was prized by victorian gardeners, luckily it's more protected now or that wonderful soil would have been scraped off and wasted on the open fields. I wish I could get some though.

The woods I owned in Kent adjoined open fields on two sides and the floor level of the woods was 3-4 feet higher than the open land, that's a huge amount of lost soil. I read in the John Jeavons book about a farmer in USA who lost 8 feet of his fields in 30 years and had to climb up to the house he build when he started farming. Truly scary.