The "design a smallholding" thread.

[Blue Peter]

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'.

Martin Crawford says that at these latitudes, you're really going for a Savannah garden i.e. canopy trees are quite widely spaced,


Peter.

[featherstick]

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.

I can certainly do that, there'll be several big holes being dug in the garden next year, a little bit more digging won't hurt.

[Nicko]

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.

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.

Depends if you want a fungally dominated compost(good for trees and perennials) or compost higher in beneficial bacteria(good for annuals). I would say worm casts would be my prefered bacterially dominated compost.

Nick

[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.

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.

Depends if you want a fungally dominated compost(good for trees and perennials) or compost higher in beneficial bacteria(good for annuals). I would say worm casts would be my prefered bacterially dominated compost.

Nick

I planned to use a worm cast mixture as a seed compost, although I haven't read anything about them in the Jeavons book yet. I don't see why a small proportion should hurt.

On a related note, apparently it's possible to compost dog poo with a certain kind of worm. I'll need to do this as a large dog produces as much waste as 1.5 people and the combined waste of my two dogs plus 2 permanent adults and visitors would overwhelm the cesspit / soakaway system. The house has a deep soakaway system that doesn't need emptying, and I don't want to kill it.

For safety I will add the dog poo compost to a normal heap so it is composted twice before use. I assume this system will deal with human waste too.

[Nicko]

We put dog shit in the humanure bin.

Nick

[adam2]

As regards improving poor soil, friends in Wales own a fair sized dairy farm, but are keen to grow more of their own food, and to produce winter cattle feed rather than purchasing this.
The fields near the farmhouse consisted of very poor soil, mixed stones and gravel with very little proper soil.

On the advice of an elderly neighbour, they proceeded as follows.

Plough deep furrows, along the contours of the land to minimise errosion.
These furrows being spaced about a yard apart, not "proper" ploughing in which each furrow turns the soil into the adjacent one.
The land between the furrows was left undisturbed and be walked on for harvesting or weeding etc.

Into the furrow or trench, they placed animal dung, wood ashes, and the contents of composting toilets.
Plant seeds as required, thus growing a single very long row of each crop.
Depending on the type of crop, the trench is filled by hand, with a roller, or with a small snow plough attachment on a tractor.

Each year repeat, but with the furrows offset by about a foot, so that all the land eventually gets ploughed, but only every third year or so.
Ploughing is allways done such that the plough turns the soil towards the UPHILL side of the furrow, thereby partialy offesetting the natural tendancy of the soil to all end up the bottom of the hill.

Leaving a lot unploughed each year minimises disturbance and risk of soil errosion. Yields are of course limited thus, but probably all that can be expected on poor though improving land.

They have been cultivating like this for over 10 years, and the soil has improved noticeably. Chemical fertiliser is used in moderation, being sprinkled by hand into the trench or furrow with the seed.

These farmers, at least, place great importance on limited but DEEP ploughing, for improving marginal land.
Few smallholdings could justify the purchase of a plough and tractor, but these can be hired at affordable rates if the work is carefully planned.

A pair of large horses would do the job, but again would probably have to be hired or borrowed, few smallholdings could keep such large and hungry animals.

[emordnilap]

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

Matt Adams is hoping to crowdfund research into no-dig, single-dig and double-dig effects on soil and nutrition.

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