growing 90% of your own food support group

I used to be up around 75% but backed off due to time constraints over the last 2 years. I am aiming to be up around 75% again this year. Hi crwilson- I'm pretty close to you I think- I'm on 7 acres in the Falmouth area : ) I do my chickens all at once and get the later delivery dates (June)from the feed store since we often get chilly temps till then and also the gardens are going during their growth period and the weeds are more appreciated : )
My big concentration this year is on my hoop house going in so there will be more Fall/Winter items.

I'm listening to podcasts and reading about permaculture. Are any of the folks here interested in hugulkultur and plantings that aren't in rows?

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Here are a couple links to hugelkultur posts on my blog:
http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com...r-beds-part-i/

http://wellheeledhills.wordpress.com...kultur-part-2/

After establishing the orchard, we've moved on to the kitchen garden beds. Each bed is excavated down ~12 inches, then backfilled with a layer of wood chips up to 6 inches thick. Rotted wood, leaf mould and our gravel/clay loam soil is sifted and the fine material is used to bring the level back up above ground 3-4 inches on average. The beds were mostly planted in legumes for the first few months of growth. Since then, greens, beets, herbs and other plants have done quite well.

I thought I had a post on the blog regarding the establishment of the garden beds, but I don't see it. have to fix that.

I will join in... last year planted stuff I knew would grow, plus a couple of extra 'fun' things that I wanted to just try to see if I could grow in Maine.I want to moniter this thread, and learn, too.

There were super epidemics (right word? dont know) of one kind of pest after another. Fought them by natural home remedies, store stuff and chemical stuff. Get rid of one pest, another would show up.
The two things I had initial success with were 2 sets of seedlings that popped up in the compost pile . . . . I planted them in the garden, and they did well,while all the others were being eaten by bugs. Then when the bugs finished everything else, they came for thse 2 things (I didn't know what the seedlings were, just knew I'd eaten them sometime that winter and tossed the seeds into the pile) but I got a few good hubbard squash and cantelope (!) from them before they yielded to the bugs.) I talked to a lady from the coop and she said 'do you know why those 2 succeeded? Because they grew in the compost pile; you seeded the others before the ground was warm enough' I am sure she was right; this time, I will use a soil thermometer.

Maybe the mod can make the '90% club' a sub forum up there with market gardening. Mod?

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I've read a bit about it. Hugulkultur seems like a promising technique if you're working with hand tools anyway. I'm not sure though that I could handle that much garden with only hand tools. Perhaps if I had a prodigious supply of mulch...

As for other non-row planting, I tried square foot gardening once, but you really do have to make up a rich artificial soil to plant that densely. In normal garden loam the plants need more space.

This drought has got me plenty interested. I am also considering swales and or some combination. Plenty dead wood available. I have access to a large valume of wood chips and saw dust from horse stall cleanings. I seperate out some for use as chicken bedding.

Several years ago I ordered 100 of the heavy breed chicks from one of the nurseries. We butchered quite a few of them and kept some for laying purposes. It was hard work butchering and putting away that many roos but we made it through. I don't think I would want to process 50-60 at one time again. Maybe 10-20 would be ok though.

The cool temps in the spring is a problem if you do not have a way of keeping the chicks warm. They absolutely must stay dry and warm. I hatched out a couple dozen this past summer when it was hotter'n blue blazes and they all did fine. The temps don't matter too much to me because I just regulate the temperature in their cage.

I am planning to set off more heavy breeds this spring. Probably Rhode Island Reds and Barred Rocks. I had some lovely Black Austrolorps last year but sold every last one of them.

Belle

We just built our first huegulkultur bed and have plans for more. The main portion of our garden is deep beds (bio-dynamics). We saved a ton of watering this past year. We will never go back to row gardening. The pathways are heavily mulched so very little weeding to do and what few grow in the bio-dynamic beds are super easy to pull out. I can weed most of the garden in about 30 minutes every few days with just my hands. I have never worked so little to have produced so much. Once the beds are established they are easy to maintain. Blessings, Kat

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We have raised beds here in Texas and in my summer garden in Missouri, and I'm interested in planting diverse crops together rather than monoculture.

I have one small Hugulkulture bed in Missouri that I just put in over the summer. It should do better this spring.

The permaculture concept that is catching my interest in long term plantings of food bearing plants in a more natural setting. No rows.

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Alice
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"No great thing is created suddenly." ~Epictitus

Count me in. I'm already beginning to feel accountable to all of you, thinking about doing a better job of weeding, etc. It will also encourage me to do a better job of weighing produce and keeping better records in general.

Think I need to figure out how to make seed pots from newspaper tomorrow!

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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -Thomas Jefferson

I use alot of newspaper pots to start my seeds, I use a large tall glass for forming them works well.

Thx, sounds better than sending some unknown person/co $25 for those cute little wooden things! Do you just twist it at the botom? fold and tape? fold and hope it stays together?

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The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. -Thomas Jefferson

I take one sheet of newspaper and lay it out like the paper is just one page not open, and then I fold about one inch legthwise along the side that you cant open, this will be the top of the pot and this one inch gives the top extra strength.

so then i lay the paper flat and place the glass along the edge with the 1" fold make sure that a inch or two of the glass is sticking out past the paper because this is how you will pull it out of the pot, this has to also be the end of the glass with a bottom. Now just spin the glass on down the paper rolling it around the glass until you get to the end. now simply ram all the paper that is hanging down past the open edge of the glass up into the empty end.

Your pot is now finished no taping or anything is necesarry, sometimes I jam a wooden stick or something down into the pot to get the bottom flat.

It also helps to have a long glass that is mostly the same size at the top as the bottom

Has anyone here made their own soil blocks for starting seedlings?

This is a great thread. Super excited to see what everyone does this year. I think this should definitely be it's own sub forum. I would really like to incorporate permanent beds this year. I am saving cardboard like a mad person to make sheet mulching.

I have been doing deep bedding in my barn this winter so I will have a lot of "stuff" to spread. I have a question on mulching with animal bedding if anyone can answer....

Some folks are of the belief that animal bedding still is too rich in manure and will "burn" anything planted in it... I have that putting down animal bedding is good and it will all compost down into the soil.

I am rather confused. I had thought about spreading down the bedding (mix of cow, goat and chicken bedding) directly on top of the soil, layering down several layers of cardboard to smother out weeds, then putting down compost as a "seed bed" then layering old hay/straw for the top. Will that work? Will 2-3 inches of compost be enough to start seeds in? I want to do this beginning of march so it will have about 6 weeks to work down before any broccoli/cabbage/etc gets planted into it.

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“If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as a sorry state as the souls who live under tyranny." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

I have done cardboard and composted animal manure to start new beds for years, along with reducing weeds around shrubs and berries.
But I have always done it by putting cardboard directly on the ground, then a 6 inch or more layer of composted horse manure, with baked crushed eggshells and a small bit of ashes from my pellet stove and finally a 3-4 inch thick layer of mulch (in my case usually redwood bark) on top
I have always done it in the fall because it takes that long to decompose the cardboard and make the worms happy. For suprressing weeds, it doesn't seem to matter when so I usually do it in the spring.

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For we used to ask when we were little, thinking that the old men knew all things which are on earth: yet forsooth they did not know; but we do not contradict them, for neither do we know.

Depends on the animal and the type of bedding, but in general I don't think you'll have much problem as long as you don't plant directly in it. I've heard great things about using raw uncomposted manure in a layer under the topsoil to heat up the soil for early spring planting. The article was very old, they used glass bells and cold frames to hold the heat. My folks always used cut up milk jugs to keep seedlings warm, but they blow away on my property. I'd like to give row covers a try with that method.

P.S. Also meant to say my father also used it as top dressing to good effect after the seedlings were established.

I soil block. I love it for starting and transplant or " potting up" new seedlings. It's a little bit labor intensive in the beginning to mix the soil and form the blocks. But I have had very good germination and no transplant issues using the blocks. I don't see myself potting in plastic anymore.

Great to hear - thank you! Do you have a home made blocker or like one that you purchased?

I'm thinking of asking my son to work on a setup as a spring woodworking project...