You can also buy bulk seeds on a tape which works out cheaper, I prefer the propagator with individual seeds in each cone, my first plant out are now four inches high and the second batch just about to poke through while everyone elses are still to come through.

It is a little more work but I have plenty of time these days and its just turned cold again the coldest start to June for quite a while, so if the cooling trend continues every advantage is going to help us here.

We have just taken on an extra 180 square yards plot and going to fit mini polly tunnels over the raised beds giving us a dozen stands for growing in the colder weather.

Check out how we are going to heat them for free.

journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/eth...motherearth/me4.html

Gris put us onto this idea, we are making some smaller versions from the smaller gas bottles, when I get around to it I will post the designs etc.


dubmeup wrote:

Soil. Do you have to maintain soil?

I'm not a fan of gardening, but I live at my mum's and she has a good sized back garden. The soil seems very fertile, the whole thing can look like a jungle if I don't get out and mow and weed and things

WB Apprentice

irrepressible wrote:
There are many schools of thought on that Irre.
In nature, it's largely taken care of by a process of continual recycling. The different lifefoms all exist in a kind of symbiosis to maintain a mutually beneficial state of fertility.

When we do the human take take take thing by growing food, we interrupt that balance. So one way or another we have to try to reset it. This is where the many schools come in.....
Some use muck.
Some use green manure
Some use compost.
Some use horrid chemicals
Some dig
Some don't dig.
Some use ash/charcoal/rockdust
The list goes on.
I tend to give a virgin patch a good dig, adding compost at that stage, then I tend to go with green manures, compost and ash after that. Occasionally I might add some muck or a bit of kelp. Not digging as such, just forking it in a bit. Then mother nature digests it all and enriches the soil. It works for me.
Others come at it differently and get as good if not better results.

If you see all those weeds and the jungle you aptly called it, that is because it is a jungle and works pretty much like one. There will be semi-parasitic, perenial and other types of plants in there that grow set seed and fix next years stores for the best start the next season, works being one of the most important amd unpaid of natures servants.

Barren or fallow land that has never been used for anything gives a really good crop the first season after being planted, so what needs to be done is the removal of the weeds by either digging them out or covering the area with a light tight cover like strong black plastic to starve them of photosynthesis, this works but wont kill the seeds which can persist for years on many perenial weeds.

My freind advised us what to do with our paticular ground as each is different, he is a post grad from Haughall agri college of yesteryear and a no dig gardener himself.
So we double dug all the hardy perenial weeds outa there and afterwards only dig where we needed to dig afterwards removing the hardy brambles and willowherb that we saw the second year and now are reverting back to a no dig method in many parts of the area.
When your gardening your changing the integrity of the soil in your initial dig and replacing plants adapt at getting what they need each year with plants many times bigger and hybrids that need more goodness and less competition from others to put on bulk to be worthy of being called a vedge.

On our previous 110 mainly organic pasture acres we had to muck the heaviest used land every three years and lime every five yeas or so to keep the pastures sweet and replace what the animals removed otherwise it would decline very slowly.

Once you are on top of the established stronger ellements of nature it is much easier to control it, if you don't do this initial dig where brambles and other virile weeds grow all your going to get is very healthy weeds and less vedge.

Once your on top of things you can leave the ground intact and simply nip off the tops of the weeds and eventually they will give up without leaves and sunlight to fix more root, the roots will die back and the worms and bacteria will reabsorb them, place all the tops in the compost bin and you will get back the organics next year that they stole the yearbefore.

Once you get established like the wilderness before it is much easier therafter, graft in goodies out afterwards.

You can use the Indo technique of green manure and compost for 19 years before you need to replace some organics likemanure.

To see what moern farming methods are doing to the soil find the worms in there.

Kissenger and his cronies know exactly what they are doing to the populous by using less land and a higher prozac for what we call foods/yields.

The control the land control the food control the people is its propper title.

Skill up wherever we can because they are slowly taking away our ability to save ourselves.

In plain sight it is and we are slowly dieing to their rhythm by.funding and accepting their slavery model of our whole.

Rant of truth over.







irrepressible wrote:



















If you see all those weeds and the jungle you aptly called it, that is because it is a jungle and works pretty much like one. There will be semi-parasitic, perenial and other types of plants in there that grow set seed and fix next years stores for the best start the next season, works being one of the most important amd unpaid of natures servants.












If you see all those weeds and the jungle you aptly called it, that is because it is a jungle and works pretty much like one. There will be semi-parasitic, perenial and other types of plants in there that grow set seed and fix next years stores for the best start the next season, works being one of the most important amd unpaid of natures servants.

Barren or fallow land that has never been used for anything gives a really good crop the first season after being planted, so what needs to be done is the removal of the weeds by either digging them out or covering the area with a light tight cover like strong black plastic to starve them of photosynthesis, this works but wont kill the seeds which can persist for years on many perenial weeds.

My freind advised us what to do with our paticular ground as each is different, he is a post grad from Haughall agri college of yesteryear and a no dig gardener himself.

So we double dug all the hardy perenial weeds outa there and afterwards only dig where we needed to dig afterwards removing the hardy brambles and willowherb that we saw the second year and now are reverting to a no dig method in many parts of the area
irrepressible wrote:








Barren or fallow land that has never been used for anything gives a really good crop the first season after being planted, so what needs to be done is the removal of the weeds by either digging them out or covering the area with a light tight cover like strong black plastic to starve them of photosynthesis, this works but wont kill the seeds which can persist for years on many perenial weeds.

My freind advised us what to do with our paticular ground as each is different, he is a post grad from Haughall agri college of yesteryear and a no dig gardener himself.

So we double dug all the hardy perenial weeds outa there and afterwards only dig where we needed to dig afterwards removing the hardy brambles and willowherb that we saw the second year and now are reverting to a no dig method in many parts of the area
irrepressible wrote:

Don't know what happened there?

Despite the internet wierdness Top post!
If I had taken the time in my reply to Irre, that's pretty much what I'd have said (although my version would have been far less eloquent)
It seems we have a very similar approach to the soil which sustains us so well the app

A must watch for all those who think they are aware.

www.google.co.uk/url?q=https://video.goog...cn3F9IGG_QKF8IWdFcWQ

OK, had a scan through the thread and it's all a bit overwhelming! I've got a patch of land here 5metresx2metres(ish) that I want to make more productive. It get's very little direct sunlight, maybe 2-3 hrs late afternoon, and I've got very little growing experience, a bit of 'homegrown' that I got lucky with rather than tended lovingly!

So, can I grow there? What prep will it likely need? When's the best time to prep, plant etc? And any obvious questions I should have asked

I'd like to try spuds, and I noticed some of you mention homegrown virginia tobacco, that'd be great!

If suitable on a small plot I would make a polly tunnel to cover it with.

First find out the soil type and double dig all of the perenial weeds out of it, then aftetwards revert to a no dig method.

You can make the polly tunnel from long flexible wooden branches and carefully bend them around a tree and tie them off to tale shape. In the space you can use shelving and hanging food baskets and you will be amazed what you will be able to grow in there.


oioioi wrote:

What's the purpose of a polytunnel? How do I find out soil type?

I should perhaps mention I'm in Athens so temperature isn't an issue atm!

Athens right, polly tunnel would probably melt then and roast rather than rescue anything inside it.

You could still utilise the space by growing upwards on a trestle etc and grow things in the permaculture method where one species covers and protects another below and keep in the grouns moisture.

Have a look about and chat withthe elders.

oioioi wrote:

But before anything I have to dig the lot over? How deep?

What's the soil like oi? Does it have much fibrous material in it? Is it earthy and friable or hard and cake like?
If you squish a lump in your hand does it go into a tight ball or stay pretty loose when you release the pressure?

As a general rule of thumb the app and me have given pretty sound basic ground prep advice but it'd help if we knew what you're starting with a bit more.

dubmeup wrote:
I'll get my back and spade into it tomorrow and report back. I've been threatening to do something with it since last summer, mrs oioioi mentioned decking the other day, fuck that, time to pull my finger out!

oioioi wrote:
So the sky is the limit on crop choice then. I assume its an all year round warm climate, if so you would benefit from a full year round growing season , you lucky beggar. Imagine the tomatoes, peppers , chillies, and not to forget the tobacco plants, sweetcorn.
In that climate the list is endless

Griswald wrote:
Yup and with the application of some ingenuity like the app alluded to, Ie using vertical space too, you could get a fair bit from even that size plot too.

In Athens I live half way up a mountain so it can become quite cool in the winter, even snow some years. I intend using this patch as a trial and confidence builder then I can get on to my real project, a fair bit more land at the 'summerhouse' in the Peloponnese which already has orange, lemon and olive trees.

BTW dubs, I didn't get into the garden today, I forgot about a kids beach party this afternoon.

I remember my mother telling us stories of her childhood days and how her family originally from the village of Sol Costa in the Italian Alps used to grow food as farmers, the village still remains named after her grandfather.

They had greenhouses that had cold sumps basically a hollowing about two feet deep below the growing boxes for the cold air to sink into, as kids they would play hide and seek in them below the tomatoes.

And in countries where summer heat was a burden they used to grow cieling plants to shield the burning rays of the sun to protect the more delicate plants below. Then at night to retain heat in their homes they had natural earthen pannels about 7 feet high that were semi circular in shape, during the day the curved half wouldbe placed outwards painted black and the flat opposite side inside, as the sun was just going down over the horizon they would turn the pannels around on their axles and reap the benefit of the suns energy just like giant storage heaters, these were also fitted to growing hoses to be used in the early spring and late autumn for a sligjtly longer growing season.

My ancestors knew how to survive as did many others, they were happy farmers and shoe makers with a will to learn and a will to share.

We can all still do this if we really wanted to, just saying.


oioioi wrote:

The panels would be great idea for definite to extend the heat of the day, for increased crop growth. And you could also incorporate that concept within that panel to create free heat source for hot water. Because on a hot day we normally dissipate any excess heat by ventilating it out of the tunnel or greenhouse. Instead of removing it by a heat exchanging method, which would be easy to do.

A green house creates an awful lot of heat, that is not used to its maximum potential.

griswald