It is somewhat amusing to see the Wall Street Journal cover this topic.  After all, they are the paper of Wall Street, which I imagine has a “look down the nose” attitude about the people who grow food for a living, especially small-scale farmers who don’t use giant machines or buy inputs from Fortune 500 companies.   Perhaps I need to get over a prejudice?

 

Check out what this reporter did…and on page A1 to boot:

 

Green Acres II:
When Neighbors
Become Farmers

Suburban Arugula Is
Organic and Fresh, but
About That Manure...

By KELLY K. SPORS
April 22, 2008; Page A1

 

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120882472974233235.html?mod=todays_us_page_one

 

Not bad!  The people doing this work are good looking, young, suburbanites.  Probably makes it more palatable to the readers because they can relate to them. 

 

The music on the video included at the web site, however, is kinda hill-billyish.  I enjoy banjos and blue grass myself, but don’t know any farmers of the generation depicted who listen to it regularly.  If more young farmers are needed, it might be better to associate them with rock stars instead. 

 

I appreciated the coverage of the SPIN farming method:  http://www.spinfarming.com/

 

It is great that there is now a marketed entry path to farming in urban/suburban areas.  I would like to point out where SPIN differs from what we are advocating in the Energy Farm Program.  The article explains:

 

Start-up costs for a one-eighth-acre farm run about $5,500, says Ms. Christensen of Spin-Farming. That includes a walk-in cooler to wash and store fresh produce, a rotary tiller and a farm-stand display. Annual operating expenses, including seeds and farmers-market stall fees, can add about $2,000. Such a farm can generate $10,000 to $20,000 in annual sales, she says. That's "an entry point into farming to see if they have a talent for it," Ms. Christensen says. "Those that do will eventually be able to expand and increase that income level quite substantially."

 

Where we differ is in the use of hand tools instead of rototillers, and passive cooling techniques instead of walk-in coolers requiring electricity.  Also, we would probably be more circumspect about the inputs of manure and other fertilizers and ask farmers to work on green manure cover cropping and compost making on site instead.  This is all about the need to “get off the sauce” of oil, and fossil fuels in general.  Good hand tools are incredibly efficient at the scale needed for home-scale veggies (http://www.energyfarms.net/node/1509 ).

 

The Wall Street Journal does have some great reporters.  Good going Kelly!  Too bad the editorial pages of the WSJ are full of garbage about energy and climate issues. 

Last year we developed a toolset that allowed us to clear an abandoned baseball field of perennial sod and convert it into a vegetable producing mini-farm. This petrol-free toolset included a low-wheel cultivator made by Glaser and a two-foot wide broadfork. It is quite likely that we used these tools in a more rigorous way then they were intended, (opening new land instead of working pre-established vegetable beds), yet the tools withstood hours of work with only a handful of needed repairs. After last year’s experience we consider the combination of the broadfork and the low-wheel cultivator to be an appropriate toolset for small-scale vegetable cultivation because they efficiently use manual labor in place of fossil fuel powered equipment to prepare vegetable beds.

This blog will revisit our method for preparing vegetable beds in light of the fact that we are no longer fighting against tough perennial sod, and instead, we are removing our over-winter cover crops.

Step 1: Removing Cover Crop

We use a sharp scythe to cut the cover crop off as low to the ground as possible. Once the crop has fallen we rake up the remains and cart it off as a nitrogen input to our compost piles. In the earliest part of spring, we are careful to remove only the cover-crop from the vegetable beds that we immediately plan to prepare for transplant or direct seeding. This allows the other areas of cover crop to continue growing as much as possible in the increased temperatures and daylight hours of spring.

Jason Using Sharp Scythe to Clear Cover Crop

Cover Crop Cut Close to the Ground With Scythe

Step 2: Breaking Ground

After the cover crop has been removed we are left with the gentle stubble of annual cereals and legumes. We have noticed that the loam soil is quite soft and easy to work with, and we attribute this to the fact the area we are working was established last year. A prime consideration at this stage of bed preparation is soil moisture. We want to be careful not to work the soil too wet or we will remove an unnecessary amount of soil as we cut through the stubble of the annual cover crops.

Low Wheel Cultivator Cutting Into Soil

Step 3: Loosening the Bed

After the stubble of the previous crop has been broken free from the soil, the next step is to broadfork the soil. The broadfork is two feet wide and includes five tines that sink into the soil about ten inches. It is amazing how much easier it is to broadfork the soil this season than it was last year. We have changed the width of our beds this year from 5-foot wide beds to 4-foot wide beds. This change has put us into some areas of soil that is similar to last year when we had to combat the sod. Pushing the broadfork into the previously worked sections versus the reclaimed sod sections really shows what one-years-worth of work accomplished for reducing compaction and improving aeration. Again we want to be aware of soil moisture, so that we do not smear wet soil together in the prying and lifting action of the broadfork.

Chris Sinking Broadfork into and Prying Down

Step 4: Cross-cut the sod and rake

After the bed has been forked, there are entire clumps that have been lifted and are uneven. We use the low-wheel cultivator with a 3-tine cultivator attachment to cross cut the bed and thereby remove the clumps. By the time we are finished with cross cutting we have up to five inches of loose soil on the surface which makes a good seedbed. It is also easy to transplant into the newly cross cut bed. If we intend to seed the bed we rake the surface smooth and make sure there is no trash that could interfere with the drill-seeder.

Jason Cross-Cutting Bed with Three-Tine Cultivator

We like this toolset because it clears an area of grass or cover crop and produces a vegetable bed that is suitable for direct seeding or transplant. In this method the soil remains loose and aerated up to ten inches and it does not entail the soil disruption of double digging or rototilling. By making sure to compost the soil and debris that is removed from the area in which you intend to make a bed, you make a good step toward sustainable soil management in which no soil is lost and on-site nutrients are cycled back into the beds in the form of compost.

If you are curious you can click here to check out and contrast our bed preparation method from last year.

The attached PDF contains:

- crop layout

- calculations of plant numbers

- planting successions

- theoretical calore yield

- theoretical compost yield

- calculation of share numbers

- planting calendar

- harvest calendar

 

Updated Crop Assessment for Sebastopol Energy Garden

 

At the Sebastopol Energy Garden eggs account for a large portion of the calories that we produce. Of the estimated 1,476,765,3 calories that we can produce over the next growing year, 136,218 of that comes in the form of eggs.

On average our flock of five chickens produces an egg/chicken/day, each weighing roughly 61g, and containing 93.3 calories.

Supporting a flock of chickens; however, requires energy as well. Each chicken needs at least 200 calories/day to survive, and while about 30% of those calories can be obtained by foraging, the other 70% needs to be provided for them. Our chickens are allowed access to the compost piles and obtain some additional calories from the food scraps we recycle, but this is not enough.

Because hens allocate so much of the protein that they consume toward egg production it is also essential that we support the needs of our flock by providing a protein rich feed for them. It is recommended that 16% of a chicken's diet be protein.

Recommended Daily Value (chicken): 200 cal/day (5 chickens) (365) = 365,000 cal/ year

FOOD SOURCE % PROTEIN, BY WT

Dried fish flakes 76
Dried liver 76
Dried earthworms 76
Duckweed 50
Torula yeast 50
Brewers yeast 39
Soybeans (dry roasted) 37
Flaxseed 37
Alfalfa seed 35
Beef, lean 28
Earthworms 28
Fish 28
Sunflower seeds 26.3
Wheat germ 25
Peas & Beans, dried 24.5
Sesame seed 19.3
Soybeans (boiled) 17
Wheat bran 16.6
Oats, whole 14
Rice polish 12.8
Rye 12.5
Wheat 12.5
Barley 12.3
Oats 12
Corn 9
Millet 9
Milo 9
Rice, brown 7.5

Chicken feed can be purchased from most feed stores and while this may be a simple enough solution for most, it is our goal to produce chicken feed on-site so that we may decrease our dependece upon off-site materials and reduce our energy consumption.

The majority of chicken feed is produced through unsustainable, agricultural methods which rely heavily upon the use of petroleum. The proces behind producing, storing, and transporting feed is a very energy requiring process; by producing chicken feed on-site, on a small scale, we can avoid a lot of the energy inputs of conventional production.

By calculating the theoretical calorie yield of each crop intended for chicken feed as well as their protein content, we can determine the amount of required growing space for feeding the chickens. When it comes time to harvest the grains, and process them we will already have calculated how much to allocate towards the chickens. Then all we need to do is grind the grains and mix them accordingly. In the batch that we just prepared we used a combination of Peredovik Sungflowers seeds, Sorghum, Millet, and Ground corn.

Hand powered Corona Mill

[video]

Corn Millet

Peredovik Sunflower Dale Sorghum

Chicken Feed

Brookside Farm has accomplished an initial goal of getting our veggies to young children and into a local institution! North Coast Opportunities pre-school has agreed to purchase two shares from the CSA at Brookside Farm. The kitchen staff is looking forward to utilizing fresh farm produce and cooking according to the harvest season. It is exciting to see that there is demand for our produce and the goods of a Relocalized food system.

View of North Coast Opportunities Preschool

To meet the demands of the CSA, we set to work preparing our first beds in order to transplant spinach and lettuce and to direct seed onions, beets, carrots, lettuce, and parsnips. We removed cover crops with a scythe, broke the soil with the low-wheel cultivator, loosened the soil with the broadfork, and cross cut a final time with the low-wheel cultivator in order to ready vegetable beds. The following is the sowing dates and area for the crops that we direct seeded.

February 22nd Direct Sowed Sweet Peas; 66 sq. feet

March 15th Transplanted starts of Spinach (Monster of Virolat); 40 sq. feet

March 18th Direct seeded Beets (Chioga, Mixed Heirloom); 100 sq. feet

March 18th Direct seeded Onions (Allisa Craig); 120 sq. feet

March 18th Direct seeded Parsnips (The Student); 120 sq. feet

March 25th Direct Seeded Onion (Giant Zittau); 50 sq. feet

March 25th Transplanted starts of Lettuce (Mixed Varieties); 96 sq. feet

March 25th Direct seeded Carrots (Early Nantes); 100 sq. feet

March 25th Direct Seeded Lettuce (Mixed Varieties) 100 sq. feet

Direct Seeding Beets by Hand

According to our planting schedule, March was slated to be one of the most active months in the greenhouse. Lettuce, cabbage, chard, spinach, kale, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and tomatillo were on the list of a scheduled 1600 starts. Unfortunately, we had poor germination on many of the starts that were seeded early in the month (kale, spinach, and cabbage). We monitored the Max-Min thermometer in the greenhouse and were noticing overnight lows in the 30 and daily highs in the 70’s. After considering what might have led to the poor germination and we finally concluded that the average soil temperatures and nighttime temperatures were too cold. We utilized the warming temperatures toward the middle of March to catch-up on the plants that did not do so well earlier in the month and continued to sow starts to remain on pace with our greenhouse schedule. By the second week of the month we had sown our peppers and tomatoes in David Drell’s greenhouse. David used electric heating mats to secure sufficiently warm germination temperatures, and by the end of the month we had excellent stands of little peppers and tomatoes awaiting transplant from their seed-flats into four-inch pots. It was amazing to see the difference between plants started with the heated soil mats and those that fended for themselves in the early part of March.

Tomatoes and Peppers in Four-Inch Pots

This month we also began a relationship with a local welder to make adjustments to our low-wheel cultivator and the broadfork. Last year we had a terrible time shearing off the bolt that connected the stirrup hoe implement to the low-wheel cultivator. Kevin, at KLR welding, suggested that he weld a small plate near the back of where the stirrup hoe connects to the frame. By adding the plate excess and needless motion has been eliminated, the implement base remains rigid, and we have significantly reduced the threat of shearing the bolt. We are also asking Kevin to weld reinforced tines onto the broadfork. This should make the tines sturdier and less apt to bend and break off as they did last year.

Glaser Hoe with Metal Block to Limit Excess Movement

Broadfork with Reinforced Tines

I saw this today, had a morbid laugh, then got pensive.

(cartoonists web site: http://www.ibdeditorials.com/cartoons.aspx#cararch)

A couple of years ago, biofuels were hot. There were the promoters touting "green" fuels, getting off "foreign oil" and helping "American farmers." A perfect set of environmental, geopolitical and populist allies created a basket of incentives to boost corn-based ethanol production.

A few of us were decrying this as bad policy. The net energy of ethanol was around break even, so it couldn't be climate neutral or help with oil dependency. The rise in food prices would impact the poor around the world, causing much pain and unrest that could destabilize nations. And American farmers would go through another painful boom-bust cycle rather than transition to a sustainable agriculture system that is realistic about energy constraints.

Other issues are exposed by this fiasco. Why is it that so many people ARE dependent on cheap, often imported grains (especially in Africa)? Some have ridiculed the local food movement for potentially depriving farmers in the developing world of their markets in the wealthy nations. But if these developing nations are ones who can't feed themselves, shouldn't we ask if it might be better for them to focus on food self-sufficiency rather than production for export? Especially if our energy and financial policies can cut them off from our food so blithely.

Take a look at not only corn in the fuel tank, but coffee, tea, coconuts, palm oil, cane sugar, papayas, bananas, out of season vegetables, etc. All these tropical products may be produced in places dependent upon trade for money that is used to buy imported staples such as grains. What if they decided to relocalize instead? Would they be better off?

I enjoyed Josh's planting plans for the Sebastopol Energy Garden. It's easy to imagine the mixed beds of broccoli and celery, corn and beans, cabbage and onions, Swiss chard and carrots...

A friend says that seed catalogs have inspired more fantasies than Playboy.

There are good reasons for planting crops in mixtures:

• Mixed crops often have higher yields than monocultures because different species use different resources, making more efficient use of land;
• Mixed plantings often have fewer pest problems than monocultures because pests have a harder time finding suitable hosts, or because diverse plantings provide better habitat for natural enemies;
• Diversity helps reduce risk. (Promoting biodiversity is a stated goal of the USDA's national organic standards.)

But how, exactly, do we go about planting mixtures? If the seed packet, or a planting guide, tells us to space cabbages 15" apart and onions 4" apart, how far apart do we space cabbage and onion plants in a mixture?

A couple of answers are offered by John Jeavons, in his classic manual How to Grow More Vegetables. He suggests that a mixed bed of cabbage and onion could consist of rows of cabbages interspersed with rows of onions. If cabbages and onions are mixed throughout the bed, Jeavons says the plant spacing should be the mean of the recommended spacing for the component crops.

According to this second method, the spacing between plants in a cabbage and onion bed would be 9.5" -- the mean of 15" (cabbage spacing) and 4" (onion spacing).

This approach has a few problems. I think I have a better way.

First I'll explain the problems. The Jeavons method sets cabbage and onion spacing to 9.5" whether the mixture is 90% cabbage or 10% cabbage. This doesn't make sense to me. It is intuitive that plant spacing for a cabbage and onion mixture should be somewhere between the recommended spacings for cabbage and onion, but it also seems intuitive that plant spacing should be closer to the recommended cabbage spacing in a mixture that is mostly cabbage and closer to the recommended onion spacing in a mixture that is mostly onion. Crop ratio is important.

How to Grow More Vegetables offers a planting plan for a two crop mixture with a 1:3 crop ratio. Using this plan we would plant three onions for every cabbage, in an arrangement like this:

This leads to the second problem: Using the Jeavons plan gives us room for 33 cabbages and 80 onions in the 60 square-foot bed above. To plant 33 cabbages in a pure stand, spaced 15" apart, would require 45 square feet. To plant 80 onions in a pure stand, spaced 4" apart, would require only 8 square feet. The total area required for the two pure stands would be 53 square feet -- 7 square feet less than the area required for the mixture.

Mixtures should make more efficient use of resources, not less. A mixture should not require more land than two pure stands with the same number of plants.

So what's my solution?

I have developed an equation to calculate plant spacing in mixtures from the recommended spacing for pure stands:

where

• s_A and s_B are the recommended pure stand spacings for crops A and B, respectively, and
• p is the proportion of plants in the mixture (a value between 0 and 1) accounted for by crop A.

In the example above, cabbage account for one-quarter of the plants in the mixture, so p=0.25. The recommended spacings for cabbage and onion are 15" and 4", respectively, so s_A=15 and s_B=4. The calculated mixture spacing, according to the equation, is 8.25" instead of 9.5".

Since using this equation is more difficult than calculating a mean I have developed a spreadsheet and an online plant spacing calculator with this equation at their heart. Provided you have the Analysis Toolpak installed in Excel (check the Add-Ins feature under Excel's Tools menu) the spreadsheet will create planting diagrams like these:

The first two diagrams show a square meter of cabbage (white circles) and onions (black diamonds) planted in pure stands. The next three show cabbage and onion mixtures planted at ratios of 1:3, 1:8, and 1:15.

Learn more here.

Attached is the 2008 Planting Plan for the Sebastopol Energy Garden. Within the document are site maps with designated locations for each crop, calorie assessments, a plant inventory, and the budget for the purchase of seeds and plants.

Updates on plantings, and lists of what is currently growing at the Sebastopol Energy Garden can be tracked on our Farm Notebook Site

The compost piles at the Sebastopol Energy Garden that have been decomposing for the last 6 months are now ready to be sifted and made into seedling mix. Sifting the compost with a 1/4" screen produces a fluffy, aerated compost blend, that when mixed with sandy loam at a 1:1 ratio functions as a seedling mix. Through producing nutrient rich soil onsite and processing it into seedling mix we are able to reduce our dependence upon external sources of nutrients and lower our impact upon ecosystems outside of the Energy Garden.

The compost sifters were both constructed onsite from an old fence that was donated to the garden. The pickets from the old fence make excellent handles and the salvaged 2x4" functions as a durable frame. All that was required to convert the fence into the compost sifters was a screw driver, screws, wire mesh, and a jig saw. All cuts were based upon the dimensions of the wheelbarrows onsite.

With the seedling mix that we produced, we used our seed block press to generate flats , into which we planted our seeds. The seed block press makes twenty 1 1/2" blocks with small depressions in the tops for seeds which allows for labor efficient planting. Planted flats are then transfered to the straw bale cold frame where they are incubated and protected from external conditions.

Through allocating energy towards our crops in the early stages of their development we ensure the vaiability of our crops early on. Healthy crops bring higher yields and are less susceptible to pathogens.

 

 

With spring fast approaching, two needs recently became apparent. We needed to increase our sheltered growing space as well as our soil building capacities. To accomplish this, we created several designs for increasing our growing abilities, and in the end, we decided to build an integrated system.

Currently, we have a worm bin and three bins for compost. We built the new system in the middle of the garden and it will serve as the fourth stage of composting. From this bin, we will sift the compost and create our soil mixes. Because of its placement, it is ideal for distributing the soil and seedlings throughout the garden.

Twenty-one straw bales were used for the walls, and we used onsite scrap lumber for the frame of the cover. The cover is plastic, and we plan on upgrading it with windows from the local recycle center. The growing space is separated from the compost bin by a wall of straw bales.

To integrate the two spaces we cut sections of rain gutter, which was onsite from our water catchment project, and put them through the straw bale wall. This allows the solar gain from the cold frame to heat up the compost pile during the day, and it encourages the compost pile to release some of its heat into the cold frame during the night.

We have extended our growing season, soil building capacity, and when the system starts to decompose the straw will make an excellent top dressing throughout the garden. The cold frame and compost bin are also well insulated by the straw bales.