Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

cavemandoom30

Ok, kind of off topic, but I want to respond to some of the questions asked of me..

Ok, Ludi.- My friend was just himself, his girlfriend, and 30 ish chickens..I think he could have done pretty well, but his choices were sort of goofy, about half that area was sweet corn, about a quarter was potatoes, the rest strawberries, melons, squash, tomatoes, and peppers. He did manage to fill most of a chest freezer with produce, and eat fresh veggies every day in huge quantities, but, it was ultimately way more than they could deal with, so it got weedy towards the end, and the chickens got heaps of rotten toms, squash, and dry corn..

Alokin..I'm talking about Central PA Climate, I guess you would call it Mid -Atlantic Piedmont, or mild continental? If you are from Europe, or familiar, it's a lot like parts of Germany. It's neither extremely dry, not wet, not super cold in winter, but super hot in the summer, clay loam soil, about 40-50 inches of rain a year. Mulch works pretty well here on a small scale, I use it now, and I'm happy with it. When I expand my garden next season, I do not plan to mulch most of it, just a few items like garlic and lettuce perhaps..It just gets too time consuming on a large scale, and expensive, unless you have free grass clippings..still time consuming though..Irrigation in my area is rare to non-exisitent, unlike the Atlantic coastal Plain, or the Midwest, or the deep South, row crop farmers simply don't need it 9 years out of ten. The mulch here is more to keep the weeds down, which I feel now I personally can do with a stirrup hoe faster than I can lay down mulch...

Ludi

Ok, thanks, caveman. Smile

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alokin · Intermediate Crude Joined: Aug 24, 2007 Posts: 700

cavemandoom, if I would live in a climate like this, what you describe as "like Germany" I would do the traditional thing hoeing etc. and not mulching because slugs are a real problem.

The "modern" way of mulching is maybe for different climates and maybe the same fault is made now than 150 years before when they settled Australia. They brought their cold weather farming techniques which are not very suitable for this climate. And vice versa the mulching technique is maybe not suitable for cold climates.

But in our summers (and even winters) the evaporation is high.
I had a veggie patch completely shaded by tress here and it worked well.

After a hot summer week I can put my hand under the mulch and it is still wet whereas without mulch the soil around the plants is completely dry no matter how you space your plants it is simply missing a protection.

but I like reading the book, because it is opposed to the mainstream an that leads to new ideas.