Potatoe Blossoms |
Mike's Garden Blog
Questions, Answers, Musings about gardening. |
|
|
Home About Just a little bit about me and what I do. Terms of Use A few simple guidelines for the use of our site. |
Number of comments 0 Let the Soil Rest A While...................... June 12, 2007 14:07:48 I intend to expand the size of my garden this summer. When I was younger it was probably about three times bigger than it is now. Part of it has been incorporated into horse pasture and the rest has just been growing grass. It is the grass part I intend to cultivate again. The reason I want to expand it is not to grow more stuff. But I wish to have larger areas to not grow anything on. If I have more garden area I can move my crops around each year and take part of last years crop area and grow green manure crops on it for a year. Also I could work fresh horse manure into it without any danger to existing crops. I suppose to do something like this is a luxury of having lots of space to work with. But since I do I feel I should take advantage of the situation. If I lived in town I would probably not have much of a yard. Mowing is one of my least favorite things to do. I guess I would work up as much of the yard as possible. This probably is not possible in some places because of neighbor complaints. Especially if you loaded it up with manure of compost and then worked it in or it was just sitting there rough all winter. So, say when you dig your potatoes, which around here is early summer, you come right back and plant some buckwheat over that area. Let it grow up and flower a little bit and then till it all under. I guess you could still do the green manure thing without having to let part of your garden sit idle all year. It would be nice to see this concept used as a standard practice on farms. I don't think I know any farmers around here who would let acres sit idle for a year. Especially the ones in debt who need to make every dime they can each year to pay on their loans. But, even the ones who do not have to have every dime each year probably would not consider this idea. Which is too bad, because it would benefit the soil immensely. Comment on this article |