Archive for the ‘Backyard Farming Series’ Category

26 Jan

Growing Food not Lawns: A Day of Backyard Farming

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm. Tagged: , , .

This workshop is especially for those interested in starting their own backyard garden, urban kitchen garden or small farm while practicing sustainable, holistic and biodynamic methods. We are combining the wisdom and hands-on expertise of real farmers. For would-be and aspiring farmers, this is a rare and powerful learning opportunity.

During the workshop, you will have the opportunity to:

  • Learn to grow healthy food to eat and also have a backyard “farm-acy” for herbs and medicinal plants
  • Gain a basic understanding of biodynamic growing, permaculture, agro-forestry and sustainable agriculture practices.  In particular, we introduce a method of transforming your backyard into a food forest.
  • Make a compost heap
  • Integrate chickens in your garden and learn how to produce your own eggs
  • Learn practical skills to grow food in your backyard or small farm
  • Plan your garden for the year
  • Learn ways of managing insects, attracting beneficials and controlling disease through organic methods
  • Start to culture and raise earthworms in your home
  • Use vermi-compost for your farm

In collaboration with SLOWFOOD MANILA.

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DATE AND TIME:  The Introductory Backyard Farming Workshop will be held on January 28 Saturday.  The Workshop starts at 9AM with a short break in the morning.  Lunch is from 12:30-1:30.  It ends at 4:30- 5:00.  Some practical work is included. We will discuss building soil and composting, growing your garden and pest control.  You will also see our homestead and how we grow our garden at home. 

Want to know how the day will go? Take a peek: backyardschedule-jan28

VENUE

The workshop will be held at Clubhouse of Hacienda Sta. Elena, Barrio Malitlit, Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

EXIT ETON: Turn left on Sta. Rosa-Tagaytay Road (you will see Paseo de Sta. Rosa on your left.) Go straight until you see Vista Mall on your right.  On your left will be a sign “Sta Elena City.” Make a left into Sta. Elena City (it is before Nuvali). You will pass Fontamara homes, Mesa Homes, Augusta, then you will reach Georgia Club Rotonda. Make right at the Rotonda. It is a long road. You will see walled communities such as Belle Reve on the right. At the end of the road is another Rotonda, make a left. Follow the long road until you see the Hacienda Sta. Elena gate.  Enter the gate and ask for directions to the Clubhouse. 

PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Take the bus to Balibago, then take a tricycle ride from Sta. Rosa exit (tricycle terminal) to Sta. Elena City.

MEALS: All meals are included in the workshop fee. Healthy yet scrumptious meals made of local, organic or sustainable ingredients will be served. Please bring your own water bottles, plates and utensils. If you have any food allergies or preferences, please inform us so that we can discuss how your food needs can be met.

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ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Nicolo Aberasturi is the President of Flower Depot, a flower grower and retailer of organic and bio-dynamic flowers, and the President of DowntoEarth, a grower and supplier of biodynamic vegetables, and pasture-raised meat, pork, dairy, poultry, smoked and cured meats. He is a Trustee of the Organic Producers Trade Association of the Philippines and a member of the Philippine Biodynamics Association.

Nicolo has been in farming for 20 years and began practicing sustainable agriculture in 2004, while applying bio-dynamics in 2007. Today he manages Earth Flora, a vegetable and flower farm in Dahilayan, Bukidnon, using sustainable and humane agricultural practices. In 2011, he returned to his roots in cattle farming and is now working or networking with small family farms, to raise animals in the pasture.

DowntoEarth grows vegetables using bio- dynamics and sustainable practices. It raises livestock sustainably and works with a network of sustainably family farmers and ranchers in Mindanao. All of DowntoEarth’s animals have been raised on pasture. DowntoEarth is dedicated to ensure traditional, all-natural, humane and sustainable methods for growing crops and raising animals for food.

PAYMENT OPTIONS

FEE: P2500 (includes lunch, snack and all course materials.)

P2000 Students/Seniors

Group Discounts are also available.  Scholarships are available.   

Fee includes

• Lecturer, all course materials, healthy and delicious lunch, tea, coffee and water

TO REGISTER: registration-form-jan28

To ensure your place, please send full payment by January 18, 2017.  You can pay via bank deposit or personally at our shop (Makati Curb Holdings,  #7433 Ground Floor, Unit J, Yakal St., San Antonio Village, Makati City.  Alternatively, you can pay us at our DowntoEarth booth in the Salcedo or Legaspi markets on Saturday or Sunday. 

Bank Deposit Details:

Deposit to BPI Account (Arnaiz Ave. branch) Account Name: Earth Flora Inc. Account Number: 9661-0147-65

Checks are accepted. Please issue the check under the name of Earth Flora Inc.

Early registration is advised, as slots are limited. If you have deposited, please scan the deposit slip and email it to info@downtoearth.ph.  Once your payment has been received, confirmation will be sent with a receipt and further details about what to bring.

*Cancellation Policy

If for some reason you cannot make it to the workshop, a fee of P500 will be charged to cover administration costs up to two weeks prior to the commencement of the workshop and the balance will be refunded to you. Within 2 weeks of the workshop commencing however, a 50% cancellation fee will be charged. If for some reason the workshop is cancelled, you will receive at least 2 weeks notice and your full payment will be refunded. 

If you have other questions, please let us know or SMS 0915-8979044.

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27 Jun

Backyard Farming Workshop

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Uncategorized. Tagged: .

Backyard Farming Workshop

Backyard Farming Workshop

11 Jul

Backyard Farming Workshop this August

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm, Uncategorized. Tagged: , .

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BackyardSeriesSchedule

VENUE
The workshop will be held at the beautifully rustic Pavilion located beside a family farm at Fun Farm Pavilion, Sta. Elena Golf and Country Estate, Barrio Malitlit, Sta. Rosa, Laguna

FROM SLEX / SOUTHBOUND: Exit Cabuyao / Sta Elena. After tollgate, make a right. About 500 meters is the Sta. Elena Village Gate. Enter there and follow the sign to the Fun Farm.

FROM TAGAYTAY/STA ROSA ROAD: Make a left into Sta. Elena City (it is before Nuvali). You will pass Fontamara homes, Mesa Homes, Augusta, then you will reach Georgia Club Rotonda. Make right at the Rotonda. It is a long road. You will see walled communities such as Belle Reve on the right. At the end of the road is another Rotonda, make a left. Follow the long road until you see the Sta. Elena gate on your right. Enter and follow the sign to the Fun Farm.

PUBLIC TRANSPORT: Take the bus to Balibago, then take a tricycle ride from Sta. Rosa exit (tricycle terminal) to Sta. Elena City.

MEALS: All meals are included in the workshop fee. Healthy yet scrumptious meals made of local, organic or sustainable ingredients will be served by Pizza Morena by Jenny Burns. Please bring your own water bottles, plates and utensils. If you have any food allergies or preferences, please inform us so that we can discuss how your food needs can be met.

PAYMENT OPTIONS
Workshop Fees
Daily Basis: P2400 per day
P1800 Students/Seniors
Complete Entire Series (3 days)
Discounted Rate P7,000
Students/Seniors P5600

*Scholarships are available.  We have installment options too.

Fee includes
• Professional lecturers and experts in their field
• All course materials
• Healthy and delicious lunch, tea, coffee and water

28 May

Ecological Pest Management

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm. Tagged: , , .

This is the 6th of a Series on Backyard Farming.  This article deals with natural methods for pest and disease management and control.
We practice ecological pest management in the farm. This means that you manage the ecology of your farm and not just get rid of pests by toxic pesticides.
  • Build a strong ecosystem with healthy soil, mulch and organic fertilizer. Your first line of defense is a healthy soil. Your plants will be healthy if your soil is healthy. Healthy plants will be able to resist insect and disease attack.
  • Mulching is a good way to control pests.  The mulch will house beneficial insects and earthworms.
  • Crop rotation will keep your soils healthy too.  Make sure that plants and not planted on the same spot every time.   Multiple cropping or companion planting also helps rid you of pests and diseases.  These too methods will provide a continuous source of food and encourage beneficials insects to remain in your bed. See article on Crop Rotation and Multiple Cropping.
  • We practice cover cropping in our farm.  The legumes boost our soil’s nutrient content, build more organic matter in the soil, and prevents erosion.
  • Make sure you have plenty of earthworms too!
  • The kind of plants you have will be crucial for pest/disease management and control.  Make sure you plant varieties that are resistant to the diseases that are common where you are.  Also, plant the kind of plants that thrive well given your topography and weather conditions.

If despite a healthy ecosystem and healthy plants, you still have pests/disease here are some tips and physical controls:

1.  For temperate crops, keep the leaves dry.  This is because insects and fungus thrive on wet leaves.  Wet leaves also spread disease.  In the farm, we use drip irrigation to make sure that our leaves are dry and there is not too much water.
2.  Your best control is BIOLOGICAL control.  This means you need to understand the life cycle of insects or pests so you can control them.  Also, the more variety of insects and animals you have in farm, the better your Biological Control.
Beneficials3.  We rely a lot on Beneficial Insects.  These are using insects, microbes, or bacteria to control pests and disease. They keep the population of damaging insects under control.  Unlike pesticides, they only kill the BAD guys.  IN our farm, we use  ladybugs, lace wings or stingless wasps that feed on pests.   For example, ladybugs are able to eat up to 1000 aphids a day.  Lace wings eat more than 200 pest eggs a week.  Wasps (Trichogramma) are able to control up to 28 species of insects.  You can read more about nurturing and making use of Beneficial Insects here.
Homemadetrap4.  We also make Homemade Controls and Sprays.  Here are some of what we use:

  • Flypaper
  • Do-it-yourself Sticky Traps:  Hanging sticky traps in trees or posts can help capture a lot of flying insects.
  • Neem Citronella:  Neem does not immediately kill the insect. Instead, it alters an insect’s behavior or life. Eventually the insect can no longer feed or breed or metamorphose, and cannot cause damage.
  • Fish Emulsion (Fish Amino Acid/Foliar): More than a pesticide, it doubles as a great fertilizer. Fish emulsions are wonderful sources of nutrients.  Read about Fish Emulsion here.
  • Coconut oil tobacco
  • Raw milk and Raw whey
Common Pests:   These are the common pests you will find in the garden and our recommendations:
  • Worms and Caterpillars:  They eat the larvae of plants and eradicate seedlings.  Effective controls are beneficial insects, multiple cropping and crop rotation.
  • Aphids: Aphids feed on the sap of the plant. They also transmit disease. You get aphids usually from too much nitrogen in soil and too much water or over fertilization.  Control aphids maintaining balance in soil.  You can do this by lessening water use and in our case, spraying BD 501.  We also us Neem Spray and alternate it with Coconut Oil Tobacco.  Another way is to flush aphids with high pressure sprayer (fish emulsion/milk)
  • Leaf Miner- You can prevent Leaf Miner if you spray Fermented Fish waste and Milk. You can also use sticky traps.  Crop rotation is recommended for prevention.
  • Flea Beetle–These insects attack during summer months and usually Asian vegetables.  They like dry environments.  Control these pests by wetting beds and mulching.
  • White Fly- You can use a spreader sticker (sticky traps) or coconut-oil based soap spray to control White Fly.
  • Diamond Back Moth–These moths will attack cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage.  To prevent outbreak, control the moth that lays the eggs through light traps, ordinary mosquito traps or have sacrificial beds.
Common Diseases
Note that with healthy soil enriched with biodynamic compost, most of your disease problems will disappear.  However, these are common diseases you may encounter:
*Always remember to prune or remove diseased plants.
  • Mildew is a fungal disease and includes white patches on leaves, discolored or yellow leaves and wilting.  Remove the infected areas and dispose it.  Do not add to your compost pile.

-Powdery Mildew- During dry season, you may experience powdery mildew.  To control or prevent this, keep leaves wet.  You can also use milk spray or neem oil.

-Downy Mildew- During wet season, you may experience downy mildew.  Don’t wet leaves at night.  You can also use milk spray or neem oil for prevention.
  • Blight– This is bacterial damage that causes rotting stems and roots, black or brown spots and lesions.  Trichoderma can suppress blight.  Once you have it, make sure to remove the plant and dispose.  Do not put in your compost pile.  To avoid the disease, practice crop rotation and plant resistant varieties.

Good luck!  You will be able to manage pests and diseases with a combination of: (1) Strong Ecosystem; (2)  Attentiveness; and (3)  Good use of organic controls.

21 May

Structures for Backyard Gardening

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm.

This is a 5th of a series on Backyard Farming.  This article discusses simple structures for your garden and water conservation techniques.

A backyard farm or a kitchen garden will be usually small.  Most of us will have a small yard, a patio or even some space with a window.  Here are some of the structures you can use:

Yards:  Instead of having a lawn, create space for an edible garden.  This means you should have space in your lawn or yard for a bed or two.  Use the borders of your spaces for vegetables too.  We recommend you use raised beds for your farm or garden.  Make sure they are at least 24 inches deep.

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Containers:  You can grow vegetables in containers too.  Just make sure they get enough sun.  Make sure your container is big enough for a full grown plant.  You will also have to always water as containers dry out quickly.  The soil will also have to be fertilized and changed every planting cycle.  In our patio, we grow some of our vegetables in large black bags.

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Small structures:  

While you can already grow vegetables outdoors in raised beds or containers, you can put up small and cheap structures using bamboo, pipes or wood.   Screen houses will protect your plants from insects and from nature: too much rain, wind or sun. You then use mosquito nets for your sides (buy these from general merchandise shops or those that sell fishing gear.)  The rooftop is often made of UV treated hard elastic plastic.  You can buy these from Hobee Packaging Co.

Our farm has built Bamboo Greenhouses. (Read more about our greenhouses.)  Bamboo is treated with borax and boric acid. It is important to sit your post on cement to avoid termites and rust.  We then use thick elastic plastic as a cover.  We use Use U.V. stabilized greenhouse film.  A short term structure can last you from 6 to 8 months.  You can also build long term structures of 2 to 3 years.

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SIMPLE IRRIGATION
As we have consistently stated, you need rich living soil with plenty of organic matter.  The irrigation technique we recommend is TRICKLE IRRIGATION.  This is a system where water drips slowly directly to the roots of plants through pipes (with small holes.)  The mechanism allows the water to drip directly where it’s needed.  You also do not  have runoff or wasted water.  The technique also reduce evaporation, soil erosion and deep drainage.  More importantly, it gets rid of many foliar or root diseases that spread through the water.
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When to irrigate
Irrigate plants closer to the evening so you decrease the loss of water through evaporation (except if you water by sprinkler. If sprinkler, do it in the morning to prevent fungus).  Some other techniques we follow:
When it is a Full moon, there is an increase in the water element. We sow seeds two days before a full moon to take advantage of the water.
When it is a New moon, there is more water in the soil. Two days before a new moon, we do transplanting to take advantage of the soil’s increased water content.
Water conservation techniques
Here are other water conservation techniques we use:
•RAIN HARVESTING AND CANALS
Catch the rain.  You can do so by having rainwater catchments like basins, ponds or canals.  When it rains, the water falls from the rooftops to micro basins or canals, which catch them.  What you can also do is line the canals with thick mulch (4 inches at least) to ensure less evaporation.  It is best to take advantage of slopes in your garden so the rainwater gently seeps towards and is absorbed by your beds.
•NATURAL WINDBREAKS
Plant legumes in between and at the boundary of your beds to act as windbreaks.  The windbreaks again reduce evaporation.
•CONSERVATION TILLAGE
Raised beds get more aeration in its roots so you do not need to till as often and protect topsoil.  Also, a good topsoil won’t be washed out by rain.
•MULCHING
Mulch your beds to conserve on water.  Read more about Mulching.

13 May

Sowing and Transplanting

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm. Tagged: , , .

This is the 4th of a series on Backyard Farming. This article discusses sowing and transplanting.  We will give you tips on how we ensure that are seeds are able to germinate and that plants are able to survive well before they are moved to plant beds.

You have prepared your beds, started to make your soil healthy and put in your compost.  It is now time to sow your seeds or set out your seedlings.

Backyard Farm Nursery

Backyard Farm Nursery

Sowing

Seeds should be allowed to germinate.  Seeds only germinate when they absorb enough water (moisture), light and air. 

When to Sow?

If you want to follow the Biodynamic calendar, the right time to sow is right before the full moon. This is when water (including the water in your ground) rises because of the influence of the moon. This is also the time when seeds will be able to absorb the most water.  Thus, the best time is two days before a full moon.  Note though that when it is the rainy season and you already have too much water, you do not have to follow this process.

Also, as this is just a backyard garden, it might be best to sow seeds every 2 weeks so you have a steady supply of your crops.

How do you sow? 

 

Sowing Process

Waking up Seeds

Sowing your seeds

Sowing your seeds

We recommend that you sow in multi-celled trays.  The procedure we follow is this:

  1. Make a Potting mix:  Mix together 1/3 rich top soil, 1/3 compost and  1/3 river sand;
  • You can use the soil that is silted down from your beds and that goes to your drain canals as topsoil
  • River sand is dark gray and comes from a riverbank, not the sand for construction
  • Put the potting mix in multi-celled trays

2.  Wake up your seeds. Put seeds in damp tissue.  Mist it thoroughly overnight.   Cover for protection and keep in dark to wake up the seeds.

3.  Put seeds in potting mix, which are in the trays. We recommend 2-3 seeds per cell.  As you put the seeds, cover it a little with your potting soil.

4.  As soon as your trays are ready, put them in your nursery or seedling house.

Transplanting

Transplanting is the method where you uproot your seedlings from a seed tray, and then replant them to a new location.  What we do is that a few days after sowing, we prick the seedlings or small plants and first transfer them to small transparent plastic bags.  The plastic bags ( 1.5×3 inches) are big enough to so plants will be able to develop secondary roots in 2 to 3 weeks.

Transplanting

Transplanting

Moving to beds

Moving to beds

When the seedlings/plants are ready to be moved to beds, we transplant them.  We recommend you do so on a cloudy day, especially when there is not much wind.   Transplant late afternoon so it is not too hot and your plants can adjust the whole night before the are exposed to harsh elements during the day. Also, water your beds a day before you plant.

  1. Make plant holes in your bed, big enough for the root ball of your plants but not too deep.  The lowest leaves should be above the topsoil but make sure that it is not too shallow so that the plant bends.  Always try not to disturb the roots.
  2. Firm up your plants by pressing the surrounding soil towards the roots.
  3. Water the bed.
  • The distance between plants should be that the leaves do not overlap those of the next plant when they have grown.

You have sowed and planted, now the real fun begins!

Next article: Building Resilient Structures for your Backyard Farm or Kitchen Garden; Water Conservation

Coming Up:  Integrated Pest Management

6 May

Growing your Garden: Compost, Fish Emulsion; and Mulch

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm. Tagged: , , , .

This is the 3rd of a series on Backyard Farming.  This article will discuss how you can grow your garden.  We offer you tips on composting and using fermented fish waste, and also Mulching.

Remember that you need healthy soil.  You don’t feed the plants. You feed the soil.  Thus, the key to having vibrant plants would be to have fertile soil.  And feeding the soil means that you enrich it with organic matter or compost.  In the farm we do this by: (1) Composting; (2) using Fermented Fish Waste; (3) Applying Biodynamic Preparations; and (4) practicing Mulching.

While preparing your vegetable beds, you will have to dig the soil, get rid of weeds and enrich it with compost before you start planting. In the farm, we apply Biodynamic Preparation 500 to your soil. The preparations bring back balance to the soil and make the soil a rich place for micro organisms.

COMPOSTING

Note that you will have to start composing way before you plant.  Compost will take 2 months to mature. Biodynamic or organic compost can replace any chemical fertilizer. Biodynamic compost especially builds the soil and reduces pest attacks.  Your compost will increase your yield and improve the life of your soil in the long term.  Our flowers and vegetables derive more than 90% of its nutrition from our compost.  To learn how to make biodynamic compost, please read a previous article here:  Biodynamic Composting.

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GREEN MANURE

You can also improve your soil’s fertility and texture by growing legumes, and then cutting them and putting them back into the soil or composting them.  This is called Green Manuring.  These are string beans, baguio beans, monggo or peanuts.  These plants have rhizobium, a microorganism that is able to capture nitrogen from the air and deposit it to the roots. We grow these legumes as raw material for our compost, and also in the beds between cropping seasons to improve our soil fertility.  To learn more about this process, please visit our old article on Green Manuring.

FISH EMULSION

While planning your garden, you should also prepare fermented fish oil. Our farm uses a lot of fish emulsion as natural fertilizer. Fish emulsion has high organic nitrogen. It’s a great soil conditioner and provides bacterial food to feed the soil’s microherd. Fish emulsion is nothing but a concentrate made of saltwater and fish scraps. We spray the fish emulsion to our plant leaves or pour it in the beds.  Here is a link on how to make fish emulsion.

If you want to further enrich your soil with earthworms, here’s a previous article on it: Vermicompost. Earthworms aerate the soil and create worm castings, which contain nutrients, minerals and a lot of beneficial organisms.

After the application of compost  and the application of BD 500 to your soil, we recommend mulching.

MULCHING
Mulch is a layer of dried weeds, grass, or leaves placed over plant beds.  It is best to mulch during rainy months; beds are protected from erosion, which would otherwise remove topsoil.
HOW to MULCH:
  1. Gather the weeds, leaves, twigs you have.
  2. Can also use rice straw, dried napier grass, wood chips or sunflower leaves.
  3. Dry them under the sun.
  4. Grass clippings must be dried and without any seed before application.
  5. Cover the beds with 4 to 6 inches of mulch. Place the “mulch” on top of the soil and around the base of your plants.
•Note that it is best to water your beds in morning to allow the leaves to dry up before night, this will discourage fungus problems in the evening.
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Some benefits of mulching:
•Attracts Earthworms:  Mulch attracts deep soil earthworm that go down as deep as 5 meters to aerate the soil.Earthworms love mulch.  As they feed on the mulch, they create air tunnels.  Earthworms also eat dead plants and can produce up to 10,000 kilos of castings per hectar  in one year.  Earthworms also increase the water holding capacity of sandy soils.
•Conserves the soil’s moisture: Water is lost through evaporation because of wind.   A  good mulch cover prevents a lot of evaporation
•Prevents weed growth:  At a depth of at least 2-3 inches mulch can smoother the weed seeds so that they don’t germinate
•Improves the soil’s aeration:  Mulch prevents crusting from hard rain.  The plant roots can have continued access to air.
•Provides a home for beneficial insects: Some beneficial insects are able to live under mulch
•Prevents soil erosion:  Mulch protects your bed by preventing rain from removing topsoil.
•Insulates the soil
•Adds organic matter to your soil: As the mulch decomposes, it adds organic matter to the soil.
With composting, fish emulsion, biodynamic preparations and mulching, you will have healthy soil in no time.

29 Apr

Planning your Backyard Farm: What to Grow

Posted by oysteronahalfshell in Backyard Farming Series, Natural, Organic, The Farm. Tagged: , , .

This is the 2nd of a series on Backyard Farming. This article will give you tips on a garden plan, what to grow, crop rotation and multiple cropping.

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What to plant?  What you plant will depend on: (1)  What you need; (2) Where you are; (3) The needs of the plant; and (4) How much time and patience you have.  If you want easy vegetables, here’s an old article:  Easy Vegetables to Grow in the Tropics.  Remember that there are crops that you can plant in the lowlands, and crops that will only grow in lower temperature or in the highlands.

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CROP ROTATION

We practice crop rotation in our farm and in our kitchen garden.  This means you plant different kinds of vegetable in your garden bed every cropping season.  Why? Crop rotation will prevent pests and diseases from building up in your soil.  If you keep planing one kind of vegetable in the same bed every time, you will be attracting the pests and diseases that are common to that plant.  These pests and diseases will then keep building up on your soil.  However, if you rotate your crops, you will have a different set of vegetables that do not interest the pests/diseases from the last crop.

Another reason for crop rotation is that different crops have different demands on the soil.  For example, salad greens, tomatoes or eggplants are heavy feeders.  Carrots and root crops are light feeders. Planting legumes will add nitrogen to your soil. A crucial part of biodynamics is the need to allow nature to follow its own pace and not force growth or impede it.  Do not try to force the soil to produce as much as it can just because it can.  Thus, alternate the vegetables you plant to allow the soil some breathing space in between crops.

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Some tips: Follow Give and Take in succession.

  • Cabbage plants are heavy feeders.  They are TAKERS.  Do not plant them on the same plot one after another.  
  • Fruit crops need plenty of compost but very little nitrogen.  They are moderate takers.
  • Root crops and legumes require very little fertilizer. They are GIVERS.  They actually ADD nitrogen to your soil.  In our farm, we use legumes for the nitrogen-fixing qualities. We plant the legumes and then cut them leaving the roots under the mulch.  (Note that one hectare of legumes can fix up to 500 kilos of nitrogen per crop.)
    The roots of legumes also have other micro organisms that destroy pathological bacteria in the soil.
  • Foliage crops need plenty of nitrogen and compost. They are TAKERS.
  • Following biodynamic farming, you should be inter-cropping leafy vegetables with root vegetables and legumes.  

DO NOT:

  • Plant the same veggies in the same bed in succession.
  • Have cabbage crops succeed each other

MULTIPLE CROPPING

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Another practice we follow is multiple cropping.  On the same bed, we plant vegetables that support each other.  Some plants may house beneficial insects, which the other plant needs to control pest.  They ward off each other’s bugs or thrive well together.  You can also use companion planting to make better use of your soil or so you have windbreaks that protect sensitive crops.

Some tips:

  • Marigolds emit a strong fragrance that confuses pests.  You can plant marigolds all over your garden. They are pretty too!
  • The strong aroma of herbs like dill, rosemary or thyme also repels pests and attracts predators (insects that eat pests) and pollinators.

Next article: Growing your Garden: preparing your beds, mulching, sowing, nursery and transplanting.

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