Weather Forecast: Tuesday, high of 80 degrees F; Wednesday, high of 76 degrees F, scattered thunderstorms.
Hmm, it seems like we are in fact jumping right from Winter into Summer this week! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy it's not snowing, but we need a window of moderately cool weather for our Spring crops like lettuce and spinach to thrive. So, my fingers are crossed that after the rain comes in mid-week, the temperatures will drop back down into a normal range for early May. While you are on the farm this week, though, please remember to protect yourselves from the sun in whatever way you prefer to do that (sunscreen, long sleeves, etc.) and to drink lots of water!
John and I will be scrambling this week to get plants in the ground, beds prepared, holistic sprays on the fruit trees, and our final pruning cuts made before the rains move in. We'll be direct seeding beets and salad greens and transplanting kale, chard, broccoli and onions. We'll have you help us out with the planting and transplanting, weather permitting.
One of the beds we'll be planting into is an experiment we're trying with a no-till rotation this year. We've already talked a little bit about why we try to avoid mechanical tillage as much as possible, but we'll dig into that a little deeper this week (haha).
To give you a larger perspective on tillage (plowing) in the history of agriculture, I'm going to share a talk by Jane Mt. Pleasant, an agronomist at Cornell University who has done extensive research into Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) agriculture. It's a long talk (1 hour), but after last week's class conversation, I can't resist sharing it. I became familiar with Mt. Pleasant's work through a class I took last summer and her estimations of the productivity of Haudenosaunee farming methods exploded all my previous assumptions about indigenous Turtle Island farming.
Here's the link to her talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrK51bE1uSE
It may not be culturally appropriate or practical for us to copy Haudenosaunee farming methods precisely, but I think there is a lot for us to learn from the principles they employ. Question for you: After listening to Mt. Pleasant's talk, what general principles for successful gardening stand out to you? How might you employ those principles in a personal garden, community garden, or small farm?
This talk was really interesting to me because, though I had heard of the Three Sisters in elementary and high school, I always thought of them as being laid out in orderly rows. The concept of mounds for planting seems very practical and not difficult to accomplish, and growing high-energy-yield crops with high-protein-yield crops makes a lot of sense for a farmer who intends to sustain themself (and potentially their family) from their own produce, or sell several items together, like in many CSA arrangements. I'm really interested in the idea of agroforestry, so the concept of canopies (to catch the light) as well as extensive root systems (to gather nutrients from different layers of the soil profile) especially intrigued me. I also thought it was very interesting that maize has such a better yield than wheat. I have not encountered wheat in any personal or community garden, but several that I've seen have corn. (I wonder if this is because the designers for those gardens knew about the difference in yields or just because corn is much easier to eat without much preparation.) Mt. Pleasant's point about how people practicing 'conservation tillage' today are awarded that title, while indigenous communities who have practiced no-till for centuries but were thought of as 'primitive' and 'uncivilized' struck home, especially after thinking about how sustainability today is construed as an upper-class, high-intensity activity in comparison to 'conventional' farming, while many countries have very sustainable agriculture just because they do not use as many 'modern technologies' and tools that require lots of inputs.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard the story of the Three Sisters, and I'm not very familiar with tillage practices. But, the mounds for planting seem like they would be useful and practical in a personal or community garden. Like Rosie said, I was very drawn to Mt. Pleasant's point about conservation tillage. It is interesting that these no-till practices are planting and farming practices that have been going on for generations in countries/cultures that have sustainable agriculture. But, a lot of time the narrative is that these practices are primitive or underdeveloped, whereas in a more "developed" nation, sustainability has been constructed to be more upper-class and inaccessible because they often use more tools and technology and not the basic, traditional farming strategies of no-till.
ReplyDeleteIn Mt. Pleasant's talk on the "Three Sisters" of agriculture, she suggests using mounds as a method of planting the three sister crops-corn, squash, and beans-close together and regularly spaced. I thought this method was very interesting as I do not believe I have ever seen this method used on farms I have seen in Illinois and it could be a useful method to employ in a personal garden, community garden or small farm. As Mt. Pleasant explains, this method of using mounds when planting the three sisters is advantageous in that it controls plant population and spacing to maximize yields, improves the soil, concentrates and recycles nutrients, allows for more weed control, and reduces soil erosion. Also, she explains how this method can be used by many people even if they may not be skilled in agriculture. Therefore, I also enjoyed learning about this method because it would be easier for me to use if I started my own personal garden or could be employed in a community garden by providing a starting point for community members that do not have a lot of knowledge in agriculture.
ReplyDeleteSomething that confused me was Mt. Pleasant's assertion that growing polycultures together is more effective because it minimizes sunlight waste. I would think this would mean each plant would be less efficient as you move closer to the ground, since less sunlight is able to reach further down. Is this not the case? Or do the plants only invest energy in productive leaves?
ReplyDeleteI also think that Mt. Pleasant brings up a really important point when she talks about the 1999 estimate of a 12-20 bushels per acre yield of corn among Haudenosaunee farmers. She calls out the researcher who made this estimate for having no experience with corn farming. Especially now, when so much information is available and models can be constructed without ever directly interacting with your subject of study, this seems like a relevant complaint. There is, simply put, no reason to avoid field work in scientific investigation. We have talked about this a lot in my ecology class as well, the importance of field work and familiarity with a study system.
After listening to Mt. Pleasant's talk, I was amazed that these mounds are so efficient on multiple fronts. The fact that such a small change can so radically affect the outcome of a plant gives me an appreciation for farmers who can make minute changes to help growth, even more so for farmers who have done this without the aid of modern information access, research, or monitoring techniques. This seems to beg the question, however, why such techniques aren't employed on a broader scale? Are we just so entrenched in monocultures?
ReplyDeleteUltimately, my biggest takeaway from this video was an enhanced appreciation for our ancestors. I think I fall into the trap of thinking that the people alive today are the best at everything. There are certainly arts and techniques that have been lost to us, maybe forever.
The Mounds method stood out to me because of its simplicity; Mt. Pleasant said that even children could plant/manage mounds. Mounds also have many benefits, such as controlling the plant population, spacing, concentrating nutrients, and reducing soil erosion. For their simplicity and benefits, I believe mounds could easily be implemented in a personal garden, community garden, or even small farm.
ReplyDeleteThe other agricultural approach that stood out to me was polycultures. I am so accustomed to seeing plots of land with endless rows of the same crop planted/growing, that I forgot that multiple crops can (and often do naturally) grow together. Polycultures could be especially useful when communities need to grow food in areas with limited resources such as water or soil nutrients, because they utilize the resources more efficiently. Polycultures also have the advantage of being more immune to events like disease or weather changes. As we know from Kiavanne's discussion, climate change is occurring now, and its manifestations (such as natural disasters and abnormal weather patterns) is destroying arable land, reducing crop yields, and harming communities' safety and culture. Polycultures seem like one (of many needed) adaptive methods to defend against the environmental problems that we are creating.
I had never heard of the three sisters, but the methods of a multi-tiered, self renewing/fertilizing/soil enhancing system remind me of agroforestry that is used in the Northern parts of Thailand.
ReplyDeleteThe mounds, or a similar systems seems like something that could be implemented anywhere - in a backyard or community garden. I think systems like this one are much more sustainable and natural than the large monoculture fields that are so often planted today. In a forest all the different plants and animals are working together to keep in balance.