Say, We've got a market garden that shares space with a community garden and I was just working on the farm production plan for organic certification. As I was running the numbers and looking at the spread sheets I started questioning the appropriateness of some of it and was hoping somebody out there would have some feedback for me.
Last year I cover cropped the whole thing in the fall, mostly rye, some wheat, some clover. In the exceptionally dry spring I took a beating getting veggy seeds in the ground and then back out of it. So this year I put 60% of the garden into production in the fall with crops that will mostly overwinter and be ready to take advantage of what rain may come in the spring. The rest is in oats, wheat, clover and peas. Onions, garlic, carrots, chard, turnips, collards, artichokes, mustard, spinach, lettuce, endives, and beets. For us, most of those crops will be completely done by mid May. This spring, God willing (it's a dry farm), I'll bring another 20% into production with cool season crops. Following that, via backplanting, planting into the cover crops and intercropping, I'll have about 78% in production for the first round of warm season crops and following up with another 11% into food production with succession plantings. That leaves only about 10% resting in a pollinator attracting flower mix for the summer. Last year I used extensive no-till, this year I'll have only about 15% of the production in no-till. In addition to what I mentioned above, that's partly because we decided that about 8% needs to be double dug over the winter because of low performance in the past two years (the site formerly had an elementary school and there are places where the soil is very compacted, very thin and has a lot of rubble under the surface). I'm using a minimum 3-year rotation, this will be our 6th spring on the site. Too much information? SO --- any feedback about area used by fall planting for spring harvest? % cover cropping - too little or too much resting? 10% out of production seems like a lot in one sense, but for crop rotations, it's not that much. I'm open minded and appreciate your comments. Thanks, fgc Fred Conrad Community Garden Coordinator Atlanta Community Food Bank 732 Joseph E Lowery Blvd, NW, Atlanta, GA 30318 ph: 678.553.5932 fx: 678.553.5933 [EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.acfb.org> Our mission is to fight hunger by engaging, educating and empowering our community. Confidentiality Notice: The information contained in this e-mail message is legally privileged and confidential information intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any use, dissemination, distribution or copy of this e-mail message and attachments is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please delete it in its entirety. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.communitygarden.org/pipermail/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org/attachments/20071212/2fef501c/attachment.html _______________________________________________ The American Community Gardening Association listserve is only one of ACGA's services to community gardeners. To learn more about the ACGA and to find out how to join, please go to http://www.communitygarden.org To post an e-mail to the list: [email protected] To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your subscription: http://list.communitygarden.org/mailman/listinfo/community_garden_list.communitygarden.org
