Antoche wrote:
The difference between gardener and market gardener was mentioned.
1) But do you think it is possible to become a lazy market gardener? I am sure there must be a very high degree of market gardening for laziness. (which will always be lower than lazy gardening of course)
I will, in response to this question, qualify the point of sicétésimple:
- it is possible to make "lazily" (without any tillage, without fertilization, without making / undoing the covers) seasonal vegetables or more exactly vegetables
conservation : typically, onions / garlic / shallots, celery, leeks, a large part of cabbages, turnips, cucurbitaceae, etc. winter lettuce ...) ...
- for those who are going to eat in autumn or during winter, it does not matter to be a little late! And it's already a significant part of the production! Any effort gained on this is won!
AND so I think a viable project combines two things:
a) areas left bare at the start of the season, for example one year in 3, possibly covered with black plastic (to be discussed), for
early productions = fresh vegetables expected by the customer at the end of winter; first salads, radishes, peas, first beans,
b) zones in phenocultures, where one plants or sows these same cultures "with the least effort", to produce in second step
c) areas in phenocultures for conservation vegetables ...
After two years of full coverage (b and c), weed emergence is limited; the soil aggravated and fertile; the rate of organic matter on the rise ... We can therefore "hurt" a little - less than in conventional organic however! - by a culture "bare", with progressive grassing - but who cares because it will enter the cycle b and c ...
We can, in a), accelerate further with greenhouses and tunnels ...
Finally, for those who would like to grow, there are now farms in Germany of 20 or 30 ha practicing a kind of "mechanized phenoculture": these are "vegan" farms, which no longer breed; the "hay" is collected and distributed mechanically, in bands, on market garden areas (by self-loading trailers then spreaders such as manure); there are machines for planting in this "mulch" (Baertschi's Murocut, which I have mentioned elsewhere) ...
So I think that thinking a little, and with a few tries, it is quite possible to do "professional phenoculture". And there, I diverge slightly from those which, as sicaitsimple, are, in my opinion too much influenced by Fortier (which I still have not read - so I remain cautious; but if I understand correctly, we remain there in the paradigm where "it's up to man to take care of fertility").
I admit that the intensification in terms of work (producing more while working less) requires an extensification of surfaces (it is necessary, for the same tonnage, a larger surface, because one takes less care of the "interlocking" of the cultures one in the others, even if, compared to what I do, progress is possible).