Le Potager du Sloth: Gardening without fatigue more than Bio

[Moindreffor]

don't misinterpret my words
Didier found a solution for his problem of physical strength to continue to use his vegetable garden
it's a good idea, but beware the good idea that Didier develops remains a good idea if we stay within the framework set by Didier from the start

this is often the case with a good idea, we would like it to become universal and to become THE "solution" but here we are in the context of a family vegetable garden

The good initial idea, can unfortunately turn out to be a bad idea in the end, therefore the good idea must know and be able to evolve, Didier by looking for the good place of cover he found the hay and by the greatest of luck he found a source of free hay right next to his house he set up and he validated this idea which he shared here you know the rest

but all this is still recent, and the idea is evolving, Didier and others seek to bring it to life, the provision of hay, is only the beginning of the adventure ...

but we must not forget that what we are looking for is the production of good vegetables while spending as little physical energy as possible

[Doris]

I think you are right to remember that, the objective is not to put the hay, but to produce the best possible with the least physical effort possible. This year I am lucky to have been able to collect bales of old hay, I am quiet for a while, and fortunately, because with the drought there is not much hay in my nearby area, and when there is in a, it is expensive. So I have, I put, but if I had not, I would find something else, to put in the place of hay, I have already done. But the principle will remain the same.

[thursday]

Hello,
to know if there is enough hay for all the vegetable gardens in the country, the answer is largely yes. Provided to eat less meat, to have less horses and other animals of leisure. No problem.

More broadly, we can even say that the entire market garden area can be covered by hay in France. The market garden area is quite limited, a few% of the territory, the area of ​​grassland much larger, a few tens of%.
If we are talking about the cultivation of cereals, there it gets stuck. However, cereal growers are developing techniques that offer contributions, a technique that Didier evokes in his last messages: plant coverings, notably with green manure, restitution of crushed straw. However there is no matter of several m² concentrated on 1m², there is 1m² / m² ...
those who practice plant cover techniques (to talk about it, see for example the forum agricool) do note an increase in organic matter in their soil.

And yes, organic farming as it is mainly practiced is not autonomous with inputs, including by-products of conventional animals, it is not sustainable, not in a cycle

but we must not forget that what we are looking for is the production of good vegetables while spending as little physical energy as possible

I ordered hay (damaged from last year), fearing that the leaves will carbon the soil and that little will grow next year by nitrogen hunger for my 20m² ... anyway, I have not enough leaves.
The way to tire myself less is still to acquire vegetables through money at my amap. I have never done a lot of garden area but I fear that the economic conditions will push to have to be more autonomous. I have been wondering how to garden for twenty years. If I have to depend primarily on myself, I am afraid I do not have the skills, nor the strength to produce enough to feed me. I am very far from it.

When I spoke of autarky: I said that people are autarkic, eat what they produce and almost nothing else. But this kind of person are rare.
if they exist, they provide information on the surface necessary for feeding.

On the criticism of the past: our ancestors before the tractors were very tired with animal traction indeed. But why have they never found this possibility, if it really exists, to eat well by making earthworms work?
This question seems to me to be linked to another: why did you base the diet on cereals, at a time when there was no food abundance, when vegetables are 4 times more productive (in calories) per unit area and seems to require less work? especially since the discovery of the potato.
Suggested explanation: cereals have the advantage of being easier to store, of being less subject to degradation, because they contain less water. The technique of important ground cover is at work especially for vegetables.

[Doris]

The way to tire myself less is still to acquire vegetables through money at my amap. I have never done a lot of garden area but I fear that the economic conditions will push to have to be more autonomous. I have been wondering how to garden for twenty years. If I have to depend primarily on myself, I am afraid I do not have the skills, nor the strength to produce enough to feed me. I am very far from it.

Well, seen like that, yes, if I had to depend mainly on myself to produce to feed myself, I would have problems anyway. But I managed to get a yield from the vegetable garden, which can be said to contribute significantly to the vegetable needs of my household, we are two adults, so far 80 m2 of vegetable garden, it is growing in size. 'actual hour. And without breaking my head or tiring me physically. At times like this year, when, if we are not lucky enough to have a small producer nearby, and where the vegetables are sold at a high price (endives = 6,50 euros; peppers 7,20, in high season, just to cite two examples), it's interesting. And I'm not talking about autarky, I don't believe in it.

On the criticism of the past: our ancestors before the tractors were very tired with animal traction indeed. But why have they never found this possibility, if it really exists, to eat well by making earthworms work?

I believe because we have remained frozen in beliefs, instead of observing or reflecting. My old deceased neighbor has always made his garden with enormous contributions of organic matter. The only difference compared to me: instead of letting the soil organisms do the work and feed themselves, at the end of winter it burrowed. Perhaps if he had met Didier, he would have stopped the massacre, but deprived of this meeting he remained in his conviction that man must do something for it to work. Entrusting important work to soil organisms, he still lacked a final step.

[phil53]

Me too with 75m2 for two we are largely surplus. Except for the endives and also a little shallots. The leek is also not good this year, so we won't have enough.
I give around me mostly cucurbits but also cabbage and a little other vegetables like celery sweet potato.
I don't believe in autarky either, and that's not my goal, but with 200 m2 for 2 I think we could hardly buy anything except cereals and spices if we accept to eat in season but without always eating the same as in the past. I cultivate about sixty kinds of the plants.
This thanks to Didier's technique.

[Adrien (ex-nico239)]

For our part, the goal is to be progressively autonomous by product at least in harvest - the ideal being to be also in seed.

Aim for potatoes, garlic, tarragon, thyme, rosemary, coriander, parsley, chives, radishes, turnips, cabbage, turnips, salads (it will be tough, we eat too much), tomatoes, turnips, parsnips, chard, artichokes (it will take space), zucchini, eggplant, leeks, carrots ...

We are far from the account but we do not have a lot of time to devote to it so we are not too unhappy with our conditions.
If we except the aromatics where it is quite easy, this year we were autonomous in
- potatoes
- zucchini
- radish
- garlic
- strawberries
and that's all

Current experiences mean that we may not be in garlic and potatoes in 2021 but we will be again in 2022

[izentrop]

Hello,
to know if there is enough hay for all the vegetable gardens in the country, the answer is largely yes. Provided to eat less meat, to have less horses and other animals of leisure. No problem.

More broadly, we can even say that the entire market garden area can be covered by hay in France. The market garden area is quite limited, a few% of the territory, the area of ​​grassland much larger, a few tens of%.

I would qualify by the fact that it is necessary to mow approximately 6 areas of meadow for an area of ​​garden, perhaps less if we make several cuts per year.

It is, I think, "a transfer of fertility".
Meadow which remains fertile by the excrements of the animals which graze on it part of the year, thanks to their excrement and this is not necessarily sufficient https://www.arvalis-infos.fr/fertilisat ... ticle.html

Cattle and sheep farms have become rare in my region. The meadows are temporarily rented out for recreational horses, but ultimately end up as building land for those in the village, or cultivated for others.

The young farmers that I know have gone organic. The meadows are a boon the first years for greedy crops, but very quickly the levels of organic matter drop by inflating the CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. In addition, we irrigate more and more by pumping from the groundwater.

All this does not go in the direction of the Paris agreements.

[Doris]

Me too with 75m2 for two we are largely surplus. Except for the endives and also a little shallots. The leek is also not good this year, so we won't have enough.
I give around me mostly cucurbits but also cabbage and a little other vegetables like celery sweet potato.
I don't believe in autarky either, and that's not my goal, but with 200 m2 for 2 I think we could hardly buy anything except cereals and spices if we accept to eat in season but without always eating the same as in the past. I cultivate about sixty kinds of the plants.
This thanks to Didier's technique.

If I manage to do everything as planned, my current vegetable garden will be around 130m2, the second won on a piece of wasteland at the end of the land is around 80m2, and I actually think that I will not buy a lot of vegetables or red fruits. , beside. After that there are certain things where we did not have enough, or which could have been better, but it will always be like that, I think, and for what is missing I help out at my organic market gardener in the neighboring village. One small regret: I missed the junction between spring / early summer salads and the salads, which should be harvested now. At the end of July, even the smallest salads had gone to seed (apart from the Moroccan watercress, but I didn't have a lot), and the summer sowing gave nothing or hardly any. We'll see that next year, I have my plan of attack in mind. In any case, a lot of crops this year were surplus in quantity, but in terms of quality, they all were.

[VetusLignum]

it seems to me that with the exception of hazelnuts and hornbeams, most hedge shrubs are endo-mycorrhizal.

Then there are various species of endomycorrhizal fungi, which can eventually compete with each other.

Having said that, it seems obvious that, compared to the perennials of a hedge, the annual plant selected by man, not for its competitiveness, but for its taste qualities (such as are most of the plants that we grow as than vegetables) is not the weight in case of lack of water, especially if this vegetable is a brassicaceae, which, therefore, mycorrhizae perhaps less easily.

[sicetaitsimple]

Having said that, it seems obvious that, compared to the perennials of a hedge, the annual plant selected by man, not for its competitiveness, but for its taste qualities (such as are most of the plants that we grow as than vegetables) is not the weight in case of lack of water, especially if this vegetable is a brassicaceae, which, therefore, mycorrhizae perhaps less easily.

I may be a bit basic, but it seems to me that if you want to grow a vegetable garden near a hedge, you have to spade the edge of the vegetable garden every year to cut the roots that have developed. on the surface (say about thirty cm).
I never noticed that the shrubs suffered from it particularly.