[Community_garden] Market Garden production question

[Mike McGrath]

you make me feel like a piker. Slow down, Fred--you're making the rest of us 
look bad!
                                                    ---Mike McG
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Fred Conrad" <fred.conrad at acfb.org>
To: <community_garden at list.communitygarden.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 12, 2007 9:39 AM
Subject: [Community_garden] Market Garden production question


> 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
> fred.conrad at acfb.org    <http://www.acfb.org>
> Our mission is to fight hunger by engaging, educating and empowering our 
> community.
>
>
>
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