Tomatoville® Gardening Forums - View Single Post

JJJessee · February 6, 2015

I'm late to the party, but I think I've read all your posts from previous years on the project.
Still, I have some questions and seeking some clarification.

In year year one, you applied various substrates to essentially "prime" the soil for conversion to crop production. Over this you rolled hay as sort of sheet compost and mulch. The primary objective being to increase biological life using inputs. Is this a fair assessment?
How large of an area was actually focused on for year one?
Were there any other inputs?
Were any other crops besides broccoli attempted?
Did the storm decimate the entire crop or did it survive to yield a harvest?

In you evaluation of the first year in year two, you noted that the the virgin sod seemed to be yielding better results than the area that had been enhanced in year one. That is surprising.

What crop was that?
Was the virgin sod directly adjacent to the year one enhanced area?
Was there any indication the re-sodded area had been enhanced?
How much decomposition did the cardboard, newspaper and burlap show after one year?

In year two, you began using municipal compost. How many yards did your project use?
Is it correct that the compost was made with sludge and ramial chip wood (that's typical of our area)?
Your project expanded to a new acre of very difficult soil and the primary crop was tomatoes.
How much of the acre was improved?
Where any other crops, cover crops, employed besides tomatoes?
How many varieties of tomatoes and how many plants were planted.
How would you classify production, excellent, good, fair, or poor?

In year three, are you returning to the initial sod with any new inputs or treatments?
Are you doing any specific type of documentation of exactly what you are doing on a weekly basis?
Do you have any time parameters (x) that you are expecting to see specific results (y)?

I'm very interested in the permaculturing techniques. I started back to gardening in 2012 with a lot less of the concepts in mind you seem to already have. But generally, I've gardened on the organic side of the spectrum. I have about 1100 sf of raised beds built, and grew crop in 2014. Plus about another 200 sf in progress hopefully to plant this spring. I have another area about 60x100 that is being used for berries and tilled with cover crops and considerably fewer other inputs than the raised beds. I have grown potatoes, peppers and tomatoes in this area. All this ground has been in sod for many years. It's all clay, but pretty decent clay considering. I realize that I have a tilling addiction, and I may convert this area totally to berry production eventually. We'll see ;-) I use a camera prodigiously in the garden, it helps immensely when reviewing -a visually notebook I guess. I wish I had been more rigorous on input details. I'm starting to document from memory now and have mostly finished cataloging and organizing my seed database before it got T-totally out of hand.

Good luck for 2015!
It'll soon be tater time.

February 6, 2015	#6
JJJessee Tomatovillian™ Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: Abingdon, Va Posts: 184	I'm late to the party, but I think I've read all your posts from previous years on the project. Still, I have some questions and seeking some clarification. In year year one, you applied various substrates to essentially "prime" the soil for conversion to crop production. Over this you rolled hay as sort of sheet compost and mulch. The primary objective being to increase biological life using inputs. Is this a fair assessment? How large of an area was actually focused on for year one? Were there any other inputs? Were any other crops besides broccoli attempted? Did the storm decimate the entire crop or did it survive to yield a harvest? In you evaluation of the first year in year two, you noted that the the virgin sod seemed to be yielding better results than the area that had been enhanced in year one. That is surprising. What crop was that? Was the virgin sod directly adjacent to the year one enhanced area? Was there any indication the re-sodded area had been enhanced? How much decomposition did the cardboard, newspaper and burlap show after one year? In year two, you began using municipal compost. How many yards did your project use? Is it correct that the compost was made with sludge and ramial chip wood (that's typical of our area)? Your project expanded to a new acre of very difficult soil and the primary crop was tomatoes. How much of the acre was improved? Where any other crops, cover crops, employed besides tomatoes? How many varieties of tomatoes and how many plants were planted. How would you classify production, excellent, good, fair, or poor? In year three, are you returning to the initial sod with any new inputs or treatments? Are you doing any specific type of documentation of exactly what you are doing on a weekly basis? Do you have any time parameters (x) that you are expecting to see specific results (y)? I'm very interested in the permaculturing techniques. I started back to gardening in 2012 with a lot less of the concepts in mind you seem to already have. But generally, I've gardened on the organic side of the spectrum. I have about 1100 sf of raised beds built, and grew crop in 2014. Plus about another 200 sf in progress hopefully to plant this spring. I have another area about 60x100 that is being used for berries and tilled with cover crops and considerably fewer other inputs than the raised beds. I have grown potatoes, peppers and tomatoes in this area. All this ground has been in sod for many years. It's all clay, but pretty decent clay considering. I realize that I have a tilling addiction, and I may convert this area totally to berry production eventually. We'll see ;-) I use a camera prodigiously in the garden, it helps immensely when reviewing -a visually notebook I guess. I wish I had been more rigorous on input details. I'm starting to document from memory now and have mostly finished cataloging and organizing my seed database before it got T-totally out of hand. Good luck for 2015! It'll soon be tater time.