Live as if you’ll die tomorrow, but farm as if you’ll live forever.
—Old Proverb
TAKING IT FULL CIRCLE MEANS having a complete system that carries all the aspects of what is required to accomplish a healthy environment that nourishes itself and sustains itself. It is a holistic approach that takes into account all the surrounding aspects and is congruous with nature. The purpose of this chapter is to take everything written on previous pages and put it in perspective as a way of going full circle. That means to create a model of how it could all work together. Making everything happen with a fine-tuned system never works as well as a well laid out plan. There has to be room for error and for the unknown elements of surprise. That is what makes life exciting and, of course, how we continue to learn.
It is first important to examine your objectives. Being self-sufficient means creating everything from the land or in-house. This is very challenging yet there are several people who have done this to a large degree. It involves a long list of skills, from timbering, running a saw mill, to carpentry, and of course, producing all that one consumes with some level of efficiency. Being totally self-sufficient is hard to accomplish.
Being sustainable involves some similar avenues to subsistence farming. The focus is for primary components to come from the land or a source that encompasses the community at large. Community needs to be an important part of the working order that completes necessary cycles. The idea that no man is an island works well here. When there is community with the support it brings, there is a greater purpose and connection to what makes it all work. Being a social animal provides a valuable resource not to be underrated. The biodynamic concept depends on community to provide all the essential parts that make it a whole. The approach here is to simply do the best one can and embrace the challenges that come with it.
Decentralized agriculture brings food production back into the community. One view is that small farms cannot grow enough to support a large urban population. Yet many small farms are more efficient than a few large ones. More involvement in food production with the onset of community gardens and community-based farms gives a whole new perspective on what local food initiatives needs to be about. This lends itself to the development of farming cooperatives, which can be a resource for other ideas about education, marketing networks, and food coops. This would allow small farms to cater to more than just the gourmet market.
Sometimes all the resources are not in place, and so I move ahead rather than wait forever for the ideal time. Creating a fully operational system that is sustainable takes a lot of time. Creative planning and discovering all the available resources requires a lot of investment of time and work. Developing a worthwhile project needs to be done in stages.
Making sure that the important components of a piece of land are in place is the first place to start. These elements need to be readily available. A sunny field that lends itself to the vision of a garden is the most important. A source of water is crucial as well. Above-ground water fulfills the need for a balanced ecosystem. Below-ground water as in a well can provide the volume of water to grow enough for market. Watersheds provide the assurance that you are in control of what is coming onto your land. This is especially true for elevated land. It may not always be possible to be in control of one’s own watershed.
Uncontaminated water ensures a clean source of water to replenish and cleanse. Soil is often in need of healing and that is the challenge that is always calling out as one approaches a potential new garden or farm. It would help also if the air moving in and out of the surrounding areas has a sweet taste and aroma. Trees provide many resources. They are good for wood, shelterbelts, protection from wind, and other elements. They attract wildlife and an enriched ecological base. A substantial tree growth attracts water in the form of rain. Other opportunities they provide are a source of agroforestry, mycology, and medicinal. Other resources are providing materials for making compost. An integral part of a biodynamic farm is animals. Animals provide food and fertilizer. Growing the food to feed them requires a surplus of land. For instance, a horse needs between one to two acres. It is about the same for a cow. It varies widely depending on details of the land. You’ll want to rotate the land between grazing by the animals and planting crops.
Chickens are the most efficient to house. They can be used to clean beds of harboring insects before planting. The chicken tractor concept is a good preventative for insect problems. Before preparing a bed for greens, contain the chickens or guinea fowl there for a few days to get rid of slugs and other large insects. If there are slugs harboring in a bed, pull the weeds with slugs and feed them to the chickens. Goats can self-graze, are great recyclers, and a good source of manure. They will eat almost anything. They can reclaim an overgrown area quite well. Rabbits are fairly efficient, but need to be caged and that does not provide much of a life for them. This is hard if one looks at all life as equal. Larger animals are well suited for grazing on fields where crops have been previously harvested. A rotation system for animals contributes to the biodiversity of the land and prevents overgrazing. The common example of efficient animal husbandry is a dairy. The cow’s manure is spread onto the fields, which benefits the grass they graze on. Animals are demanding, for space to house them, food to feed them, and the care they need, especially if they get sick or hurt. Hay is also needed. Animals factor into a large spread of land. Most of this does not fit into a vegetarian lifestyle. Taking that into account, smaller areas can be used for micrograin production. An alternative to animals is growing green manure for composting.
You can take the same hayfield and make compost with a simple formula without the added demands of animals. Cut the hay in the field before it goes to seed in the spring. Harvest and store it and use it for mulch. Using hay for compost does not require keeping it clean. Let the field grow up about halfway again. This time, cut and harvest as green manure by not letting it dry out. After a few weeks and a few rains, you can cut the green material to use as your nitrogen source. Layer the compost pile with the hay previously harvested mixed with the fresh cut green manure. Adding a little soil contributes needed bacteria. An important contributor is the added bacteria and nutrients of manure. But the system mentioned above is much more efficient for composting. Providing a source of meat is important. But if you do not eat meat, it does not justify raising animals simply for fertilizer. It would be better to trade vegetables and fruit for the manure from a reliable source. The hay is an important source of biomatter that is needed regardless of how it is used. In the same regard, produce can be traded or sold to buy grains that are not efficient to grow for personal use. This can be a perplexing situation.
Animals require ample land to graze on. If the land is not available, then they do not fit in. In this case, one can house a small group of animals. Chickens are conducive to small plots. With a little more land, you might afford some goats. This will not provide you with the quantity of manure you will need but it contributes some diversity to a composting program. In this case, the main source of nitrogen for composting needs to come from green manures. Worm beds are another way to generate fertilizer for beds. It’s a formula that can be adjusted to fit a particular piece of land. Of course, what works in one place may not work in another.
The first phase of development is to build a compost pile. Place compost piles in areas where fruit trees will later be planted. Start with a serious plan since organization is four-fifths of the work. Start laying out beds and preparing them, but you will need a fence before any planting can be done. You can have good success with a two-strand electric fence. On the outside of the fence run a trip wire about eighteen inches to two feet above the ground and about three feet outside the fence. Both are electrified and baited with peanut butter.
The beginning is when we learn so much about what works and what does not. It is better not to have high expectations or plan to do a big market the first year if that can be avoided. The focus needs to be on fertility and development. All the available resources may not appear immediately, but come over time. Leave time for patterns to manifest and fall into place. As they do, they will revolve into the necessary circles that make the system whole.
This is an organic development. As patterns manifest, the components that build fertility will become apparent and avail themselves to you. Fertility is more of a tool than a commodity. It appears best as a skill rather than a purchased item. In deciding what to grow, find out what works best for that area, what is easiest, and of course what you want to eat.
If it is a market garden, you need to do a market study by visiting markets. If marketing is an objective, than you need to be no more than forty miles from that market. If everyone is growing strawberries, then yours will be grown for personal consumption. Remember food first is the rule for what is most important. In parts of the world with limited resources, it is more challenging to start a farm or garden. Seeds are started with leaf mold harvested out of rain gutters. You may have to use old rotted manure from local farms to get started. In cold climates, you can make greenhouses with everything imaginable. Junk items can be used; an old shipping box or a broken refrigerator can be made into cold frames, or place old windows over dug out soil and hay bales. You can use water heaters and other heating devices to start seeds with four inches of insulation on top to keep the flats from drying out.
I have used cardboard boxes to replace wheelbarrows. Making small pinholes in the bottom of a can turns it into a watering can. In Brazil, we tried to make a digging fork out of burglar bars. It didn’t work well. You can start seeds in an endless array of food containers. Recycling is a part of appropriate technology. In a big garden, you will need to set up irrigation systems with strategic watering stations throughout the garden. Using gravity helps it work more efficiently. Rainwater harvesting works most efficiently if done on elevations. Using gravity will let it flow downhill to crops that need it most since it is not a pressurized system. This includes fruit bushes, vines, fruit trees, or any hardwood perennial.
You may not always have structures to harvest water from. Plant first and put up structures later. Soil takes time to develop, which means it can take a while to get established. In the first winter, begin establishing perennial crops on areas that have been previously cultivated. This way, you have given time to build up the soil before putting it into a semipermanent bed. It is much easier to start seeds in the summer for fall plantings. The warm summer heat gives a boost to seed germination. They only need protection from the harsh rains and summer sun. A little shade and a makeshift lath house are easy to put together with branches and wire. Bamboo or old lath works well for this. Fruit trees, vines, bushes, and everything else are installed during the late fall or winter months when they are dormant. It is difficult to get it all done in one season without a lot of input and money. So it is usually done over the course of two or three years. When planning for fruits, plant them out surrounding the main garden. This way they are incorporated into the overall landscape. When planning for vine and brambles, take into account that they require a lot of trellises and arbors. Try to be patient with the process of developing it all. Although it is important to spend a lot of time surveying what to do first, you cannot avoid learning a certain amount after the fact and this is OK since you will never really have it all figured out. As you are able to examine how the air movement flows, you can establish windbreaks as needed and create shade where it can be better utilized. Utilizing berries like blackberry or elderberry is a good example of a windbreak that provides food for you and for wildlife; and can also be grown as a hedgerow. Working efficiently and being resourceful is an ongoing process.
As the entire landscape starts to take form, you can then introduce honeybees. If that does not fit in with the work required, consider mason bees as an alternative. They do not provide honey, but are very effective as pollinators. Tie together a bunch of thin bamboo pieces about seven inches to ten inches long; place a small roof made from bark or aluminum from cans over it and hang it from a branch. Bees will show up later when flowers are in bloom. Bees are the link between insects, humans, and plants. Bees are one of the most natural introductions into the garden. Keeping bees in a natural state contributes to their overall health. This means using natural combs rather than foundations. Allow the bees to become what they are. This means letting the bees do the work by allowing the queen to be. She dictates the personality of the hive. Another part is keeping their homes natural with wood and putting the bee’s health first by only harvesting surplus when there is plenty to support the colony. The difference between good beekeeping practices of a hive and bee-having badly is to give allowance to what is best for them without compromise. This means providing for them first and last. The health of a beehive eclipses the entire health of a garden. The sensitivity of how bees operate demonstrates their intricate and delicate nature. The current problems with bees, which is evident in colony collapse disorder, reflects the general health of our environment. They are like the canary in the coal mine. Most problems with bees are brought on by the beekeepers themselves, by not having a clear perspective on doing their work in a sustainable and organic environment. The colony operates with intricate communication channels. They always seem to know what is best for them. Bees make apparent the interconnectedness of a garden or farm.
Like so many other aspects of the garden, success is a matter of facilitating rather than trying to be in complete control of what is happening in the garden. As the garden takes hold, an important aspect of cultivating sustainability is to start saving seed that has begun to acclimate to the surroundings. This might be hard at first, if you have not already recognized what seeds you want to grow. In that case, you will need time to conduct trials. After a season or two, you will usually have a good idea of some important varieties worth saving. The nice thing about this is that now there are plenty of seed companies supplying heirloom seeds. The process of saving seeds limits the amount of varieties one can grow. Those more susceptible to cross-pollination limit you to just a few. Start with those that are easy to save seeds from. Beans, corn, squash, peppers, melons, peas, tomatoes, and cucumbers are examples of seeds that are easy to collect. Many seeds will keep for an extended amount of time in a refrigerator or sealed up well in the freezer. Corn is the exception as it does not store well. Carrots and onions also have a short shelf life of a year or two. Saving roots and tubers is fairly easy also. Sweet potatoes store well in a cool place until it is time to start slips. Potatoes do best stored in the ground in a buried cage or wooden tub. Bring them into the house a month or so before planting and they sprout quickly. Jerusalem artichokes are replanted as they are harvested with a nice helping of compost.
There is also a chance of meeting others that keep seeds in your area. This provides the possibility of exchanging seeds locally. The relationship one has with those varieties becomes special. This is part of cultivating the culture of a given piece of land. It is good to explore what varieties of fruits are best, based on disease resistance and adaptation to your climate. It is also important to consider how their growth fits into the vision of what you are creating. A final consideration is of course the taste. Hopefully, there are fruit groups or older fruit collectors that can provide scion wood for grafting or canes for rooting. There is a rich abundance of old varieties of fruits, many of which are from your area. Most of these are never seen on the supermarket shelves because they don’t ship well, store well, or are not cosmetically correct by commercial standards.
Planting fruit trees or anything perennial such as asparagus implies permanence. You can grow asparagus from seed. It takes a year or two to reach the size of crowns you buy and you often get undesirable females. It is important when buying crowns to get them from a reputable source. Although nothing is forever, the commitment that comes with a long-term vision is necessary in order to create a sustainable existence. The idea of planting such things with that intention is being truly sustainable.
Mycology is another area to explore that offers many rewards. Besides being a good food source, edible fungi are very marketable and fun. Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) are fairly easy to grow. They are best grown in a medium of straw. Place the straw in water and soak for a day. Next drain and chop the straw into two to four inch lengths. Boil the straw in a drum for sixty minutes. Steam the bags for sixty minutes. Once the hay has cooled, mix the spore at a rate of about one liter per ten bags. Next, place the sterilized straw into nylon bags. These are easy to work with and reusable. Or maybe a pair of recycled pantyhose would work for this. A good dimension for the bags is three feet long by ten inches wide. Bleach mixed at 5 percent is used to clean everything in contact with the bags, including the bags. Gloves are used when handling everything after it has been sterilized. Stuff the bags with the inoculated hay and tie off the end with a rubber band. Add cotton in the neck where it is tied off to allow it to breath. Incubate in a cool place for one to three weeks at 50 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit, then increase the temperature to 75 to 85 degrees. A fan is good for air circulation. Monitor for contamination and black mushrooms or insect and animal damage. In the tropics, it was easy to maintain high humidity. Elsewhere, a humidifier may be needed. After a couple of weeks, start adding a light spray. A mist system can be introduced to provide about 80 percent moisture. Mushrooms are the fruiting bodies of the fungus growing in the bags. Cut openings in the bags to allow the mushrooms to grow. A 10 percent loss is normal. Harvest until the medium of the inoculated spore is spent. Sometimes the harvest can last a few months. The spent mushroom medium can be put in the soil as a way to introduce microorganisms. The used substrate from the used hay can also be used for composting as a way to introduce fungal properties into the compost. It can be fed to worm beds. It can be added directly to the soil, especially the subsoil when double digging. It can be used as an additive to cattle, pig, and fish feed. Pleurotus compost (made from oyster mushroom medium) is very high in nitrogen and relatively high in phosphorus and potassium. It offers high protein as a feed. Oysters grow naturally on hardwoods during the rainy periods.
Shitake mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) are also easy to grow. They are commonly grown on oak logs. The oak logs are cured and are usually four to six inches in diameter and forty inches long. It is best to soak the logs in water for a day or more. Drill holes about an inch to two inches deep and about an inch in diameter. Space the holes about six to eight inches apart. Fill the holes with sawdust mixed with the mushroom spawn. Beeswax painted over the holes will protect them and keep the spawn intact. Stack the logs and keep them wet by spraying them every day. A mist system works well here also. The mushrooms emerge in six to twelve months and can continue for several years. Spores are dormant at temperatures below 40 degrees and slow down above 80 degrees. Mushrooms contribute to a varied market item. They also provide resource for soil mycoremediation. The waste products of mushroom growing can be used to introduce valuable fungus into the soil. This greatly improves the mycorrhizae of the soil. This can be an important contribution to a stabilized and healthy soil rich with life.
You will want to consider how much time you have for projects like these. Spreading yourself too thin can be very overwhelming, in which case you may need to seek additional help. Keeping the work in perspective is important to being able to prevent getting burned out. The art of growing a beautiful garden is the main objective. Never lose touch with your passion. Creating balance in one’s life is harder than it seems. We all come from a society that does not endorse or encourage holistic lifestyles. So striving for this can be a real challenge. It is counter to what is going on in most of society, yet it is what most people are looking for. This place becomes a reflection of your personality. Your energy translates into the energy of the garden. It is like the idea that you can take the farmer out of the city, but it is harder to take the city out of the farmer.
Another important aspect of using land efficiently is to harvest the natural elements to produce needed energy. We live on a planet where there is an abundance of energy available, yet most of us do little to make use of it. Appropriate technology as a movement is an art, of resourcefulness, and a science, of technical skills. The sun is a vital resource. There is no place where this is more evident than with plants that demonstrate the most efficient way to harvest the energy that allows us to live here.
About half of what is grown is started indoors and later transplanted out. So you will need a greenhouse of some form to do this work. A greenhouse also offers the luxury of growing tropical plants like a Meyer lemon or ginger, and a place to store tropical herbs and lemongrass in the winter. It provides a place to dry herbs and propagate plants. A solar greenhouse is a very simple concept. The greenhouse design that is most practical involves a rectangular structure with angled glazing. It needs a roof and three sides that can hold up well to the elements. Using a solar design means harvesting the sun’s energy. Therefore, it needs a thermal mass. Use fifty-five gallon drums painted black. They do not actually heat up as much from the sun, but do regulate temperature fluctuations. The angle of the sun needs to be calculated to allow access into the back wall during the winter months. This space is good for propagating plants.
You will want to build a tight structure that is well insulated. Leave an earth floor to provide the option of digging it up to plant in the late fall for winter growing. The most important key to a solar design is ventilation. It is very easy to overheat the greenhouse on a sunny day. Awning windows are placed on the front that can open out to bring in air. A vent that runs the entire length is installed at the top. This can be at the highest part of the roof or at the top of the back wall. This provides an air current moving up through the greenhouse. As the air heats up it pushes out the top by convection. A window on the side and a door on the opposite side provide cross-ventilation (see the illustration in figure 11.1). All openings need to be sealed and insulated during the night. A greenhouse has no natural ways to control pests. Use screens on the windows, vents, and doors to make it a controlled environment. Also be careful with what foreign materials come into the greenhouse so not to introduce insects and diseases.
Glass is always better than plastic for the glazing but more expensive. Finding recycled solid pane glass works well. It takes time to acquire the windows. The glass windows will determine the greenhouse dimensions. It is a matter of time versus money. Rammed earth can work as a foundation, but again requires a lot of labor. Rammed earth is clay with a small amount of Portland cement pressed into forms. Stone is another option for a foundation as an alternative to concrete. If the greenhouse is not attached to a living structure, then straw bale walls or cob can help insulate the north side. Cob is a free form made of clay and straw. These structures are very labor intensive to make.
In severe weather or places where temperatures drop into single digits, a woodstove can provide a backup heat source. Stoves made from small barrels can be welded on a frame. A more intricate design is to make a double-barrel stove where the one on top contains water. This can become a heat source for starting seeds quickly with bottom heat. A greenhouse can also heat water by the sun, using shallow black containers. Be careful not to let a seed flat get above 90 degrees when placing them on the heat source.
A lath house is used to grow plants outdoors during the warm months. It is best used to start plants for the fall. A free standing lath house can be used as a rainwater catchment. Instead of using lath, place corrugated clear plastic panels on the frame. Along the bottom, run a rain gutter that empties into a storage tank. The tank can be used to water fruit trees or other fruits. It helps if the tank is elevated above ground level for good gravity flow.
Cold frames are another way to utilize the sun. These can be made from recycled windows and scrap lumber. They are useful either to harden off seed flats for a week or two before going out or to grow cool weather vegetables during the winter months. Set up one with a large picture window. Pallets keep the seed flats off of the ground. Hay bales provided insulation. Plastic tarps layered into the box provided protection both inside and on top at night. A light bulb hung in the corner added extra heat on cold nights. With a six by six foot window you are able to grow about a dozen flats. Cold frames need to be opened on sunny days to keep from overheating. Designs for cold frames include all sorts of ideas based on the materials you have to work with. They can be made entirely from recycled materials (see example in figure 11.2).
Appropriate technology utilizes the tools of nature. The solar food dryer is a good example. The New Mexico Solar Energy Association developed the design shown in figure 11.3. There are several important considerations to ensure its success. First, prepare to dry foods when there is going to be a string of sunny days, at least five consecutive days in a row. Slice the fruits of vegetables a quarter inch or smaller and spray them with lemon juice mixed with water to prevent discoloring. Check the drying process every couple days and turn the slices over to get uniform drying. Fruits with high water content, like tomatoes or figs, are difficult to impossible in humid areas. Place the bottom of the legs of the dryer into used metal cans with concrete and leave an inch or two at the top. The cans can be filled with water to discourage ants. Tanglefoot can be used to further prevent ants from climbing up the legs. The key to its success is to have a steady air draft moving through the drying racks. Corrugated metal, painted black, is used in the collector. Window screens can be used for the racks. Flexible material works well for the glazing, but ridged material can be easily substituted with a little design modification. The fruits with the most success are apples, pears, and most vegetables. I’ve had no success with figs and peaches. In a dryer climate this could work well for a much broader selection of fruits.
The solar oven has an amazing capacity to generate mild cooking temperatures of around 250 degrees F. There is a women’s collective in Nicaragua that has been building solar ovens with an enormous amount of success. These can be built with recycled materials and plexiglass or regular window glass. Of course, the plexiglass is not prone to breakage so is easier to work with long term. The box needs to be small to retain heat, approximately two feet wide by three feet long maximum or smaller. Keep it shallow, a foot tall or less for best results. Years ago they were made by painting the entire inside black. Research has shown that they work better if lined with aluminum foil with the shiny side facing in. They work best when the sun is high, from midmorning to midafternoon for maximum exposure. It is also good to use black pots with lids that absorb the sunlight. If the food being cooked contains a lot of water, the temperature will not exceed 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius. Celsius is used as a measurement for water temperatures. That is as high as water gets before it boils. The process of solar cooking takes more time than using a conventional stovetop. Cooking at a lower temperature results in more nutritious food content than food cooked at higher temperatures for a shorter amount of time. The same considerations need to be taken into account for dealing with ants and other insects as with the solar food dryer. Creating and using a solar oven requires some experimentation to find what works best for your needs. Foods can be parboiled to help with the cooking process.
A solar shower or water heater is another simple concept. It’s best to use this where you have a hillside or an existing building to help support it. Take a sheet of plywood and build a frame around it with 2 by 8s, 2 by 10s, or whatever you have to work with. Line it with black plastic so that the plastic overhangs the entire wood structure. Support the box on two posts on the open end along with a solid post in the middle. This works well with large timbers. Once filled with water, it will have a serious weight. Water weighs about eight pounds per gallon. A hole is drilled in the middle and fitted with a tight fitting drain. Silicon used as caulking around the fittings works well here.
Attached to the drain hole is a piece of hose with the male end hanging down. Then attach a valve with a shower nozzle. The whole thing needs to be tall enough to accommodate a person. Cover the top with a loose fitting piece of plexiglass and fill it with water. After a few hours of direct sunlight, the water will warm to a comfortable temperature. The area of a full sheet of plywood will provide enough water for two or three showers. This system needs to be constructed securely or it could collapse and be very dangerous to those under it. There are many other ways to heat water in the sun based on individual needs.
If one has the fortune of having a creek with lots of flow and drop, you can consider microhydro systems. With as little as two gallons per minute and two feet of drop you can make electricity. Water is a continuous source of power. It flows all day and night, year-round. But this can be a costly venture. On a large scale, the equipment can start in the thousands of dollars. The source of power needs to be near the water flow. It is best to do your research and learn as much as possible about how to do it yourself. The flow of water can be greatly affected by droughts. In most situations, it does not pay for itself but is fun to experiment with on a very small scale. Wind energy is the same. Unless you have a constant wind every month, it will not pay for itself either. But in those unique locations it can provide an abundant resource to tap into. What is more commonly available is wood from the land, and it is easy to burn.
Woodstoves are most efficient when being used to simultaneously warm, cook, and heat water. Being efficient is one of the basic laws of being sustainable. Just like companion planting where it is helpful to try to use more than one principle, it is best to utilize every component for more than one purpose. Structures can collect water, house materials inside, be shelter-belts for plantings, and so on.
Growing grains can be done on a small scale with ease. It is not the most efficient use of space since they are inexpensive to buy, but if you have extra space it can be very rewarding. Interplanting works well on small-scale growing and can contribute to weed control. The most popular companions are corn and pole beans or field peas and winter squash. They hold each other together well. Oats (Avena sativa) are a high protein grain that is easy to grow, has few pest problems, and produces good yields. Oats can produce over a hundred bushels per acre. Oats are planted in the fall and harvested in the summer; they are harvested when the tops lodge heavily. Clover can be planted at its base. Get the oats up first before planting clover. The tops need to be threshed and winnowed. Millet is mostly grown for birdseed in the United States. It is another highly nutritious grain. Eaten with buckwheat it is a complete protein. Pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum), also known as cattail millet, is easy to grow and is not bothered by marginal soils. It produces fifty to seventy bushels per acre. It can be planted fairly late and needs about three months to mature. It does well when planted in alternate sections with peanuts. It can also be mixed with alfalfa. It is easy to harvest and thresh. I usually grow buckwheat as a summer cover crop. It goes to seed quite quickly. It is supposed to mature in sixty to seventy days but you can get a crop sooner. The seeds are also easy to harvest, but without the right equipment you will have problems getting the seed out of the hulls. It is best to run it through a mill with blades set far enough apart to crack the grain but not mill it. Then it needs to be winnowed. Quinoa is in the genus Chenopodium. It is related to lamb’s-quarter, beets, and spinach. It is highly nutritious and easy to grow and harvest. It looks like lamb’s-quarter and is a close relative but more robust. It can be planted at the ends of beds. It gets quite tall so keep it to the back so as not to shade other plants.
Using herbs grown on the land like comfrey as a calcium supplement, Roman chamomile as a spray for damping off, horsetail (Equisetum arvense) as a disease preventative, stinging nettles tea on seedlings, and willow tea for propagation are examples of being highly efficient. All these can be grown in semishaded areas. Most herbs are also more drought tolerant than vegetables.
Ecoagriculture is a system of providing for the welfare of the land as well as the welfare of those that take care of the land. The idea of being truly sustainable involves using what is on the land or in the community to provide all the tools to do the work efficiently. To develop a piece of land into a heterogeneous community that evolves into ecological sustainability is a long continuous process. Agro biodiversity involves maintaining enough variety for the system to depend upon itself. Rather than looking for a level of achievement, it is good to perceive the pursuit as an open classroom. That is also part of one’s evolution—to revive the land to its full potential means bringing it to a state of being multifunctional for all beings to cohabitate in. Internal regeneration of inputs that support autonomy can start with something as simple as letting certain weeds grow. Habitat restoration means different things in different places that serve a variety of purposes. This means rocks for lizards and irrigation furrows for horny toads to hide out in New Mexico. This is also seen in biologically rich ponds where bullfrogs sing you to sleep at night in Costa Rica. If you have beautiful bird families that come back in the spring to visit wild cherry and mulberry trees or muscadine vines that climb up through the forest trees, then you are getting recognition for creating a beautiful setting that flourishes with life. Biotic interactions that support the internal regeneration of all species need to be present. Essential functions like nutrient cycling and polyculture plantings are part of this. This is the function of a balance with nature.
At the heart of ecoagriculture is good stewardship of the land. To be a good steward involves continued growth, both internally and externally. Being open to the forces of nature’s symmetry is to acknowledge the balanced economy of this interwoven system. It is a system where no living entity is unaccounted for. Making contributions that reverberate throughout the living structure makes a deep connection with this web work of life. For this reason, I avoid tractors. They create compact soils, which leads to hardpans. A garden is a more intimate version of a farm. It is a more efficient use of land and more labor intensive. It needs to be community based to work well. This work when practiced from the heart is harmonious with the life around you and enhances all of life’s abundance. Being part of a garden is leaning toward a lifestyle of experiencing wealth beyond money. It is more than an investment in the soil. It is an investment in oneself.
This act is also reciprocal. For the more one puts into it, the more one continues to get out. The most important thing is to give more than you take out. Obey this rule and the land will provide you with glorious abundance. Receiving the riches of its wealth is an honor. Being a caretaker of a piece of land is a noble and very satisfying role in life that I have been very thankful for.