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1/4 Acre Project
Sounded simple enough in theory, convert a quarter acre plot to a productive food garden, implementing the ideals I'd learned from people such as Masanobu Fukuoka to food growing, feed myself off its produce and sell the surplus. I’'d done the research, built hundreds of regular gardens for people over the years, studied, done the graft, even conducted a garden experiment for 6 months using the rules I had promised to expand on with fantastic success, but just what are the rules that I promised to abide by?
Number 1. No tilling/ploughing, after initial construction
Number 2. No use of fertilisers, compost or otherwise
Number 3. No use of pesticides
Number 4. No use of herbicides
Number 5. Minimal useage of water, no mains water used at all
Number 6. Use of self sustaining techniques
So rather than just jump in blindly and as I first came up with the initial idea 12 months ago, I thought I'd try a little experiment garden to begin with. I grew ground covers, herbs, comfrey and peas, all of which were simply torn up after harvest and put back on the soil to break down and contribute to its nutrient value as well as suppressing weeds. I used no fertilisers, no chemicals, no mains water and I didn't even think of touching a fork or shovel. It was an amazing success, the soil in the mini garden not only improved over time but stayed loose and friable, without tilling.my thoughts of implementing the "no till" methods of agriculture to growing produce seemed not only viable but perhaps they were the way we should be heading.
So from a bland, grassy, ex sheep field to promising garden beds, it's November 2011 and I'm applying the first layer of mulch, pea straw. Four of the nine beds are prettymuch completed (my sore back will attest to this) with five to go. There's seedlings in the greenhouse ready to plant, the late frosts seem to have passed, now to plant!
I haven't started thinking about the pig pen yet, but the chook run is well underway...
Ok, so it's nudging December 2011 now and the new chicken run is being built, though really, I'll be housing a few chickens for eggs and some ducks and quails for meat. I've managed to get "most" of the building materials for the run, only thing is I want to build a new house/coop for them so I'll soon be out scrounging the scrap piles I'm sure.
Fruit trees are in, the food forest area has pears, peaches, cherries, plums, apricots, gooseberry, almond, blueberry, loquat, nashi, rhubarb and strawberries in it so far but I think that area will take a good 2 seasons before it starts producing well. It's been planted on a layered/level system, so really it will take a bit of growing to get results. Did I mention the saddleback pigs???
Excerpt from the forthcoming "Out here in the field, the quarter acre food project"
"Joking aside, what I want to express is that there is an alternative, it’s better for the soil, its better for the extremely complex and amazing micro eco system that is going on in my field and it’s going to be a lot less hard work. We use tractors to till the soil, harvesters to cut the grains, planes to spray the chemicals and they all have one thing in common, fossil fuel.
Not only are we using petrol to drive the machinery that tills and harvests our food producing fields but the very chemicals we’re spraying on it are derivatives of fossil fuels.
I don’t want to rely on oil for my garden at all, what I want is a low (if not zero) carbon footprint. My plan is to utilise everything that comes to hand, to make use of the seasons, of animals that will in turn provide back to me. I want to recycle, barter, trade, share, enjoy and grow.
The garden, anyone’s garden really, to me is a reflection of the gardener, the lines, the contrasts, the colours and shapes. It all corresponds to the personality that created it, so what I’m trying to say is our food wastelands, field after field of mono cultured crops, spreading past the horizon are in turn a reflection of our society. We grow the quick, the easy, the money making and we have no more than a blatant disregard for tomorrow. The earth is a tool, to be poisoned, manipulated and used to fulfil our wants and desires, we are disconnected, to the point of creating a generation of children who don’t even know the names of many regular vegetables, who think food comes already cling wrapped and can only be bought from the supermarket, my heart breaks, it really does."
The veg beds, November 2011
