Hoe Farming poor soil
My uncle and I both just finished reading your hoe farming book. We noticed that you mentioned multiple times that you suggest starting with potatoes when trying to get a neglected and abused plot with poor soils into shape to start hoe farming. We were just wondering what growing potatoes does for the soil or for the plot. Thank you for your time and for the wonderful book.
Jason Loehr, South Carolina, United States
Our land was used to grow cereals for cattle food before we bought it. It is devoid of organic material, and is compacted, and now also has a range of grasses and weeds growing on it. Our method of planting potatoes involves cutting the grass with a scythe, and making trenches with a hoe or with a garden fork.
We then put compost or semi-rotted grass mulch in the trench, put the potatoes on top of the mulch, and cover them over by bashing the tussocks of grass with a hoe. Alternatively, the tussocks of grass can be lifted off and piled up beside the patch. They can be added back to the patch when they have rotted down. This makes it easier to cover the potatoes in the trenches with soil, working with a hoe.
As soon as the potatoes come up, we start earthing them up – once again hitting the grass and lumps of soil with the hoe.
If all goes well, the potato plants grow, shading out all the annual weeds, and the repeated earthing up kills the grass and perrenial weeds.
We dig up the potatoes when the tops die back, and have found the soil to be in much better condition than after other crops, particularly on new ground. The repeated working of the soil, combined with the action of the potato plants themselves helps to de-compact the soil, the weeds are smothered out, and the organic matter in the trenches is absorbed into the soil.
It sounds like a lot of work, but the work is self-regulating. If you are young and fit, you might hoe a large area, and plant a lot of potatoes, if you are older, you may restrict yourself to a smaller area. In either event, you should be able to weed, earth-up, and harvest the area that you plant.
I don’t know if it would work for you in your area, but here potatoes have proved to be a useful part of the rotation as we work to improve the quality of our soil. GL.
Animals
Why do you not keep animals on the farm (like chickens or ducks)?They can be very helpful additions, helping improve grass and soil quality, not to mention eggs.
Ieva Bivainiai, Lithuania
Hoe Farming vs no-dig
In our country we had one small scale farmer Saulius Jasonius, who was the first one to popularize Natural Agriculture in Lithuania, as he called it. He (and many others) claim that any tillage, even as mild as hoeing, is inherently harmful to soil life and therefore unsustainable in the long term (the very very long term).
Ieva Bivainiai, Lithuania
I am not familiar with Saulius Jasonius, but the thing about natural farming is that you have to adapt to local conditions (perhaps even farming differently in different fields) so it could be that his advice is more relevant to you than my experiences here in Brittany.
I am not as extreme as some people about soil disturbance. I don’t like tractor-driven ploughs, or other petrol-driven machines, and am not convinced about animal traction, but think that when you do the work yourself, you are still in the bounds of what is natural. Also, my view is that people have to work out for themselves what constitutes a good diet for their own particular circumstances, and if they can supply themselves with that through the work that they do on their own land, then that is exemplary. GL.
Children and Hoe-Farming
I could not agree more that children on the farm should be as natural as birds. However, in the book there was little practical advice as for very small children, babies who need a lot of attention. Now, when most families live just father, mother and their children it is very hard. So if you have any practical tips with very small babies, I could really use them.
Our society does not value the transmission of knowlege, and does not understand the nature of caring. Parents get discouraged, and then tell new parents that it is not worth making the effort. And the world gets a little bit worse.
Ieva Bivainiai, Lithuania
In such dire circumstances, you have to go back to basics. You have to prioritise your children, even if that means that you don’t have time for other things that you consider to be important – such as the garden, or making money. You also have to treat your children with respect, right from the beginning, so if your baby is telling you that it needs to be carried, for example, you have to carry it. When they are older, you have to respect the decisions that your children make. The better the relationship they have with you, the more they will take your views into account, but your goal is to help them to get to a point in life where they can make good decisions for themselves. GL.
What’s the average size of your fields?
The average size of our fields is about 500 square metres, some are bigger, some are smaller. The basic idea was that we could have a single crop in each field. For some crops, such as potatoes, one field would be enough, for others, such as rye, we might have two or three. In practice it doesn’t always work out so neatly. GL.
Is Hoe-Farming easy?
The one thing I truly don’t understand is how you can say that farming is easy. I find it quite challenging, which in a way, is also part of its appeal. Maybe because I’m rather new to it, while you have established routines that work for you.
Lies Wesseling, Netherlands
Perhaps I should not say that farming is easy, but that, for me at least, it is relatively easy when compared to having to earn money in order to get what one needs. GL.
Will cutting grass deplete my soil ?
I rent a parcel of land that has been cut for hay for many years. The hay was sold, and no manure was applied to the land. The soil is now so exhausted that it is no longer worth cutting it for hay. Since last year, the parcel has been used for pasture, and, as a result, its fertility seems to be getting better, little by little (the animals deposit their manure on the land, and thus return most of what they take out).
Have you noticed the same process on the fields that you scythe to supply your vegetable garden?
E. Paniez, France
This is a subject that is deserving of a lot more attention. You can take a certain amount off the land each year, and it will still maintain, or increase, its fertility – but how much? If you take too much, you enter into a downward spiral of declining fertility (which is the situation that global agriculture now finds itself in).
We have two different areas that we cut with a scythe.
One is a series of water meadows that have never been farmed very intensively. We have cut these once or twice a year for over twenty years, and the yield is always about the same. We are now experimenting with channeling the water, as in the old days, to see if we can encourage more Spring growth.
The other area was previously a cereal field, and the ground was completely exhausted. We have cut most of this area each year, for the past twelve years. So far, the yield has increased each year. Different grasses are becoming established, and a more healthy range of other plants (not just weeds that survived from the cereal days). We have made banks and planted them with trees, which, I think, has helped. We see more insects in the fields, and birds are starting to make nests in the trees, so I think that things are going in the right direction.
Having said all that, however, we let very, very little produce leave our land – so the overall fertility of the garden is bound to go up. People ask if this is a feasible model for feeding everyone in the world, but our civilisation has shown itself to be incapable of managing any sort of agricultural system that does not exhaust the soil’s fertility, so a return to subsistence gardening is the only viable option that I am aware of! GL.