The market garden

We are growing a 1/4 acre market garden this year, specializing in peas and beans. It is a good crop for us to grow in new ground, with limited compost. And it is a crop that fits well into our local food system. We met with the one local vegetable farmer, who goes to a few Farmer's Markets and transports a lot of produce in a hundred mile radius. He does not grow peas and beans, but they are always a good seller at a market stall, and he would be more than happy to buy as much as we can grow and sell them at the market. Mutually beneficial.


The Snow Peas, Shelling Peas and Green Beans are planted in new ground, turned from pasture last fall. We rock picked the field, then marked out our rows and laid down a light layer of well rotted compost, the peas in rows 30 inches apart,
and the beans in beds, with rows 12 inches apart. We tilled the compost in, and planted succession crops 10 days apart, with the first harvest coinciding with the opening of the market in the first week of July.
We till the rows a few times to work up the weed seeds and grass rhizomes, and allow the crops to get about 4 inches tall before mulching.
The beans were spaced to allow us to run the tiller over the row. The gap between the two sets of rotating tines is 4 inches wide, and these tines are well worn. With new tines, we would take the two inside tines off for cultivation. There is enough clearance below the tiller to do a few close cultivations while the beans are in 2 and 4 leaf stage. After that, we mulch and the beans are off to a good start. The other benefit of cultivating legumes in early growth, instead of smothering with mulch, is that cultivation aerates the soil, and legumes fix nitrogen from the air. We always notice an inch of growth after cultivating.

For mulch, we are using leftover green leafy hay. We are not too worried about spreading weed seeds, as they are easy to cultivate out of the soil, and the majority of the seeds will rot as the mulch decomposes this summer. The benefit of using hay, over using straw, is the protein contained in the clover, dandelion, vetch and grass leaves. Protein is broken down into nitrogen, enriching our soil, and at the same time adding humus. When we lay down the hay, we shake out the "flakes" to spread it evenly, and the protein rich, fine leaf chaff settles against the soil, while the stalky stems stay on top, retaining moisture and smothering weeds. When I lifted the mulch to check the moisture retention, I found lots of worms already working on the mulch, as you can see the worm casting in the middle of the picture below.

From Coop Poop to Compost

When we muck out the barns in the spring, after a winter of layering bedding, we have a mixture of well composted manure on the bottom and fresh uncomposted manure on top. The fresh layer gets scraped off and moved into one pile, and the composted manure to another. We use the composted manure for top-dressing or working into fine seed beds. But we use the fresher manure in transplanting beds, after speeding up the decomposition process.

Fresh Chicken Manure and Bedding

This compost was at the bottom, and very rich. It is from last summer when we bedded the chicks with Poplar sawdust. It is well rotted and can be used as top-dressing, or worked into carrot, lettuce, herb, or other small seed beds. We moved it directly to the seed beds, if it is not going to be used right away, it should be covered to prevent leeching of nutrients.

This is some of the medium aged compost. The bedding was leftover wheat and rye straw from their shocks of winter grain, after they peck out all the seed heads, so it breaks down slowly.

To break down the straw compost, we begin by spreading the pile into a foot thick windrow, and tilling it a few times. This is best done when the pile is somewhat moist. Do this as early in the season as you can, and till it once a week until it begins to look like compost. If there is a lot of straw in the compost, it will naturally shed rain, minimizing leeching. But when the straw breaks down, that's when it needs to be moved onto the bed (or covered), so that the nutrients will be captured by the soil.

At least a week before you are ready to transplant, spread the compost onto the bed. This is going to be a Tomato bed, so we spread the chicken-manure-and-straw compost 2-3 inches thick. Till the compost in the soil right away, again this is done best when the soil and compost are moist, but just ready to work. Let the bed sit for a week, the worms and bacteria will continue to break down the compost, and any "hot" spots will have a chance to mellow. If the compost incorporates into the soil, as in the picture above, after a week, you are ready to plant.