A Best-Practices Guide to Growing Tomatoes: Tomato Basics Attention to the basic needs of tomatoes goes a long way toward keeping them healthy and productive. If you’ve had problems with tomatoes in the past, the solution is probably in this list. Light. Plant tomatoes where they get 8 hours or more of sunlight daily. Any less will reduce the harvest. Soil. Spacing. Water. Mulch. Fertilizer. Crop rotation. Fall cleanup.
How the round, bee-friendly Sun Hive may help save the bees (Video) There's ongoing debate in the backyard beekeeping community about which type of hive offers the best balance between what the bees need and honey production. From top bar to Warré, there are plenty of different hive designs, each with its benefits and peculiarities. Made with "bee-centred" apiculture and conservation in mind, the Sun Hive is an alternative format for natural beekeepers. Created by German beekeeper and sculptor Guenther Mancke, the Sun Hive is a based on the form of hives as found in the wild. Made with bees in mind Here's how it works: the Sun Hive is meant to be elevated about 8 feet above ground, under some kind of protective shelter. Natural Beekeeping Trust/via Gaia Bees/Video screen capture Mancke designed the Sun Hive after having observed a wild bee nest in the woods near his home, which took an egg-shaped form and was covered in waxy skin and propolis. Here's a video of how it's built from the beginning: The results of using the Sun Hive are quite extraordinary.
Sun Hive Book Drill-powered Microfarming: Slow Tools for Humanity - Milkwood The thing about farming on the small is that big machines just don’t make sense, and often aren’t affordable to your small, regenerative farming enterprise anyway. And yet, once you’ve brought 18 beds to a fine tilth to plant your precious carrots using hand tools alone, you could be forgiven for longing for the efficiency that machines, gizmos and general do-hickery provide. So when it comes to small-scale organic market gardening, judicious use of machinery is key. You don’t want a whole shed of it (and you couldnt afford it all anyway) – but you wouldn’t mind a few pieces of kit that got certain extra-tricky jobs over the line. It’s also, for some, about the attitude. Many small-scale growers we know want to use their time and energy efficiently, but they also want to find a balance between automation while keeping themselves in direct relationship to the soil, each and every day. A easily portable motor would be good though. Slow Tools
DIY $2 self-watering garden bed - Grow produce easily, even in the toughest drought conditions - NaturalNews.com Thursday, June 26, 2014 by: Carolanne WrightTags: self-watering garden bed, sustainable agriculture, drought conditions (NaturalNews) "When life gives you lemons, share them with neighbors!" enthuses the Food is Free Project, a grassroots organization based out of Austin, Texas. The project isn't advocating sharing bad luck; instead, it's championing the idea of connecting neighbors and communities with a bounty of free, homegrown fresh produce. It all began as a single, front yard organic vegetable garden with a sign explaining that the food was free for the taking. The founders of the project realized that most people don't grow their own food because of financial considerations, as well as the time it takes to maintain the plot. A zany video demonstrating how to build the raised bed, along with a wealth of other gardening resources, can be found at the Food is Free Project website. As wisely observed by Buckminster Fuller, "You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
Recycling animal and human dung is the key to sustainable farming © Illustrations in red & black: Diego Marmolejo for low-tech magazine. The innocent looking water closet breaks up a natural cycle in our food supply. Basically, it turns extremely valuable resources into waste products. When we grow crops, we withdraw essential nutrients from the soil: potassium, nitrogen and phosphate, to name but the most important. This is problematic and unsustainable, for three main reasons. Secondly, we need artificial fertilizers to keep our soil fertile. Water closets are energy-intensive Fresh water production, the construction and maintenance of sewers, the treatment of sewage (and sewage sludge), and the production of inorganic fertilizers are all energy-intensive processes. Potassium and phosphate have to be mined (up to depths of several thousands of feet) and transported. The only way to get nutrients from sea to land is via marine bird droppings - which is of course in very short supply - or by eating fish or seafood. A sign of civilization Dung traders
How to make a bamboo polytunnel We used a local renewable material, caña (like bamboo). You could use anything long and bendy – we would like to try it with hazel next time we are further north. The only items we paid for are the plastic and string (pita string made from fibres of the giant succulent Agave plant). It took six days with four people working. It's a lovely material to work with, flexible, strong and graceful. Step 1 Select locally growing caña and do a flex test. Step 2 Strip the outer leaves and bumpy nodules from the canes. Step 3 Bundle into a column of 7 canes tying with string at 25cm intervals. Step 4 Join one column to another to form a super column. Step 5 Dig holes to place feet of arches into. Step 6 Create smaller columns of 3 canes to act as supports between main arches Step 7 Protect plastic by covering outside edge of all canes with fabric or folded netting/fleece. Step 8 Roll plastic over the structure. Step 9 Fit doors (we reused glass doors from a skip). Step 10 Grow plants all year round.
Education - Core Concepts | Biological Cultivation | Advancing Eco-Agriculture 1. Healthy Plants Resist Insects and Disease We understand that animals and people have an immune system that is our natural defense against pathogens. 2. For plants to reach an optimum level of health and immunity, they need to have a fully active enzyme system to continuously process and create higher-order compounds. 3. The ultimate level of plant nutrition is when plants can absorb the majority of their nutritional requirements as microbial metabolites. 4. Regenerative models of agronomy and plant nutrition focus on improving quality and plant health, rather than increasing yields. 5. There is a common understanding that healthy soils create healthy plants. AEA's 20 Core Concepts pdf.