MAKING BEDS.

I've had this idea for a while, but something about Jean-Martin Fortier's excellent book The Market Gardener ––which I mentioned last week in a post––gave me the inspiration needed to try it.The idea is this: I wanted to make permanent raised beds, much like JM, but I wanted to place the fertility underneath those beds––Hugel bed style. Also, I wanted to do it by hand. I'll explain.How it works is that there will be seven beds in total, and following JM's lead, these beds will ultimately be 30" wide, 18" apart. First I pull back the mulch, loosen the beds with our broadfork, and shovel the dirt to one side––leaving an 18" trench, about 8-10" deep.I then take that mulch, pull it back into the trench and pack it full. Like full full. So full that if you walk on it, it's still above the soil surface. If I had small square bales, I might just make the trench large enough to put use those end on end.Then I use our grubbing hoe to pull the dirt back over the mulch. To finish the bed, I go back on each side and pull the dirt up from the pathway, creating a trench and putting that dirt onto the bed as well. This raises the height and depth of the bed. The trench will remain as the pathway.My last order of business is to lightly mulch the bed as to create shade for worms, then I put old high tunnel plastic overtop to create warmth. My hope is to get weed seeds to germinate before our last freezes of the year, then pull the plastic off and let them die naturally. Come spring, I'll work the beds with a rake and plant.Of course, ideally I would have done this in the fall, because the beds will be best after several months. So I'm going to have to start by using crops without large taproots. No tomatoes or carrots in these beds probably this year––maybe by fall. Next year, I'll rotate the crops, and pull the dirt back up. But I don't think I'll add fertility. I don't think I'll need to.I should add that this has been extremely hard work––maybe even unsustainably so––so please get help if you try this. One person can do one 100' bed in one long, hard day. I wouldn't recommend more. Ultimately, it's an experiment, but I have faith it will work. And if it doesn't, you'll hear about it.- Jesse.

TORN.

This week I attended a seminar with Jean-Martin Fortier, the author of The Market Gardener. My impetus for going was that JM makes over $100,000 a year per acre growing organic veggies, and it piqued my curiosity. Because to put that in perspective, we thought we were killing it by making $25,000 per acre.But there are several differences between what JM does and what we do, not the least of which is the equipment he uses. In the garden behind our house, Hannah and I don't use equipment. We use mulch to do our tilling, and a combination of rakes, broad forks and shovels to work up the soil if need be. In the big gardens that we farm with our neighbors, we use two different tractors. All JM uses is a small, but specific walking tractor which he utilizes to prepare, weed, and cultivate 30" permanent beds, growing almost as much food on one acre as we do on three. It's pretty impressive how productive this small machine can be, and it left at least 150 farmers at that seminar wanting one of these walking tractors. Honestly, I was not immune.More than anything, though, this left me torn. I want desperately to farm like JM. It speaks to me on an ineffable level to be that productive. Then there's the closet prepper side of me who wants to prepare myself and my family and my farm for a post-petroleum world, and not invest in oil-based machinery. Even if it looks really, really fun and really, really profitable. I want to be spending my time one day soon learning to use draft animals. Or figuring out a version of his system that can be done by hand. I may be able to talk Eric and Cher into implementing some of his practices in the big gardens, but really, without the specific machinery, it doesn't work the same. And I feel I want to start working away from more machinery, not towards it.Truth be told, his book and that seminar has put me at a sort of crossroads. Because it's not just about the money. That dude feeds an unreal amount of people, and I want that, too. He builds soil. He increases organic matter and sequesters carbon, he doesn't honestly use very much fuel, but still. He does use fuel.So, what's the answer? Is the answer to stay the course, work ourselves to death making a quarter of the money, feeding a quarter of the amount of people per acre? Or is it to implement some of his methods and make it work, fossil fuel dependance be dammed? I honestly have no idea, but I do know this, my idealism has officially met it's match.- Jesse.