How to Grow More Vegetables : And Fruits, Nuts ... - Shroomery

84 SEED PROPAGATION
Master Charts
The Master Charts that follow should help your gardening
efforts. The charts for grains, compost crops, trees, and other
crops provide a picture of what you can accomplish in your own
backyard or small farm-holding. (Also see Ecology Action’s
Backyard Homestead, Mini-Farm and Garden Log Book.) Additional
information about special seed sources and harvesting,
cleaning, grinding, storing, and preserving these crops will be
included in the future. The charts are largely based on our many
years of experience and are generally complete and accurate.
Ecology Action continues to study the spacings and other
growing information for grains, fodder crops, fibers, bush and
dwarf fruit trees, other tree crops, berries and grapes, and
compost crops. As testing continues, the information is revised
and the chance of error reduced. (A good explanation of the
information in these charts is given in the planning section of
The Sustainable Vegetable Garden.)
It should be noted that:
• You may not reach maximum yields in the first year. Also,
one plant, grown alone, will probably not produce as large a
yield as one plant grown among several plants under miniclimate
conditions.
• Seeds grown out of season will take longer to germinate
and/or may decompose before they do germinate unless
grown under special mini-greenhouse or shade netting
conditions.
• Closer spacing may be needed during the winter to make up
for slower plant growth during this period and to create a
balanced winter miniclimate. (Try 3 ⁄ 4 or 1 ⁄ 2 the usual spacing
with lettuce in the winter.) Closer spacing can also promote
faster, balanced growth by more rapidly creating a miniclimate.
Thin extra plants to make room for larger plants.
(Baby carrots and beets are a delicacy.)
• You may need wider spacings in the humid tropics during
the wetter months.
One of the exciting things about the GROW BIOINTENSIVE
method is its emphasis on the soil. Once you know how to prepare
soil well for vegetables, a whole world of crops becomes
available to you. The bed preparation, fertilization, and watering
approaches remain essentially the same—only the plant spacings
are different!
These charts will help you expand from growing only vegetable
crops to including plants from the following broad groups:
• grains, protein sources, and vegetable oil crops
• compost, organic matter, and fodder crops. Some compost
crops, such as pearl millet, sorghum, and corn, can produce
very high yields of biomass and should be fully recycled