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

nursery. Starting your own seedlings is a higher skill level that
you may not want to try until your second or third year.
If you are an intermediate gardener, you will begin to use
more of the tables and charts and to grow some compost crops,
grains, and fruit trees. The bibliography (beginning on page
165) is a source of additional information on topics of interest
that you may like to pursue as your skill as a mini-farmer grows.
Ten years in the garden will produce a fully experienced food
grower. You can now draw on all of the information provided in
this book as you work on growing most or all of your family’s
food at home, plant a mini-orchard in the front yard, begin an
economic mini-farm, or teach others the skills you have already
mastered.
As you begin to grow GROW BIOINTENSIVEly, be sure to grow
sustainable soil fertility crops—which we are calling carbon-andcalorie
crops (see pages 27–29)—as part of your garden. We
need to grow crops that feed the soil as well as ourselves. There
are many such soil fertility crops. Examples are corn, millet,
wheat, oats, barley, cereal rye, and amaranth. These crops grow
a lot of carbonaceous material for the compost pile, which in
turn feeds the soil with humus, as well as provides a great deal
of nutritious food to eat. Be sure to try a few soil fertility crops
in your garden or mini-farm this year. Information about these
dual-purpose crops, which provide both dietary calories and
compost materials, is included in the Master Charts section
beginning on page 87 of this book and in the compost crop
sections of Ecology Action’s Self-Teaching Mini-Series Booklets
10, 14, 15, 25, and 26.
It is important to grow calorie crops in your garden or minifarm.
About 90% of your diet-growing area should eventually
be planted in these nutritious crops. There are two kinds—
crops that are area-efficient in the production of calories,
and crops that are weight-efficient for calories.
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