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

1972
Ecology Action begins a 1 ⁄ 2-acre research
demonstration and teaching Biointensive
garden and a 3-acre community garden on
Syntex Corporation land in the Stanford
University Industrial Park in Palo Alto,
California. Ecology Action emphasizes
economic mini-farming.
1973
1972 Preliminary Research Report outlines
initial yield and resource consumption
information.
1974
We publish our first book on Biointensive
philosophy and techniques, How to Grow
More Vegetables.
1976
1972–1975 Research Report Summary
is published with detailed data on yields,
resource consumption, and worldwide
applications for Biointensive mini-farming.
1977
We begin an apprentice program.
1978
A second edition of How to Grow More Vegetables
is published by Ten Speed Press.
Six years of research determine the feasibility
of an economic mini-farm earning
$5,000–$20,000 on as little as 1 ⁄ 8 acre with
one person working it, and of a complete
vegetarian diet for one person being
grown on as little as 2,800 square feet.
1979
How to Grow More Vegetables is published
with Spanish data in metric units. Biointensive
Mini-Farming: A Rational Use
of Natural Resources and Cucumber
Bonanza, the first two booklets in our Self-
Teaching Mini-Series, are published.
1980
This is the last year for Ecology Action’s
Garden/Mini-Farm site in Palo Alto. Information
on the method continues to spread
The Story So Far . . .
through fair displays; school and college
lectures; radio interviews; national and
international magazine articles; a PBS-TV
special, Gardensong, about Alan Chadwick
and the projects he inspired, and the
publication of Soybeans, The U-Bar, Food
from Your Backyard Homestead, The Self-
Fertilizing Herbal Lawn, and Beginning to
Mini-Farm—booklets in the Self-Teaching
Mini-Series. Tests of garden beds by a
University of California graduate student
in soil science shows an unexpected accelerated
rate of humified carbon buildup, a
process that normally takes hundreds of
years. Two beds from the research site
are moved to a protected area to allow
future monitoring.
The Shri A.M.M. Murugappa Chettier
Research Centre in India reports successful
use of the Biointensive method to
improve local nutrition. A major article
about Ecology Action’s work appears in
the premier issue of Science ’80. Alan
Chadwick, originator of the Biointensive
approach used by Ecology Action, dies.
His work, vision, and example inspired
thousands of people.
1981
U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Bob Bergland,
notes that Ecology Action’s work is
“10 years ahead of its time.” Ecology
Action cosponsors the Third International
Conference on Small-Scale and Intensive
Food Production. One hundred participants
attend from 14 countries, including
Mainland China. A transcript of the conference,
Intensive Food Production on a
Human Scale, is published. This conference
also results in a Biointensive project
in China. Three more Self-Teaching Mini-
Series booklets—Modular Multi-Use
Mini-Greenhouse Plans, A 10-Crop 5-Year
Learning and Test Workbook, and A Perspective—are
published. Twenty books by
other organizations and individuals using
Biointensive techniques based on Ecology
Action publications have appeared by this
time. Ecology Action actively looks for a
new research garden/mini-farm site.
1982
How to Grow More Vegetables is revised a
third time and is expanded by over 40%.
Calorie, compost, and tree crops are
added, making the book really about how
to grow more food. New booklets, Grow
Your Compost Materials at Home and
Examining the Tropics, are published.
Newsweek covers gardening, highlighting
Ecology Action’s program. Continued
airing of the PBS-TV special, Gardensong,
results in thousands of inquiries to Ecology
Action. Ecology Action moves to a
new rural site in northern California, just
outside of Willits. This site’s rustic conditions,
heavy winter rains, prolonged summer
droughts, short growing season,
steep slopes, and depleted rocky soil are
similar in many ways to those in countries
where Ecology Action’s work is having its
most dramatic impact.
1983
A second report is received from India
about a successful pilot program, this one
involving women raising food under
drought conditions. Our first apprentice at
the Willits site graduates and leaves with
his family for a new home in Brazil.
Steve and Judy Rioch offer their farm
and energies for an East Coast Biointensive
mini-farming site in the United
States. Ecology Action launches Bountiful
Gardens, a mail-order supply service for
essential seeds, books, and supplies, to
increase our outreach. A Reader’s Digest
article on gardening and Ecology Action’s
approach is published.
Six Self-Teaching Mini-Series booklets—The
U-Bar (1980), Food from Your
Backyard Homestead (1980), The Self-
Fertilizing Herbal Lawn (1980), Begin-ning
to Mini-Farm (1980), Modular Multi-Use
Mini-Greenhouse Plans (1981), and A 10-
Crop 5-Year Learning and Test Workbook
(1981)—are gathered together in
Backyard Homestead, Mini-Farm and
Garden Log Book, which is published by
Ten Speed Press.
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