Gardening Methods at
Frog Chorus Farm
Gardens are a critical piece of the puzzle here at Frog Chorus Farm. While our gardens are used to grow fruits and vegetables for our own use, we also use our gardens to grow experimental plots of future crops.
As in other aspects of our farm, we use a variety of conventional and alternative methods in our gardens which meet our particular needs, goals, resources and limitations. We offer information about these methods in the hopes that perhaps one or more of them will work for you too.
Raised Beds
Our main garden area is composed of numerous raised garden beds, each 100 square feet in area. We started off with only three beds but each year we build a few more.
Advantages:
* Our soil is relatively cold, not only because of our maritime climate but also because our farm is on a hillside facing east. That is the second coldest direction in the northern hemisphere, getting only the relatively cool morning sunlight. The raised beds allow for both better solar heat gain, but also better drainage, both of which result in faster warmup in springtime and warmer temps throughout our cool summers.
* We have a significant slug problem in this climate, and raised beds give us the opportunity to block slugs via a variety of methods around the beds.
* The planting bed frames are very easily fitted with PVC hoops, which in turn allow for frost protection, row covers, shade cloth and irrigation equipment.
* Our long cool growing season is also perfect for weed growth. A combination of planting bed frames and weedblock help limit weed growth and make weeding easier.
*A variety of planting bed setup methods give us the chance to quickly improve our soil quality and fertility, without wasting soil amendments on walkways or pathways.
Lasagna Gardening
Normally we set up our raised beds by adding whatever soil amendments are needed, then preparing the soil via either double digging or rototilling. We then surround the bed with wooden frames to contain the raised soil level. Given that some of our garden spot is on an old gravel driveway, the thought of digging up the driveway was rather distasteful. For those bed areas, we decided to set up our beds via the lasagna gardening method instead. If you are unfamiliar with that method, it gets its name from the alternate layers of compostable materials which go into the bed. Those material layers take the place of digging up the soil.
Advantages:
* As already indicated, no digging required! If we are pressed for time or working in wet conditions, we sometimes use lasagna gardening even when the soil would otherwise be suitable for digging.
* The composting materials give several types of fertility - both instant and long-lasting. So the planting beds continually improve over time.
* Small amounts of on-farm waste materials (sawdust, wood ashes, woodchips, rabbit manure, leaf litter, etc) can be used in the garden to boost fertility, tilth and/or soil nutrients, while field application of those materials would either be impractical or insufficient. Materials that would go wasted are still put to good use.
* Even if a planted bed is already set up, lasagna gardening methods in that bed for a year can dramatically increase the working soil depth and introduce a wide variety of both nutrients and microorganisms to the soil.
* Lasagna gardening can be used for short periods of time, or seasonally, to shield individual planting beds until the next crop can be planted. That protection minimizes or eliminates wind and water erosion, soil baking and crusting, and weed growth.
* The composting materials give transplants a very quick start, with the combination of non-compacted growing environment, temperature moderation, and lack of weed competition. Actually placing the transplants is easier in lasagna gardening as well, because you only have to pull aside lightweight material instead of digging a hole that keeps trying to cave in on itself.
Double Digging
Our first and still favorite method of gardening is via double digging. As the name implies, this planting method digs the ground not once but twice. Happily, it's not as much work as it sounds:
1) The first layer of soil is dug with a spade, which removes a block of soil about 8" on each side. One row of soil is removed at a time, until a trench is dug across the width of the bed. If this is the first section of planting bed, that soil is moved off to the side for use later. If this is a subsequent row, see step 3.
2) The second layer of soil, the floor of that trench, is then loosened with a soil fork. That loosening process allows for a much improved penetration of water, air and roots deep into the soil.
3) At the end of that second digging, the trench soil is nice and loose but well below grade. That difference in height is recovered when the process is repeated. The next row is started with the removal of another spade's width of soil, and that soil goes into the previous trench. If this is the last row, the soil removed during the first row's creation is added until the planting bed is even all the way across.
Advantages:
* For our soils, which are compacted and full of small stones, double digging results in a wonderfully uncompacted, smooth soil structure. We have yet to produce such a nice, uniform structure via any other soil preparation method. When planting from seed as we often do, that can make the difference between good even germination and a lost crop.
* The roots quickly go deep into the soil, well beyond reach of drought even without supplemental irrigation. As of this writing, we just set a record for no measurable precipitation during almost two months. For our climate that is very unusual. Yet we did not need to water our garden even once.
* The one problem with lasagna gardening as described above is when you don't have any free compostable materials to work with. Bought-in materials can be extremely expensive. Making the most of the soil you have is often the most cost-effective approach as long as the soil is reasonably easy to dig.
* Rototilling and plowing can provide similar soil loosening but not to such depths as double digging. In addition, rototilling and plowing the same area over and over again can result in a hardpan just below the standard tilling depth. That hardpan can interrupt water, gas and nutrient movement in the soil. Double digging is more effort, but it avoids that hardpan formation.
Other Gardening Methods
We have also worked with a variety of other approaches - hydroponics, aeroponics, container gardening, row crops, field crops and others. Since we don't use those methods quite as often at the moment, we haven't focused on them here. But check out the next section and you'll find all the information you could ever want on all those methods, and more.
Want more information?
This is a very quick introduction to our gardening methods. We have a sister website called
www.grow-your-own-food.com
which goes into much greater detail about all the methods we've used here. If you want to read more about our experiences, that website has pages and pages of information on both in-soil and no-soil gardening methods, equipment, results and layouts. We hope you will go visit!
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