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- Herausgeber: Youcanprint
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021
You Are A Step Away From Discovering How Exactly You Can Grow Your Mini Farming Skillset To Finally Be Able To Have A Sustainable, All Rounded Backyard Farm That Supplies You With All Manner Of Fresh, Organic Crops, Eggs And Meat For Sustenance And Profits! Starting your own mini-farm may not be a practice that will make you rich, but it may help you save, improve the quality of your life in different ways and help you live longer. Imagine how fulfilling and heartening reducing your reliance on supermarkets, living off the grid- knowing that you're capable of living comfortably without the need to visit any store, and having a scenic view of a vibrant and rich farm to rest your eyes on can be… Well, you'd be surprised by how many people desire this kind of lifestyle, and how few of them actually achieve it! While mini-farming is indisputably simple, it can get complicated, costly and frustrating if approached the wrong way- which is why most people fail in it. Ever tried starting a simple farm, and abandoned it months later? Or have you been tending a basic garden, and haven't been able to scale up and now are still stuck there- scared to make mistakes… but somewhere deep down, you're burning in desire for a mini-farm? If that's you, then these concerns and questions may certainly sound familiar: How do I permanently manage pests and diseases? How would I handle the high yields? Which are the best crops and animals to keep for a sustainable mini garden? How do I introduce chicken into my mini farm – what are the dos and don'ts? What steps would I need to take to sell my produce? If I'm right, I have a solution for you, an intermediates guide that will take you step by step through everything you need to do to overcome the common hurdles most farmers face today, which keep them from living the mini-farm dream. Take a look at what you can expect to learn from it: How to control pests and diseases How to prepare or start seedlings at home, and why you need to do it How to work with seasons in mini-farming How to establish trees and vines for fruits How to raise chicken for eggs step by step How to raise chicken for meat step by step How to preserve your harvest How to sell your produce for profit …and so much more! Whether you're here to boost your income, increase your food production to sustain your family for the long-term or simply to get into a life-long practice that will give you the rare sense of fulfillment and peace, this intermediates' book is here for you. Even if you feel frustrated by because of the dismal results you get when you tried mini farming, this book will help you get over your frustrations, encourage you throughout the process and hold you by the hand until you see the results you've always envisioned! Scroll up and click Buy Now With 1-Click or Buy Now to get started!
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Mini Farming
for
Intermediate
A Intermediate Guide to Build your
Mini Farming
Charles Milne
Copyright by Charles Milne All rights reserved.
This eBook is provided with the sole purpose of providing relevant information on a specific topic for which every reasonable effort has been made to ensure that it is both accurate and reasonable. Nevertheless, by purchasing this eBook, you consent to the fact that the author, as well as the publisher, are in no way experts on the topics contained herein, regardless of any claims as such that may be made within. As such, any suggestions or recommendations that are made within are done so purely for entertainment value. It is recommended that you always consult a professional prior to undertaking any of the advice or techniques discussed within.
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Overview of Mini-Farming
Mini-farming differs primarily in its lack of focus on growing grains from the Grow Biointensive process, but it also dispenses with the methods of seed starting and plant spacing, among others. Mini-farming differs from the Biodynamic approach in that it does not use specific herbal preparations to prepare fertilizer, plant seeds by phases of the moon, or find the farm to be an object of its own making. There are so many other variations, you can't count them all. This mini-farming approach differs from the French Intensive system in that it does not rely on large inputs of manure from horses. The French approach is similar to Grow Biointensive in many respects and these variations also apply.
Intensive farming practices are being continuously perfected, extended, updated and developed by well-known practitioners and individual farmers. Agriculture is at its heart a method which is more biological than industrial. As a result, it is subject to the rules of nature that we humans only begin to understand.
As with any other endeavor, the path to success of intensive agriculture is through continuously growing knowledge.
You're expected to have journals every year. One journal lists each plant variety to be grown in the year in which the seed was acquired, and general information on the plant and its requirements. This is accompanied by journal entries explaining where, when and how the seeds were started; details on the transplantation of seeds; and significant events that affected the crop through harvesting. Any pest problems are reported in the article, along with the efficacy of any solutions and, in particular, details that might provide a clue as to why certain plants of a given crop might have been more or less affected.
Plant spacing is another significant journal entry unique to intensive agriculture. The starting value for the two-dimensional plant spacing is the in-row thinning distance defined in the seed set. This will provide optimal yields in a row-type system and will often yield optimum yields in a raised-bed intensive system, although a small amount of experimentation is in order, as yields relative to spacing will differ with soil and climate conditions. In the case of lettuce in my own yard, I have found that eight-inch spaces perform better than six-inch spaces — but the results will be different for different soils and climates.
Journals are an important resource for learning and developing.
All this knowledge helps to fine-tune the climate that I offer to the plant from year to year so that my reliance on fertilizers, horse manure and other external inputs — even organic — can be minimized from year to year. A journal of crop-specific
knowledge also lets me determine whether or not I want to grow a particular crop variety next year, or maybe grow it differently.
Another log to be held is a list of weather events, especially anomalies or anything that affects crops. This journal helps you to know that, in my field, you need to protect young spinach plants from hail when they are planted before the last frost date.
Having this information in hand enables my crops to be more competitive and to suffer less harm. You also keep a calendar /
planner that lets me lay down during the year when I need to perform different tasks — such as starting and transplanting seedlings or harvesting green manures. Such a calendar helps me to see and focus on labor bottlenecks in advance.
Note in the planner the date of the first harvests for each crop on the basis of the reported maturity dates for the crops, and you should take note of the instances where a particular crop matured sooner or later than expected. Predicted harvest dates often allow me to see in advance when succession planting or starting a crop at a time when it would not usually be used to minimize peak food preservation workloads so that work can be better spread out.
The final journal lists basically everything I do about soil fertility, including digging beds, compost material, soil organic changes, crop rotations, and so on. This knowledge is combined with knowledge on crop production and insect or disease problems.
The purpose behind all this journaling is to place all the interactions and findings in a sense that helps me to use this knowledge effectively to make better decisions every year than in the previous year. Working with biological systems is a cycle of continuous learning, and in the end, a mini-farmer will benefit from holding comprehensive notes. Intensive agriculture, since it grows plants close together in a fairly small area of land, is a field with plenty of space for exploration and makes the results of the experiment more readily apparent to the farmer. This gives mini-farmers the ability to make technological progress much faster than those involved in industrial farming.
Chapter One
Pest and disease control
Pest and disease problems are an unavoidable fact of life for the mini-farmer. Sometimes, they are barely noticeable and cause no significant problems. But at other times they can cause major crop losses. There are, unfortunately, hundreds of pests and diseases that affect vegetable crops. Active prevention is used when experience or reliable data indicate that a particular pest or disease is likely to be a problem. Active reaction is employed when the value of likely crop damage will exceed the costs of active reaction methods. Passive prevention is the application of good farming practices: well-composted and appropriately amended healthy soil, adequate sunshine, proper watering, crop rotation, and sufficient airflow.
In essence, this simply means to give plants growing conditions that are as close to optimal as possible. This will make them healthier and thus less susceptible to diseases and less attractive to pests. Active prevention uses active measures to prevent diseases or repel insect pests. Examples include applying repellent garlic or hot pepper sprays on plants to deter pests, installing physical barriers, putting out traps, or spraying the plants periodically with a fungus preventative. Sometimes, for certain types of pests, poisons that are usually used as a reactive measure may be required as active prevention. Active reaction occurs when preventative measures fail and a problem already
exists. Active reaction will often employ the same methods as active prevention, only with greater intensity, but it will also include, in most cases, the application of natural botanical or synthetic poisons or fungicides.
Pest management needs to be viewed holistically, as part of a bigger picture, to minimize crop damage while simultaneously protecting the long-range viability of the mini-farm. As part of this view, it is good to establish a threshold for what constitutes an acceptable level of damage before reactive, as opposed to preventative, measures need to be taken. This threshold is established economically, considering that the time, costs, and risks associated with active pest control measures will diminish the net grocery savings. So the threshold of acceptable damage for a given crop, in terms of percentage crop loss, is the level at which the value of the lost crop portion exceeds the cost of active control measures.
Potato beetles are a common garden pest.
Passive Prevention
Passive prevention gives the biggest bang for both your time and money because the focus lies mainly in performing ordinary farming chores. Soil, water, sunshine, and crop rotations are the foundation of pest and disease control; all of these create an
environment inhospitable to the persistence of pests and disease. A healthy, living soil with plenty of nutrients allows for vigorous growth so that crops can outgrow problems. In addition, healthier plants are less attractive to pests and less susceptible to disease in most cases. Healthy soil plays host to various portions of the life cycles of many beneficial insect populations, along with beneficial microbes that compete with nasty pathogens for nutrients and generate antibiotics to eliminate them. It is no mistake that forests thrive independent of human intervention, and the more closely a farmer’s garden approximates naturally optimal conditions for a crop, the less susceptible it will be to pest and disease problems. An important aspect of healthy soil, particularly with intensive agriculture, is compost. As discussed in chapter 5, merely using compost in your soil can significantly reduce pest and disease problems.
Proper watering is another important aspect of disease control.
Plant diseases spread most easily when plant tissues are wet; both excessive watering and overhead watering can increase the likelihood of disease problems. However, adequate moisture is also important because drought-stressed plants become more attractive to pests. Crop rotation is impossible to over emphasize. Just like there are viruses and bacteria that affect some mammals but not others—such as feline leukemia—there are numerous plant diseases that affect one family of vegetables but not others. Since these microbes need a host hospitable to
their reproduction to complete their life cycles, depriving them of the host they need through crop rotation is extremely effective at controlling many diseases. The same applies to insect pests, so the same crop should not be grown in the samebed two years in a row. Ideally, crop rotation will prevent crops of the same family from growing in the same bed any more often than once every three years. Specific plant variety selection is another important preventative. Notwithstanding the economic benefits of using open-pollinated seeds (described in the next chapter), some hybrids carry diseaseand pest-resistance genes that can make them a better choice if certain diseases or pests become a repetitive problem. On my farm, for example, I now grow hybrid cucumbers that are resistant to bacterial wilt disease. Dill is a common attractant of beneficial insects.
Finally, never discount the power of the sun. The same UV rays that make excessive sunshine a risk factor for skin cancer also scramble the genetic code in bacteria and viruses, rendering them incapable of infection. Sunshine sanitizes. Attracting beneficial insects is also useful. Most beneficial insects feed on or invade pest species at some point in their life cycle, but they also require certain plants for their well-being. Providing these plants in the garden will give beneficial insects a base of operations they can use to keep pest species controlled. A small planting of early, intermediate season, and late-blooming beneficial insect attractors in each garden bed will help stack the
deck in the farmer’s favor. Ladybugs love to eat aphids; dandelion, marigold, and hairy vetch will attract them. Tachanid flies help keep cabbage worms and stink bugs in check; a planting of parsley or pennyroyal will give them a home.
Beneficial insect attractors that bloom early include sweet alyssum, columbine, and creeping thyme. Intermediate bloomers include common yarrow, cilantro, edging lobelia, and mints. Late bloomers include dill, wild bergamot, and European goldenrod. An easy plan is to plant a few marigolds throughout the bed, a columbine plant, a bit of cilantro, and some dill. You should familiarize yourself with the properties of beneficial plant attractors before planting them in your beds. Don’t just run out
