Four-Course Rotation
Sitting down here in the ‘Rough Office’ in the paddock to write these few words, the first thing to catch the eye is the imaginatively named ‘Woody’ seven feet away on the peanut feeder- he’s a greater-spotted woodpecker who lives hereabouts and crikey – he’s big close up. What a view of him (or her-?) –in close-up amongst the stunningly white plum blossom- and the sun’s shining- gorgeous, nature in her finery.
Talking of nature, and working with it, years ago, before chemical sprays and fertilisers were used to any great shakes in farming, farmers and growers had to operate in an integral and sustainable fashion, otherwise the fertility of the soil would be wound down and longer-term results would suffer considerably. This mean’t they automatically had to think long-term as well as short-term – perhaps the use of chemicals in the growing processes has lessened focus on the long-term, by default then (over) strengthening focus on the shorter term-?
The rotation for the land (planning appropriate, differing land use over, say, four years) was therefore important, having not only to provide good shorter-term output results but also ensure on-going soil fertility for the longer-term, and such sustainable practices would have been described as ‘husbanding’ the land. It was advisable, for instance, not to be growing potatoes or ‘roots’ (eg, swedes) on an area of land more than one year in four, not only to help on-going soil fertility (by not taking too much out of the soil), but also as a crop disease limiter.
The four-course rotation was devised which would include crops such as grass/clover leys, to restore fertility to the soil. This then mean’t that the farming system had to be ‘mixed’ i.e. include both crop growing and livestock rearing (to utilise the grass/clover crop), the waste of which, dung and rotted straw, for instance, would then further contribute to on-going soil fertility. These days, most organic farmers will have to operate the same way, as they can’t resort to the chemical route for a ‘quick fix’.
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Smaller- very small- organic growers also have to think and plan ahead, and although the veg patch here on the eco micro-holding is only minscule small – allotment size- exactly the same mental process and effort has to be made to ensure longer-term on-going sustainability and viability. Again, this small patch of growing ground is divided into four with the basic rotation being potatoes, legumes (peas, beans fixing nitrogen into the soil), onions and then roots-swedes, turnips, parsnips and beetroot. Smaller stuff such as salad items tend to get squeezed in as and where.
At the moment, just after mid April, most of the 'heavy' planting work is done- the spuds are all in and mostly up, the biggish patch of onion sets planted and growing strongly, and the good patch of broad bean plants have been planted out and are doing well. Half the swedes are sown and up, as are the beetroot, parsnips have just been sown, and the runner ('stick') beans are currently in process of being planted out. What with blossom and leaves out anew and the ground getting ever fuller of produce, the picture in the 'poor man's walled garden', as it tends to be known , is looking very well, and very promising. Produce available for picking right now are lettuce, land cress, spring-type onions, spring greens- delicious! - and leeks.
This basic rotation helps the longer-term health of the soil, and over the thirty or so years of doing it here, crop diseases and pests have declined appreciably. Then there’s the ‘waste’ vegetation, which actually then isn’t waste, because it makes compost which adds to soil fertility, half the veg patch getting a good application each year, and finally each year some ‘green manuring’ (growing a crop, generally wheat here out of the chicken’s feed bag, to then dig in and further add to soil fertility). It all results in healthy, tasty, pretty economic produce, not necessarily the biggest known to man- but then, biggest isn’t necessarily always best, is it? – big veg often seems to be 'taste challenged', for instance.
Take last year’s biggish patch of mega tasty young broad beans- no seed costs (home-saved seed), no fertiliser or spray costs – a ‘cash free crop’. Bunged in the soil 'anyhow' under an old car windscreen, then planted out as plants, no weeding at all last year – hey presto in early July, a good crop of tasty young beans for the freezer, plenty of stalks and haulms for the compost heap, fertiliser in the form of nitrogen plucked out of the atmosphere for free and handily transferred to the soil, and then the ground free for a second crop- in this case a nice crop of tasty young leeks, which survived the harsh winter conditions this year very well.
There you go, easy beansy!
Seasonal solace------
The ‘four-course rotation’ could also represent the pattern and rythym of life here on the eco-holding, in that the four seasons feature strongly, with each season bringing its own preoccupations, interests, /challenges and satisfactions. Autumn, for instance, seems to be very much a ‘housekeeping’ phase, getting things ‘ship-shape and Bristol fashion’ to meet the rigours of the winter to come. Fuel in the form of wood had been collected/obtained and stored to dry earlier in the year, and autumn can be the time to make a start on, say, its sawing and chopping.
Autumn also sees work such as drain run-offs being cleared and cleaned as well as basic maintenance work such as hedge clipping, tree lopping, and all such activities seem to naturally and satisfactorily lead in to winter.
A ‘natural’ and satisfying winter ‘chore’ is chopping wood and sticks and lighting and tending the woodstove, as well as gathering in winter veg and potatoes, and in early winter, finishing off such maintenance-type work as hedge cutting. Later in winter, there’s also time for a bit of restorative semi-hibernation, which doesn’t go amiss.
Late winter, after the ‘dormant’ period, sees the re-kindling of interest with the work of preparing the growing ground – shaving off the weeds with a spade, applying the layers of woodash and compost to the relevant growing areas (half the veg patch each year), and then to the resurgent excitement of spring and its attendant hopes and expectations, planting and sowing the crops in anticipation of nature’s bounty- a busy but fulfilling time.
Summer completes the cycle with the main emphasis being on harvesting the bounty and experiencing that particular 'fuller' type of satisfaction that maybe bringing in one’s own harvest can bring.
Has, as has been said, earth anything to show more fair?
Small scale – small beer-?
Some, though, suggest that such efforts are not worthwhile – ‘easier and cheaper to buy it at the supermarkets’, although there does seem resurgent interest these days in ‘growing your own’.
There may well, though, have never been a time in fact such as these days, where the power and influence of large organisations have impacted on people quite so much. The ‘giantist’ supermarkets have in effect taken much of the trade from smaller, traditional, independent traders, something Mary Portas, the ‘retail queen’ from TV has railed against, also ‘mass processing’ ourselves the customers in the process. No social contact at all now is necessarily needed; purchases can be processed by the customer her/hisself with one of the hand-held automatic gizmos. Given also the supermarkets reputation for toughness with their suppliers, perhaps then their overall ‘de-socialising’ effect could be considerable
Other large concerns can seemingly also come over aggressively to individual customers- there have been many reported incidences of individuals having difficulties with larger concerns. Big main street banks are now reportedly for instance having to re-imburse customers billions for mis-selling insurance in their aggressive drive for profits, surely in the process endangering what certainly used to be 'banking gold', i.e. trust. The power lies of course with the ‘larger’, and individuals are very small organisms, so perhaps not too hard to see the form in what appears to have been hyper-competitive times with a strong and sustained drive for short-term maximum profit making as a key theme.
The individual is of course a small and relatively powerless organism, which presumably why ‘freeworld’ countries enshrined the rights of the individual in their democratic constitutions, although in a world in which 'big' often appears to be the name of the game and organisational power has proliferated, sometimes to the direct detriment of individuals as is illustrated in the banking example above, some have expressed concerns that individual democratic rights could be under pressure.
‘Small beer’ individuals indeed may be, and it’s probably true that their opportunity to influence is miniscule (although it’s maybe important to remember that through history it’s individuals not organisations who’ve been remembered), but definitely not small beer in terms of the individual’s own life and life satisfactions and impact on those around them.
It may even then be more important in such a ‘largist’ world to work at independence of spirit and at avoiding being sucked in too much to mass, standardised ways and values. To follow, then, what the business guru, Charles Handy, has called the way of ‘honourable individualism’, which could be the ‘thinking for self’, self-responsible, self-determining free-ranger way!
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