The different family scale gardens that I am trailing, such as those based on No-Dig,
Intensive or Polycrop methods, are generally part of broader movements even though there
may be key individuals providing details and inspiration.
But the Extensive Garden is different as it is based primarily on the explorations and
writings of one person, Steve Solomon. When I was starting this RED Gardens project
I came across his book just by chance, and was quite taken by the arguments and methodologies put forward in it.
Steve has a very different take on a lot of things,
and is directly challenging the core assumptions and practices of a lot of the other methods for growing
He has particular issues with the Intensive methodologies
promoted by John Jeavons, so I thought the term Extensive was particularly
fitting for this garden following Steve Solomon’s advice.
I should admit that I find Steve's arguments quite persuasive, perhaps more so than with
the other gardens. They seem to fit quite well within my own
biases and ways of thinking.
In his books Steve tells a fascinating story about the history of the organic movement
and how it impacted on his own life, experiences that led him to develop an alternative methodology for growing.
Some methods are outside of, or at least on
the edge of what is usually considered appropriate within the organic, and permaculture movements.
I've come to see this as a continuation of a separate, relatively unknown branch of the
organic family tree. His focus is on producing vegetables with
the highest nutritional quality, rather than focusing on producing the highest yield, or
using methods that seem more natural. Other methods may claim to focus on the same
outcome of high nutrition, but perhaps there's an assumption inbuilt within it that the
chosen methods will automatically lead to this.
Steve asserts that this is unlikely and focusses on a much more direct approach to increasing
nutritional density, using a couple of key methods that I find quite interesting.
One part of this is to make sure that plants are not stressed while growing.
The main ways to do this is to give plants lots of space, substantially more than in
other gardens, especially in the root zone underground.
With more space there is less chance of plants becoming stressed due to a lack of water - which
isn’t normally an issue here in Ireland, but the soil can be surprisingly dry at times.
More space also gives more soil volume for each plant to forage for the nutrients that
they need. Take these two issues together and closely
spaced plants may not have enough soil to grow into, especially with plants that are
in the ground for a long growing season. The idea is that if plants can’t continually
produce new roots, the nutritional quality will decline, even with abundant fertility
in the soil. I definitely want to do some more research
and exploration about this, but I do find it a bit disconcerting to limit the number
of plants in this garden, as my natural tendency is to try to get as much out of the space
as possible. I also try to sow later season plants too
close to established plants, and it usually doesn’t end well.
With this garden I need to focus on growing less, with the aim of producing stronger and
healthier plants, and accepting the fact that there may be less to harvest, but with hopefully
higher overall nutrition.
A related aspect is to try to directly sow seeds into the final plant location as much
as possible. Avoiding the use of transplants means that
there is less chance of the plants becoming root bound, and will more likely establish
stronger and larger root systems. There is also the issue that transplanting
is often a shock to the young plants, setting them back for a few days or even weeks.
This direct sowing seems to work well with some plants, but I'm struggling with others,
especially with the timing for growing plants like squash, given our cool growing season
and risk of late frost. Unfortunately, by direct sowing most plants,
it reduces the opportunities of growing a succession of crops in a season.
And it does mean that the garden tends to look quite empty, especially at the early
part of the season, but that's something I'm trying to work on.
Managing fertility is another area where Steve Solomon differs from other growers.
He suggests adding only a moderate amount of compost, enough to feed the soil biology,
and then to feed the plants using a mix of concentrated fertility that is imported into
the garden. Part of the reason for doing this is that
he believe that most growers and gardeners don’t have the skills or resources to make
enough compost of high enough fertility to satisfy the needs of vegetables.
He also questions the viability of adding substantially more organic matter than would
be present in the natural ecosystem. I'm still trying to get my head around this
idea that there is a natural plateau for soil organic matter, and I wonder what other factors
might affect this.
The imported concentrated fertility that Steve recommends feeding plants with, is a mix he
calls Complete Organic Fertiliser, or COF. He has developed a recipe of specific proportions
of various dry material, that is tailored to provide a balanced supply of all the nutrients
plants need, and adjusted for the basic type of soil and climate you are growing in.
I followed these instructions in the past but for the last few years I‘ve simplified
things to a mix of organic chicken manure pellets, seaweed dust, and soft rock phosphate.
I have found it difficult to get seed meals in Ireland, which Steve strongly recommends
using, and wonder if it's better to search for more unusual supplies like this in order
to conform to the recipe, or is it better to adapt to what is readily available.
Either way, I really need to be more precise with this feeding formula, especially after
this past year, as many plants haven't grown as well as they could have.
One of the reasons why I value Steve’s approach is that he has changed his opinion on several
occasions. I like the willingness to move on from what
he has promoted before, or at least to identify the flaws, it feels more trustworthy and less
biased. He's done this with the more recently publication
of another book called The Intelligent Gardener. In it he details the reasons why we should
be amending our soils on the basis of a comprehensive soil test, and provides relatively easy to
follow instructions about how to go about this with a fair degree of precision.
A few years ago I started the process of nudging this garden towards what is potentially an
ideal soil, but I haven’t kept up with it in the last year or two.
I really need to do another soil test in the spring and to revisit the methodology that
he outlines, to see what effect that it would have.
The results of all of this have been quite mixed.
I haven’t been consistent with timing of direct sowing, and some pest damage to seedlings
has had an impact on crops. Managing fertility is something I really need
to work at, to move away from the ‘that should be good enough’ approach.
I need to stop trying to fit more into the space, to grow less so that what does grow
is the highest possible quality. Some crops have been very successful, with
really big yields that are still tender and tasty, although the weight of the overall
harvest is still less than the other gardens. But interestingly, when I compare the total
amount harvested with the amount of time that I’ve spent in this garden, or the kilograms
per hour worked, this could be higher than with the other gardens.
It's for this and other reasons that if I had to choose only one method, and if I had
a lot of space to grow in, I would probably use this Extensive method.
I'm really interested in the possibilities of this methodology, and I eventually want
to test to see how vegetables from this garden compare to what is produced in the other gardens.
First I have to get to the point where I'm managing everything well, so that it's a fair
and appropriate comparison. But for now it seems that the plants are often
stronger and healthier in this garden, and that’s definitely interesting.
One of the things that I really value about this project where I’m trialling a number
of different gardening methodologies, is that it forces me to move beyond my preconceptions
and my biases, to approach things in different ways.
This is perhaps true of gardening in general, and it’s one of the reasons why I really
value this RED Gardens Project. If you’d like to support me in this project,
please go to my Patreon Page. Any contributions you make will help me to
produce more videos in the future. But, for now, thanks for watching.