hey everyone welcome back to digging deeper this week on the show we're tackling a
question that i get asked a lot which is how to open up new grounds in the market garden
all right so first things first i want to let everyone know that i read the comments that people
send and i really appreciate it i don't respond to everyone because i really don't have the
time busy with the farming but i do appreciate the comments and also i'm thinking about making videos
on some of the suggestions or the comments or the questions that we get asked a lot so
feel free to shoot us lines we do appreciate and today i want to share a little experiment that
i'm running here on another farm project that i'm a part of and we're looking at
three different ways to open up new ground which is a question that i get asked a lot
and we're going to be observing what the difference is with the soil structure
and some of the qualities the plus and cons of these three different ways and the first one is
pretty typical of my farming style the black silage tarps if you've been following my work
you know solid tarps are a big part of my toolbox and for opening new ground it's really useful
because it's a passive low-tech strategy that really works so you'll just cover the soil with
these tarps they're uv treated they're black and it's really the absence of light that will you
know kill everything that's underneath but it's actually not killing it it's just creating a mulch
that you know all the living soil creatures that are there will come up and chew the grass so to
get rid of the sod that's a great way but it takes a lot of time so you need to have time
and how much time is required is a good question that we'll be answering with this experiment
the other way is more of a classical way and that's one way that i've opened up
a lot of fields with that's how i did it on my farm when i started it's a typical uh
pretty traditional way of plowing you know kind of kind of quite deep to make sure that the sod
is kind of put back into the lower inches of the ground and then discs a few times two three times
then the bindweed will come up it's disc it's this again and a third time it's this
and then you'll have new ground that you can work your beds in opening ground this way is
what a lot of people are not doing right now because there's a big hype on no-till systems
but no-till is a good strategy in itself especially when your beds are established but
if you've read any literature on market gardening dating from the early 1800s a lot of the best
advice that you can find is that when you're opening new ground you want to do the reverse
of a no-till you want to make sure that you're opening the soil as deep as possible because
that's what's going to create the soil profile that you're going to be working on later on so
if you're familiar with double digging that's the reason behind it especially when you're opening
new ground or preparing new beds and there's a reason for that john jeven was one that really
talked a lot about that you can google him you can google double digging but he learned from somebody
that learned from the old french parisian market gardeners and they were all opening new ground
by double digging so the plow does that and the disking uh allows to break all the
sod and it's a great way it's a way that works and it's some certainly one way that i would recommend
but i also want to be showing you a third way which i think is more of the permaculture way
and it involves using our friendly pigs so pigs are really amazing because their snouts it acts
just like a plow and they're opening new ground and the beauty with them is that they're eating
all the roots that they find in the sod and so one of the big problems when you're opening
new ground is that let's say you're just flipping the top you'll still have buying weed and the
rhizomium that's in the bottom that's always going to become a problem i think the pigs but because
they're eating all of this the root systems of the binding they'll get rid of it and that's one
of the experiment that i'm trying here so the beauty with these guys is that they're eating
all the root systems but they're also providing us with eventually really amazing charcuteries
for for the farm-to-table place that we're that we're doing here so i know that there's a lot
of buzz right now on no-till systems and there's a lot of people that are preaching
that you know soil should never be disturbed but you know that's not
how i see things and from all that i've studied about soil dynamics and soil ecology and all the
experiments that i've run through the years having a really deep loose soil to start with
is is really key no-till minimal tillage really kicks in when you have beds established when you
have soil that is really loose and deep that was worked and then you really want to have an active
you know biological community in there that's doing the work but to start the gardens
when you have heavy sod you know i think the experiments that we're running here i think should
be in lighting with regards to soil structure and you know i know from experience that's that's a
classic and great way to start so that's it for this week's episode i'd love to hear how you
would open new ground or how you've done it sharing is learning so if you want to post
comments about how you've done it i'd love to read about that i'll be sharing the conclusions
of some of these experiments and months to come but till then i just want to wish you uh you know
good times on the farm hope things are growing spiritually and emotionally hope you're doing well
i am i'm excited don't forget to subscribe to the channel i'll see you next time guys jm out