THE NEW ORGANIC GROWER

A MASTER’S MANUAL OF TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES FOR THE HOME AND MARKET GARDENER

ELIOT COLEMAN

CHELSEA GREEN, VERMONT               1989

One of the intangible legacies the Shakers left to the world is their demonstration that it is possible for man to create the environment and the way of life he wants, if he wants it enough. Man can choose.

The Shakers were practical idealists. They did not dream vaguely of conditions they would like to see realized; they went to work to make these conditions an actuality. They wasted no time in raging against competitive society, or in complaining bitterly that they had no power to change it; instead they built a domain of their own, where they could arrange their lives to their liking.

Marguerite Fellows Melcher The Shaker Venture

Introduction by Paul Hawken

• I am convinced that virtually everything intelligent that can be said and written about gardening and agriculture exists already, but when asked to write this introduction to Coleman’s book on gardening, I agreed immediately because in this instance the world needs and deserves another book.
• A teacher once advised me to read the book that saved me from reading ten others. Farmers of Forty Centuries is such a book; so is Nutrition and Physical Degeneration.
• Eliot is committing himself to print after two decades of intensive work in the field and garden, work which has produced spectacular results not only in yield and bounty but in thought and insight.
• I know of no other person who can produce better results on the land with an economy of effort and means.
• While we are justifiably confident that when it comes to anthropology, physics, and biogenetics, our universities uphold the highest standards of inquiry and experimentation, it is in the area of our land and food where they have failed us utterly.
• Here we must look to the land itself, and in particular to those people who ‘husband’ it to find standards of truth that we can live by and that allow us to live in turn.
• The problems we face – eroded lands, vanishing topsoil, genetic loss, toxic food, poisoned wells – were created by the temptation to find simple solutions. The answers reside in intimate knowledge of species, biota, soil, climate, and place, a type of observation that is embodied before it is taught or transmitted.
• Eliot not only embodies this intimate science of place, but has been throughout his life the untrammeled observer, unphased by theories of any one school of thought, enamored of experience. It is this seasoned knowing that he shares here.
• The act of learning to garden and farm, so sincere and simple on its face, is in the hands of Eliot an act of restoration that has implications far beyond one lifetime. It is practice.
• And like any practice, it can only be learned through repetition, dedication, and good teaching. This is the good teaching.

Preface

• I strongly believe in the values and rewards of the small farm. This book is written for those with a small farm dream, but it also has a wealth of ideas to offer the serious home gardener.
• The efficient, professional techniques described here are basically scale neutral. Organic growing is not complicated. Nor is it difficult.
• My teachers were books, people, models, and most important of all, my own curiosity. The lessons I was fortunate to learn from them influenced the form and function of my approach to farming and helped create this book.

Chapter One: Agricultural Craftsmanship

• The factors that affect the growth of plants include: light, moisture, temperature, soil fertility, mineral balance, biotic life, weeds, pests, seeds, labor, planning, and skill.
• The more they can be arranged to the crop’s liking, the more successful the growers operation will be.

The biology of agriculture

• The skills required to manage a biological system are similar to those of the conductor of an orchestra. Agriculture cannot be an industrial process any more than music can be.
• The major workers – the soil microorganisms, the fungi, the mineral particles, the sun, the air, the water – are all parts of a system, and it is not just the employment of any one of them but the coordination of the whole that achieves success.
• A Kansas farmer told me that his favorite book was a 1930s agricultural textbook that stressed the value of biological techniques such as crop rotation, animal manures, green manures, cover crops, mixed cropping, mixed stocking, legumes, crop residues, and more. He used those practices on his farm simply because they worked so well, with yields equal to and often far better than his neighbors’.
• His crop rotation and mixed-farming system made weeds, pests, and diseases negligible problems.
• When fertilizer prices rose he felt secure because his production techniques were independent of purchased materials.
• The secret to success in agriculture is to remove the limiting factors to plant growth.
• These practices do that by efficiently and economically generating a balanced soil fertility from within the farm rather than importing it from without. They power the system through nurturing the natural processes of soil fertility, plant growth, and pest management and enable them to work even better.
• As a further bonus they eliminate such negatives as soil erosion, fertilizer run-off, and pesticide pollution at the same time.

Creating a system

• I have been compiling and evaluating information on biologically based food production techniques ever since I started farming, becoming aware of the enormous untapped potential of this way of farming and enthralled by the discovery and practice of the simple techniques of an agriculture in harmony with the natural world.
• I concentrated on collecting information in four subject areas: simple production techniques; efficient machinery and tools; reducing expenditures on supplies; and marketing.
• Although growing commercial crops is often considered for ‘experts’ only, it most emphatically is not.
• The more successful the farmer, the better he understands how to enhance the natural processes without overwhelming them. That simply stated idea is the key to successful food production.
• The small farmer can and does compete and succeed economically and practically when he has access to equipment scaled and priced within his means and designed for his tasks.
• The equipment ideas included here originated in many different countries.
• To keep costs down I emphasize the importance of ‘low-input production practices’, such as crop rotation, green manures, animal manure management, efficient labor, and season extension, thus increasing stability and independence of the farm.
• The most stable farm economy is one that is built upon the greatest use of farm-generated production aids.
• Marketing has always been the make-or-break area for small-scale producers. Farmers who enjoy the greatest economic success have found competitive niches in the larger marketing system.

But it can’t be done, can it?

• Most sections of the United States were once fed by small local farms. Today that is considered an impossible dream.
• If you understand how the economic and practical realities change when low-cost production methods are allied with the right machinery and marketing practices, then the case does not seem hopeless at all.
• One-half to five acres is a highly productive scale of vegetable growing. The management skills needed for an operation this size are enjoyable rather than onerous.
• It is a comprehensible size for commercial food production – large enough to make a living yet small enough to retain emphasis on quality; diverse enough so that the work is never dull yet compact enough so it is never out of control.
• The experts have been mistaken before and they will certainly be mistaken again. What they have failed to realize in the case of the small farm is that with careful planning, organization, and desire, there is nothing that ‘can’t be done.’

Chapter Two: Land

• Every ideal farm at one time began as field and woodland. If you already own or can obtain a productive farm that is well established, then by all means do so. But if that is not possible, then do not hesitate to buy the raw land and create the farm.
• A few suggestions follow on things to take into account when looking for a piece of land with an eye to turning it into a successful small-scale farm.
• Almost any soil can be made productive for growing crops, but the dream soil for vegetable production is sandy loam. Humus or organic matter is the key to productivity.
• The cultural practices recommended in this book will help put in the organic matter and nutrient supply to make a productive success from a wide range of initial soil types.
• Land with a southern aspect has a number of advantages. Plants and gardens need to breathe fresh air. A low area with no air movement is undesirable for a number of reasons.
• A windbreak, which can be anything from trees and tall hedges, to low stone or board walls, to strips of wheat or rye, can minimize the damaging effects of strong winds and optimize the benefits of solar warmth.
• Excess water is a flood and too little water is a drought. The farmer must make provision for both.
• North, South, East, or West; hot or cold; wet or dry; urban, suburban, rural, or remote: crops can be grown in any and all of these places. The main consideration is proximity to market and access. The depredations of both two- and four-legged invaders can prove costly.
• Both lead from exhaust and cadmium from tire wear have been found in excessive amounts in food grown within 200 to 300 feet of heavily traveled highways. A 6- to 8-foot high evergreen hedge bordering the highway can block out the bulk of this pollution before it reaches the fields beyond.
• The premise of this book is that you can make a good living on five acres or less of intensive vegetable production.
• I recommend in all cases that you make an initial basic soil test on the fields you intend to use for vegetable production. The interpretation of soil test results is something that I suggest growers do for themselves by common sense. The method and manner of adding nutrients is explained in Chapter 10.
• Described below is what I believe the perfect piece of land would look like, but the determined farmer can transform even the most unlikely site into a model farm by applying the basic techniques of soil building…

Chapter Three: Scale and Capital

• Small vegetable farms have almost entirely disappeared, but their weakness has not been one of scale but of useless information.

Bigger is not better

• When I started farming my prototype of the economically viable five-acre farm didn’t even exist, although it used to exist. Although the product was excellent, small farming died out because the process was exhausting and neither cost effective nor efficient.

The European Model

• There are sections of the industrial world where the small farm has been and continues to be a success. Western Europe is such an area.
• Entrepreneurial farming in Europe led to better rather than bigger. Increased income lay in improving production on existing acreage rather than expanding.

The five-acre answer

• Five acres is the optimum size because it is about as much land as a couple or small family can manage. I place the upper limit at somewhere around 2½ acres per person – more than sufficient to grow a year’s worth of vegetables for 100 people.
• The small farmer’s aim is to produce a quality product for an appreciative clientele.
• The most encouraging aspect of small-scale farming is that the capital requirements to start up are reasonable. In this and many other ways small scale in agriculture should be understood as a very positive factor.

Equipment

• The basic high-quality equipment needed to manage five acres of vegetable production can be purchased new for about $6,000 and consists of ….
• The small farmer operates in a unique situation. Definitions of the possible, the economic, the realistic, and the practical are completely changed.
• More than anything else, a lack of understanding of these definitions and a parallel lack of information on down-scaled biological and mechanical technologies have added to the belief that human-scale, regionally based agriculture ‘can’t be done.’ It can.

Chapter Four: Part-Time Help

Chapter Five: Market Strategy

Chapter Six: Planning and Observation

Chapter Seven: Crop Rotation

Chapter Eight: Green Manures

Chapter Nine: Tillage

Chapter Ten: Soil Fertility

Chapter Eleven: Direct Seeding

Chapter Twelve: Transplanting

Chapter Thirteen: Soil Blocks

Chapter Fourteen: Setting Out Transplants

Chapter Fifteen: Weeds

Chapter Sixteen: Pests?

Chapter Seventeen: Harvest

Chapter Eighteen: Marketing

Chapter Nineteen: Season Extension

Chapter Twenty: Livestock

Chapter Twenty-One: A Final Question

Chapter Twenty-Two: L’Envoi

Chapter Notes

Annotated Bibliography

Appendix One: Tools

Appendix Two: From Asparagus to Zucchini: The Major Vegetable Crops

Appendix Three: A Schematic Outline of Biological Agriculture

Index