Early Summer Garden Update and Goals
In a previous article, I discussed why instead of a UBI, the government should provide land to individuals rather than money. Money is merely a medium of exchange/marker of value and does not actually help individuals and communities become more resilient to crises. Land and other renewable natural resources are the true source of our wealth and redistributing the rights to these things, rather than the skimmings from the profits (tax), will empower individual citizens. UBI, like other forms of welfare, seems likely to only encourage further dependency.
I decided to test out how feasible this idea would be myself. As I live in an apartment there is not much space for gardening (although I do now have 8 porch planters with various herbs/other container friendly plants), I obtained a 50 sq ft plot from the City of Baltimore for $55. The plot also came with free water, as well as free manure/woodchips. Due to low demand I was also able to obtain 2 other plots in partial shade for free, bringing my total land area to 150 sq ft. In How to Grow More Vegetables, John Jevons suggests that approximately 1,000 sq ft. is necessary to grow enough food to feed oneself for a year. However, this requires an extremely sparse diet, as well as expert-level skill at gardening (which I do not have yet). The farmable land available to each American currently is something on the order of ~50,000 square feet, meaning I currently have about 1/10 of the land that would be required to support me minimally, and 0.25% of the land that would be given to me as part of my proposed UBI. I also could not rely on chemical fertilizers and pesticides: these both depend on non-renewable resources and pollute the water and soil.
However, despite these limitations,I still thought I could get a lot of value out of the land that I do have. A lot of the most expensive things I buy at the supermarket are things like salad leaves and herbs, which can easily be grown in a small space. And veggies that are very expensive fresh, such as summer squash, would also help to save me money on groceries.
Goals
With that in mind, my goals for the garden this year were not centered on producing 30% of my calories, but on saving money on groceries, and building skills/soil fertility. Explicit goals are as follows:
- Monetary
C. Recoup investment of money ($55 plot, $75 seeds: total $130)
B. Reduce grocery bill by ~10–25% a week (about $15–30 dollars)
A. Do not buy salad greens and/or temperate spices ever again
2. Skill
C. Don’t kill everything. Learn double digging, planting, other basics
B. Grow something successfully from three botanical families/food groups (root veggies, leaves, beans, squash, sunflowers)
A. Successful sucession planting/crop rotation
3. Sustainability
B. No chemical fertilizers at all: only urine, compost produced by garden/household waste and free manure from the city
A. Improve the soil fertility, rather than deplete/destory it
The plan
Enlisting the labor of my roomate Per Ardua ad Astra, the initial plan was to double dig both initial plots in late February/early march and then cover with a layer of aged manure. We’d age the manure for another few weeks and then plant the spring crops in Mid-Late March. Each of our 50 sq ft plots was divided into roughly 10 sq ft (extra for paths) and we planned each subplot as a unit. The third bed was only started in the summer, so that remains as 1–50 sq ft unit.
Spring Crops: 2x (Lettuce, Carrots, Radishes), 1x (kale onions), 1x (kale beets), 1x (strawberries, lettuce, radishes), 1x (carrots, spinach), 1x (spinach, beets, spring onions), 1x (onions, beets).
Then, in May, as we began to harvest the spring crop, we would plant out the summer crop in the gaps, leaving later crops to mature (carrots, kale).
Summer Crops: 1x (4 pumpkins, 2 canteloupe, soybeans), 1x( strawberries+ soybeans), 1x(soybeans+New zealand spinach+cucumbers), 1x(onion lefovers, new zealand spinach, cucumbers) 2x(Zucchini, sunflowers, broad beans), 1x (radish pods, kale, soybeans, carrot leftovers, 1 cantaloupe), 1x (Zucchini, carrot leftovers, soybeans).
Finally as the Summer crops died out, we would plant our fall/winter crops.
Fall Crops: 1x(Garlic and Kale (50 sq ft), 3x (wheat (for mushroom spawn)), 1x(strawberries, spinach), 1x (beets/kale), 1x (peas/kale), 1x(spinach, peas), 1x (carrots, spinach, radishes).
In future years, we may need to cover crop in the fall, but as the soil is fresh (hasn’t been planted in a number of years), and we planted legumes all summer and planned to fertilize with urine, it likely isn’t necessary this year.
Additionally, in the 8 planters on the porch we are growing cucumbers, New Zealand spinach, baby bell peppers and all our herbs. The bell peppers are co-planted with beans, which will grow around the railings.
How it Actually Went
Everything went smoothly and according to plan for the first few months. However, many of the march plantings didn’t sprout (it was too cold), especially the beet and kale. So in late-april we planted another round of radishes to take advantage of the space. These proved to be largely wasted, as a few hot days in late may caused them to bolt right before they were ready.
The third bed that we recieved for free we did not double dig, as it was covered in weeds. Instead we used cardboard and topsoil to “lasgna” garden and choke out the weeds by covering them with the cardboard and a layer of soil. Although I have some mild worries about the roots not being able to punch through the cardboard and reach the actual soil, time will tell how successful we were.
For fertilizer we used our initial layer of aged manure, as well as fortnightly applications of 1:10 diluted urine. Yes my own urine. Urine is extremely high in nitrogen content and has an NPK ratio of 11:2:4, and makes a great fertilizer for heavy feeding plants.
Our harvests so far have beaten my expectations. We’ve harvested about ~250 radishes, ~3 pounds of spinach, about a pound of kale and a few strawberries. Netting has prevented birds from getting some, but not all, of our strawberries, so we should have been able to harvest a few more.
Problems/What I’ve Learned
- Planting too early. Most, if not all of the seeds we planted in early March did not sprout because of cold snaps. We were afraid to plant on top of them a few weeks later, so delayed planting to early april.
- Slugs. We had a few very wet weeks here in baltimore in the middle of may, and these guys tore up our radish leaves, various sprouts, and spinach.
- Planting too densely. This wasn’t a problem in early spring, a time with fairly low germination rates. However, when we planted the last round of radishes in mid April, we seeded as if this germination rate was true, leading to really dense radish sprouts. We did some thinning, but not enough, which, combined with the heat, pretty much ruined our last group of radishes.
- Urine works: Amazing spinach growth with diluted urine fertilizer. However, have to be careful with watering, as like with other fertilizers, even diluted urine can burn plant leaves
I’ll be doing another update at the end of the summer with our yields of summer vegetables.
Take care!
Deus Ex Vita
