Hank
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Poster: Hank @ Mon Aug 24, 2009 1:33 am
There are two main philosophies about how to go about planting food. The one that's dominated commercial farming for a super long time is called "monocropping." This is the practice of growing big fields of single crops -- for example, Phil the Farmer might have a hundred acres of soy beans only, and another hundred acres of corn only. Though it's possible to produce a lot of cash crops this way, there are some risks to this approach :
1) Monocropping pulls the same nutrients out of the soil over and over again, creating dry, leached soil
2) Monocropping makes it easy for pests and disease that affect the single crop to flourish, as they're not controlled by competing organisims
3) Because of the leaching and pest-promotion effects, chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides are often used in monocropping arrangements. These chemicals then leach into the groundwater below.
The competing approach to monocropping is called "companion planting." This is where more than one type of crop is planted in the same space. There are two principal reasons for doing this :
1) Crops that are 'companions' have symbiotic relationships that are mutually beneficial to each other's growth and production
2) Each crop in a 'companion' arrangement attracts its own pests and diseases, which often compete with and control those of the other crops in the companion arrangement. This helps control the proliferation of problems.
-Companion planting has one big drawback that makes it a tough sell for commercial farming : it's tough to mechanically harvest companion-planted crops, as they're at different heights and whatnot. However, for the private grower, this usually doesn't present a problem.
- A few of the classic companion-planting sets (or "guilds" if you want to be nerdy about it) are :
-Corn, beans, squash (the so-called "three sisters")
- Tomatoes, basil, marigolds
- Citrus, grapes, comfrey (the latter being an herb commonly used for soil fertility and medicine)
-Mesquite, melons, edible flowers (violets, nasturtium, safflower -- toast 'em with sugar).
- In each of these arrangements, there's a tall shade plant (corn and tomatoes) supported by a nitrogen-fixing lower plant (beans and marigolds) and ground cover (squash, melons). 'Nitrogen-fixing' plants are those that take atmospheric nitrogen from the air and put it in the soil through their roots. This enriches the soil and makes surrounding plants grow better.
Clearly, companion planting is the choice of winners when it comes to family-scale urban food raising, There's something you want to beware of, however : cross-pollination.
- Cross-pollination is where plants of the same family, such as peppers and tomatoes, exchange genetic information by having their pollen spread to each other via bees. If different crops in the same family get cross-pollinated, you will get weird monster Frankenplants that may not be very edible. This cross-pollination can also mess with your seed-saving for the next season.
- So, what to do about it? Well, don't companion-plant crops in the same plant family. Also, don't plant same-family crops in the same wind-line (that is, in such a way that normal winds blowing across your site are likely to cross-polinate) or the same bee-line. Bee-lines are the linear paths bees take when flying about your site. If you observe the bees at work, you'll notice that the bee-line tends to be static and is often straight.
- Note : cross-pollination doesn't affect root crops or crops eaten before flower.
If you take one idea away from this series, let it be this one : Start your urban agronomy adventure by planting crops that are native to your geography and climate. This will help you get real results in the early stages and save you from the heartbreak of trying to plant mangoes in Grand Rapids. After you've got some success with your favorite native crops, you can start to branch out and experiment with plant types from neighboring climate zones. Remember the adage "as above, as below" -- meaning that the height of your plant is mirrored in depth by the plant's root system -- and use this to guess the viability of various plants in your soil. If you're in a dry climate, you should probably wait until you have a good, moisture-retaining, humidity-producing "canopy" ecosystem (with tall shade plants / trees, ground cover, and intermediary plants) before attempting to grow wet-climate or tropical crops.
Enjoy your experience with growing your own food; it's one of the first and biggest steps to getting free of some hideously clanking institutional chains. Grow native foods, share and trade your surplus, and pass along the knowledge that you gain. Let's take back our food supply!
Addenda :
- Citrus can flourish in many planting settings -- in a traditional yard arrangement, in small spaces, or potted in adequately-sized containers. Be sure to keep lemon trees away from other trees, as the lemon will choke the others out.
- "Leguminous" desert trees such as mesquite and palo verde, which fix nitrogen, can crow to viable status from seed in only two years -- try it!
- Much of the above information was drawn from Heather Welch's lecture series "Designing your Vegetable Garden" as presented by the Phoenix Permaculture Guild, November 2008
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