Garden Report:
Common Ground Mini-Farm at Ecology Action Headquarters in Willits, CA
by Ryan Batjiaka, Assistant Garden Manager
The last of the summer-planted
crops have made
their way to the compost
piles, and the Ecology
Action garden is filled
with hopeful fava beans,
winter grains and different
vetches. These cover crops
will help nurture the soil
over the winter so that
when spring comes the
land will be healthier and
ready to support a new
cast of life-giving plants.
Cover cropping has so
many benefits from so
many different angles
that you know this is how
nature intended things to
work. Even though the
weather will be cold, our
cover crops will spend the
coming months turning
sunlight , water and
carbon dioxide into large
amounts of plant matter
(we like to say "biomass")
both above ground as
leaves and stems, and
below ground as roots.
When we are ready to
plant in the spring, all the
above-ground biomass of
the cover crop is cut and
put into compost piles
while all the roots stay in
the bed where they break
down and feed the soil.
On top of this addition of plant matter to
our compost piles and soil, when we plant
fava beans and vetches we are adding
nitrogen to the soil, thanks to the nitrogen-fixing
bacteria these plants support. Cover
crops also help suppress weeds and prevent
erosion, which is a big danger when heavy
rains pour on a hillside garden like ours.
Our arsenal of cover crops includes rye,
oats, wheat, barley, triticale, hairy vetch,
wooly vetch, purple vetch, Austrian field
peas and fava beans. Currently we are
running many different experiments to see
what combination of these different crops
provides the most biomass for our compost
piles. We'll also try to see if certain seeding
rates and combinations of cover crops have
a noticeable effect on the crops that are
planted after them. If a particular cover
crop mix is exceptionally good at fixing
nitrogen, for example, we might be able to
see that reflected in the health and yields
of the crop planted afterward.
This spring we planted two beds of
quinoa right next to each other on the
same day. One bed of quinoa had been
preceded by a nitrogen-fixing cover crop
of fava beans and the other by a cover crop
of winter rye. The quinoa that followed the
fava beans had a much deeper green color
while the other bed of quinoa was lighter
green, with occasional yellowing lower
leaves, a sign that the fava beans probably
increased the nitrogen levels for the one bed
of quinoa. In addition to the visible health
of the plants the yields of the two beds
also indicate that the fava beans probably
helped the quinoa that came after it. The
quinoa that followed the rye produced 4.1
lb of seed and 9.6 lb of biomass per 100 sq
ft, while the quinoa that followed the fava
beans produced 4.3 lb of seed and 11.3 lb
of biomass. So the quinoa growing on soil
cover-cropped with nitrogen-fixing fava
beans produced 15% more biomass, and
although it did not produce a significantly
larger quantity of seed, it would not be
surprising for the seed to have a higher
protein content (protein is basically a
carbon structure with nitrogen and some
sulfur) and be qualitatively superior.
Cover crops are a great way for
us to increase our soil's fertility while
minimizing our need to purchase outside
inputs. Decomposing layers upon layers of
biomass on the land is one of nature's ways
of building soil. By managing this natural
process, with a little nudge here and a
helping hand there, we can speed up soil
creation so that people can give themselves
relatively productive land where once it
could not provide enough.
After all of our cover crops are in
the ground, we will shift our focus to
organizing our seeds. Some seed we will
save for planting, some we will send off
to Bountiful Gardens for them to feature
in their seed catalog, and some seed—in
the case of beans and grains—we will
eat. Seeds are without a doubt one of the
most wondrous entities of this earth. On a
single plant there can sometimes be enough
seed to sow thousands and thousands of
new plants. A good amaranth plant, for
example, can have over 20,000 seeds.
That means a single plant provides enough
seed to grow 1/3 of an acre of amaranth.
Put another way, one acre of amaranth
produces enough seed for 20,000 acres.
This impressive feat of expansion
reminded me of Lamine Diawara's plans
for GROW BIOINTENSIVE in West
Africa. Lamine, as you may know already
from the September 2012 Newsletter, was
a 2012 intern from Senegal with years of
experience in social organizing and youth
leadership who served as the head of
Scouting (Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts) in
West Africa. In the detailed plan he created
to bring GROW BIOINTENSIVE to his
compatriots and his region, he described
how in five years he hoped to teach 33
million people. It starts with simply
teaching 32 people who will be dedicated
to ensuring the food security of their
communities. Each of these 32 community
members then becomes the trainer for 32
more future teachers. Clearly not everyone
who is trained will go on to help others, but if trainers end up teaching hundreds of
people in a year, at least 32 people could be
found who would be willing to reach out to
others in their communities. By year two,
1,024 people will have been trained this
way, 32,768 reached the third year, over
1 million people the fourth year, with a
goal of reaching 33 million people the fifth
year. It may be tempting to scoff at such an
equation, but so too is it easy to doubt that
one tall amaranth plant can sow one third
of an acre.
Certainly if we just sit and watch the
amaranth produce its enormous spikes of
seed and do nothing, the next year there
will merely be a smattering of amaranth
plants around the parent. But if we give
the natural process a little helping hand
and collect the seeds and nurture the
seedlings, starting from the seed of this
one amaranth plant, in five years we could
sow every foot of North America and
Europe in amaranth. Yes, you would have
enough seed for every single inch, and this
is using a much more conservative estimate
of 5,000 seeds per plant instead of 20,000.
So we should realize that Lamine's ability
to reach 33 million people in 5 years is
indeed very feasible, but if we can assist
the process rather than standing on the
sidelines wondering if it is possible, we can
be the deciding difference. It is a personal
goal of mine to one day travel to Senegal
to help Lamine. If you are interested in Lamine's project or want to help, feel free to
contact our Assistant Executive Director,
Jake Blehm, at:
jakeblehm@growbiointensive.org.
The numbers and graphs are painfully
clear that in the near future there will be
very difficult challenges in agriculture we
must overcome. Rather than barricading
ourselves and waiting in isolation we must
venture out to solve these problems where
they are already happening. If we can face
hunger where it is striking now, we can do
it as a world community; if we wait, we will
do it alone.
—Ryan Batjiaka,
Assistant Garden Manager
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