AdAgrA 2019: True Success

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AdAgrA: Adventist Agriculture Association

Intensive: Introduction to Market Gardening

John Dysinger

Pamela Dysinger

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 1

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 2

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 3

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 4

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 5

Okay, so let's start again, I tried to do this somewhat in order so you're gonna start a market garden and you've got this big expanse of pasture.

Well, you know, somehow that soil has to be prepared in order to make your beds.

In the Market Gardener popularized the walking tractor, specifically BCS, because that's the main 1 that's available in the US.

And he sold thousands of walking tractors from that book.

Because he literally, everybody went out and bought walking tractors or BCSs.

Of course, Elliot Coleman actually had recommended walking tractors years earlier.

But JM, there's some updated equipment, the rotary plow, the rotary harrow, and the flail mower, which are really the 3 tools that I think are, if you're gonna get a BCS, those are the tools you wanna get.

You know, it depends on, the nice thing about a rotary plow is that it can actually turn in very tall cover crops.

It's quite impressive to watch a BCS work in a cover crop.

So a rotary plow is basically a big auger screw turning like this.

And what it does is it throws the dirt to the side similar in a way to a moldboard plow but it I I thought it would really beat up the soil like a rototiller does, but it actually doesn't beat it up as much as you would think.

And if you need raised beds, If you're in an area that has a hard time drying out in the spring, it's quite an easy, comparatively easy way to make raised beds.

You go down 1 side and throw the dirt here, come back the other side and throw the dirt there and voila you have a raised bed.

The rotary harrow has teeth like this as compared to a rototiller which turns like this a rotary harrow turns like this and just incorporate stuff into the, and you have a gauge wheel that controls the depth and so you can just incorporate compost and things into the top few inches.

And the flail mower is a wonderful tool for at the end of your crop, end of the season, if you're growing broccoli, even though we told you not to.

And again, you know, broccoli is a great crop, but as far as profit per square foot, it's very low.

You've got all these huge plants that you've harvested.

You take the flail mower down that and it just, it has a barrel turning this way with teeth on it that just grind it up.

And it's a great way to get rid of crops at the end of the season.

You know, as compared to a lawn mower or a bush hog which shoots stuff to the side, The flail mower grinds it up and it sits right there.

So it does a much better job of incorporating, helping you incorporate that material, organic matter.

Okay, if you have the space and you need a tractor anyway so like for us we live on a hundred and 60 acre farm.

It's not ours it's my parents we're fortunate enough to share crop on it.

But you know we've got a lot of pasture, too much to cut with a BCS so we really have to have a tractor.

Well if you've got to have a tractor anyway for the size of your property, why not, and we didn't do this because we weren't thinking ahead enough, but why not get a tractor that would work with your 30-inch bed?

And I gave you 1 example a Kubota L3300, it's a 33 horsepower tractor that you can set the wheel spacing for 30 inches and actually Ben Hartman in the Lean Farm does this.

I never thought that you could use a tractor on a 30-inch bed system.

You get the mechanical help of a tractor, but yet the efficiency of a intensive bed system.

And of course, your other companies, I'm not trying to push Kubota, but your other companies do have similar tractors.

I will say with Kubota, they make it hard to resist, because they will offer you 0 down, 0 interest for 5 years on a tractor.

But of course, you're talking, believe me, I've looked into 1 because I'd love to have 1.

But you're talking, depending, I'll just tell you a front end loader, a bucket on a tractor, is the most useful tool on a farm.

I've said that for years, and I still stick by it.

You can do so much with a front end loader on a tractor.

But if you get 1 with that, you know, it's gonna be 22, $23, 000 for a new 1.

Obviously you can buy used maybe if you can find it.

Okay can you get the tools, the BCS tools for a tractor?

Yes you can get a rotary harrow with a three-point hitch.

I don't know about the rotary plow, but if you're gonna have a tractor, the tool I would recommend instead of a rotary plow is a spader, reciprocating spader, which is a very, very expensive tool, but it does a very good job.

All these tools come, or many of them come from Europe.

Basically a spader is going to cost you at least a thousand dollars per foot of width.

So if you want a 5 foot wide spader you're going to pay at least $5, 000.

So another option and you know I mentioned here a little further on down Connor Crickmore the highest grossing market gardener I know of, has no tractor.

So how can you do it without a tractor or a BCS?

You can actually, I mean there are 2 other options.

1 is to use the silage tarps we've been talking about.

Heavy-duty, plastic, UV treated so it's going to last for many years.

Don't go to Lowe's or Home Depot and buy their plastic because it'll break down in a season.

But these are especially UV treated big sheets of plastic, black on top, white on the bottom.

You just lay that out on sod, you know, mow it close, try to get it down close, lay that out, make sure the soil is moist, and wait for a year ideally, and you pull that back, and you will have the richest, loosest, beautifullest soil you've ever seen.

This is what, that was the big takeaway from visiting J.M.'s farm that first time.

And he pulled the tarp back, and I mean, there were these huge earthworms crawling all over the surface of that tarp.

They just come up and take all that organic matter down.

It's the closest thing I have seen to no work gardening.

It's still work because you've got to lay it out and anchor it down because the wind's gonna try to blow it away.

Yeah, somebody's saying, visit a dairy farm and that's a great thing and I know people all over the world, friends in Australia we visited and they get their silage tarp from the local dairyman.

You know, they use them for 1 season and throw them away.

You know they may have a few holes but you can buy patching tape from Farmer's Friend for patching it up.

So that is a good option for used silage tarp.

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Series

Intensive: Introduction to Market Gardening

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 3

Parent Series

Parent Conference

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Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 1

55m

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 2

52m

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 3

20m

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 4

51m

Introduction to Market Gardening - Part 5

56m

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