Winter studying

The cold winter months (or, on our case, the long, dark, rainy months), when there is not a whole lot to do in the garden, are a great time to tackle a few books. I read every night before I go to bed, and I've been working on two books this year.

I learned a lot about year-round vegetable growing from Eliot Coleman's "Four Season Harvest" when I read it last year, so this year I picked up another of his books, "The New Organic Grower".

Like his other title, this book is geared towards the more serious home gardener, market gardener, or small farm, and covers all the intricacies of a complete farm system, down the minuscule, but important, details. The most useful part of this book to me (so far) has been his recommendations for an 8-year crop rotation including green manure rotation. He lays out a time-tested system for vegetable rotation and cover crop sequence that will keep the ground covered for 95% of the year, either producing food or improving the soil and building fertility. I will be using this system starting this year.

The other book I have been working on is Gene Logsdon's "Small Scale Grain Raising".

Over past year I've become interested in trying to grow certain grains. I am a homebrewer, so barley is an obvious one to try, but oats, certain wheat varieties, sorghum, and rye (and others I am sure I will discover as I keep reading) can all be grown in our climate. A year's supply or more of any of these grains can be grown on as little as 1/16th of an acre each (that's roughly four 50' rows)! This year I will be trying sorghum in the summer, and probably will plant wheat and barley in the fall for overwintering.

I also finished up my garden review spreadsheet for last year's season, and am using it to plan this year's quantities to grow. Still some decisions to make on varieties and final layout, but soon I'll be starting seed again!