On 2020-03-16 06:27, songbird wrote:
T wrote:
songbird wrote:
...
uh, that's really bad at math...

No fooling. If you plant before the end of the first week
in June, you risk a freeze. I take the risk and plant last
week in May. Only been nailed once.

And sometimes we get a freeze as early as the first
week in September.

that's still three months not two! June, July,
August...

Exactly. That leave only one month for fruit bearing.



So you really want everything to come to fruition
in 60 days.

And it it gets too hat in the summer, you risk
things bolting.

that's a different issue. cool weather crops
v.s. those that don't mind some heat.


How farmers, whose livelyhood depends on it, put
up with the crap, is beyond me. It must be a calling.
Maybe it is the feels of a good soil in your hands.

last year all around us all these acres of fields
were planted but they did not get a harvest. it was
too much rain and most of them didn't even get into
the fields to plant until too late. yes, they could
have planted other crops but they didn't.

in contrast we had a pretty good season even with
all the rains, diversity in planting and adapting to
conditions makes a huge difference. when people
complain that organic farming can't produce enough
food to feed a lot of people i know as a fact that
those claims are BS.

I hear that nonsense all the time too. Yields from
organic farms are a lot higher. One study I saw years
ago, a full circle farm was getting $1,400 per acre
whist his conventional neighbors were getting $400
per acre.

In The People Republic of California, virtually all
the wine grapes are now organically grown as the
yields are higher and, get this, every section of
their farms are producing consistent quality. No
more of this the north end is sweet and the south
end is sour.

And the difference i taste between full circle produce
and meat is striking. A guy around here that grows
full circle turkeys is bough out FIVE YEAR in advance!

most farmers i know are older and not owners of
the land they abuse. a few are marginally better
than others but still often abusive. around here a
lot of fields that used to be prime topsoil are now
subsoil grade and poorly drained because they have
abused them so much. when you kill off the worms
and other soil community and don't plant cover
crops or use reasonable rotations that is what
happens. topsoil blows away or washes away or is
degraded by the abuse of fertilizers and too much
plowing/disturbances. you gotta work with a
place to know it and not just abuse it.

ok, rant over.

No problem. You are ranting to the choir. Full
circle farming is growing the soil.

On the bright side, those abused lands should go
for cheap to full circle farmers so they can heal
the land and make it productive again. And
bring back family farming.

And get away from the bottom line on NEXT MONTHS
spreadsheet and look at the bottom line of a historical
spreadsheet.



it was pretty nice out yesterday, today might be
about the same. we'll see. frost last night.


songbird


It is still snowing off and on. Melts pretty quickly.
Hopefully we will get a good 1/2 inch of water out
of all this and my favorite fishing hole won't dry
up again

-T