A vegetable meadow?
published: 21/05/18, 11:44
Hello everybody
I cultivate a small organic garden since about 5 years, evolving little by little towards a more permanent culture, a soil more alive and less soil working. Also, the arguments and the calm-flamboyant style of Didier Helmstetter inspired me this year to integrate in a more uninhibited way what could turn out to be the treasure (or the nightmare!) Near which my transatbed slept: the natural meadow that is the surrounding setting of this vegetable garden.
I come immediately to the subject: How not to "spoil" a meadow?
I am trying to replace the fertilization of the previous years (manure = dirty, stinking, too much effort for transport, composting = composting experience in bunch on site tedious and unconvincing, handling and transport from home complicated - I specify that I do not live on the spot - + the arguments of Didier) by a plant fertilization without fermentation. I understood that I had to bring more biomass to my soil thanks to the green manures that I have been growing since last year on my vegetable garden and the hay that I make myself from the adjacent meadow. my cultures. In the photo we can see some windrows that are still to dry in the meadow, and the heart of the kitchen garden behind artificial hedges, in a semicircle.
How to "manage" a meadow in order to fertilize a vegetable garden yourself?
In particular, I wonder what is the ratio between the area of meadow needed to significantly and sustainably improve the life and quality of the garden soil and the area of this garden. I guess it's a little or very relative but still, what is the order of magnitude? In the photo we can guess that the surrounding meadow is about 4 5 times the area of the kitchen garden (knowing that my garden is landscaped in flowerbeds so you need to count without the aisles), does this seem sufficient? This estimate could guide an olibrius interested in this perspective and who would like to start a new vegetable garden on a meadow ...
Is it a gain of laziness?
It's not sure. Of course, haymaking is a job, especially when you do everything "old-fashioned" like me, that is to say with simply a rake (I took advantage of the "mowing" of the owner who "maintains" his land -see below-; a scythe would not seem insurmountable to me on such an area, especially since it could be considered in relation to the needs of ground cover and the climatic weather). It still seems to me a gain of effort for a lonely or lonely person or who has back pain or who does not necessarily want to heave behind big wheels (!). This is apparently not a time-saver in the lounger, although that remains to be seen, I only discover the technique by groping and naturally doing bullshit. Still, with this new approach and the time saved by not working the soil, I was able to protect and feed almost all of my plots and enlarge my vegetable garden by opening new flowerbeds (we can see the one of them between 4 stakes in the foreground of the photo) ...
Besides, what does it take to have a good hay? and a good hay of phenoculture?
I had started mowing before heading (early April). Should we focus on this period as it seems a recommendation from farmers who produce commercial hay for cattle and sheep, or follow Didier's advice: as late as possible? Then the meadow was mowed with a "self-propelled" self-propelled by the owner during heading (April), period recommended for the hay of the horses. So it is a kind of mowed hay that I dried and turned in windrows. But what color must the hay have? should it stay a little green, or should it wait until it turns yellow or whitens in the sun? Can poorly produced hay (a little rotten for example) have negative effects on my soil? Could we imagine a specific hay, "calibrated" to level our soil organisms (particularly for anecic worms whose importance we know thanks to Didier and Marcel Bouché) as we calibrate the hay according to the cattle that will feed on it? (cattle, sheep / horses / rabbits)?
Can we imagine an "eco-systemic" improvement?
I deposited my hay in "thick layers" on the flower beds, starting to cultivate potatoes which have come out now (except those that I had placed directly on the meadow and under the hay). Can we imagine a meadow cultivation as close as possible to the cultivation of a vegetable garden, a new association of which there is no name - I am speaking under your control -, a kind of vegetable garden like the " garden-forest "(a concept in which I know Didier does not believe) or agroforestry?
And in the other direction, what is the impact of these withdrawals on the meadow itself (or even on more or less close ecosystems)? If I take this energy away from it, won't it degrade little by little? What is the cycle of a meadow? Basically, far from announcing any revolution, I wonder if this effort is worth it and if it would not be better to leave the management of this hay to specialists (as usual!) ... If it was worth it hardly, other questions (which join classic questions for a vegetable garden) come: how to best organize the space and the alternation of meadow / vegetable garden, sparse in flower beds (my choice for the vegetable garden), concentrated (vegetable garden in center and meadow around), or even "itinerant" in order to stimulate the living cyclically on the whole land? If you make the hay yourself, you don't have to roll it ... What will best benefit my vegetables, living organisms, the soil of the entire area and the ecosystem ?
I cultivate a small organic garden since about 5 years, evolving little by little towards a more permanent culture, a soil more alive and less soil working. Also, the arguments and the calm-flamboyant style of Didier Helmstetter inspired me this year to integrate in a more uninhibited way what could turn out to be the treasure (or the nightmare!) Near which my transatbed slept: the natural meadow that is the surrounding setting of this vegetable garden.
I come immediately to the subject: How not to "spoil" a meadow?
I am trying to replace the fertilization of the previous years (manure = dirty, stinking, too much effort for transport, composting = composting experience in bunch on site tedious and unconvincing, handling and transport from home complicated - I specify that I do not live on the spot - + the arguments of Didier) by a plant fertilization without fermentation. I understood that I had to bring more biomass to my soil thanks to the green manures that I have been growing since last year on my vegetable garden and the hay that I make myself from the adjacent meadow. my cultures. In the photo we can see some windrows that are still to dry in the meadow, and the heart of the kitchen garden behind artificial hedges, in a semicircle.
How to "manage" a meadow in order to fertilize a vegetable garden yourself?
In particular, I wonder what is the ratio between the area of meadow needed to significantly and sustainably improve the life and quality of the garden soil and the area of this garden. I guess it's a little or very relative but still, what is the order of magnitude? In the photo we can guess that the surrounding meadow is about 4 5 times the area of the kitchen garden (knowing that my garden is landscaped in flowerbeds so you need to count without the aisles), does this seem sufficient? This estimate could guide an olibrius interested in this perspective and who would like to start a new vegetable garden on a meadow ...
Is it a gain of laziness?
It's not sure. Of course, haymaking is a job, especially when you do everything "old-fashioned" like me, that is to say with simply a rake (I took advantage of the "mowing" of the owner who "maintains" his land -see below-; a scythe would not seem insurmountable to me on such an area, especially since it could be considered in relation to the needs of ground cover and the climatic weather). It still seems to me a gain of effort for a lonely or lonely person or who has back pain or who does not necessarily want to heave behind big wheels (!). This is apparently not a time-saver in the lounger, although that remains to be seen, I only discover the technique by groping and naturally doing bullshit. Still, with this new approach and the time saved by not working the soil, I was able to protect and feed almost all of my plots and enlarge my vegetable garden by opening new flowerbeds (we can see the one of them between 4 stakes in the foreground of the photo) ...
Besides, what does it take to have a good hay? and a good hay of phenoculture?
I had started mowing before heading (early April). Should we focus on this period as it seems a recommendation from farmers who produce commercial hay for cattle and sheep, or follow Didier's advice: as late as possible? Then the meadow was mowed with a "self-propelled" self-propelled by the owner during heading (April), period recommended for the hay of the horses. So it is a kind of mowed hay that I dried and turned in windrows. But what color must the hay have? should it stay a little green, or should it wait until it turns yellow or whitens in the sun? Can poorly produced hay (a little rotten for example) have negative effects on my soil? Could we imagine a specific hay, "calibrated" to level our soil organisms (particularly for anecic worms whose importance we know thanks to Didier and Marcel Bouché) as we calibrate the hay according to the cattle that will feed on it? (cattle, sheep / horses / rabbits)?
Can we imagine an "eco-systemic" improvement?
I deposited my hay in "thick layers" on the flower beds, starting to cultivate potatoes which have come out now (except those that I had placed directly on the meadow and under the hay). Can we imagine a meadow cultivation as close as possible to the cultivation of a vegetable garden, a new association of which there is no name - I am speaking under your control -, a kind of vegetable garden like the " garden-forest "(a concept in which I know Didier does not believe) or agroforestry?
And in the other direction, what is the impact of these withdrawals on the meadow itself (or even on more or less close ecosystems)? If I take this energy away from it, won't it degrade little by little? What is the cycle of a meadow? Basically, far from announcing any revolution, I wonder if this effort is worth it and if it would not be better to leave the management of this hay to specialists (as usual!) ... If it was worth it hardly, other questions (which join classic questions for a vegetable garden) come: how to best organize the space and the alternation of meadow / vegetable garden, sparse in flower beds (my choice for the vegetable garden), concentrated (vegetable garden in center and meadow around), or even "itinerant" in order to stimulate the living cyclically on the whole land? If you make the hay yourself, you don't have to roll it ... What will best benefit my vegetables, living organisms, the soil of the entire area and the ecosystem ?