Current as of 2021-02-28 15:54:15 +0000

Market Garden

Now that we are getting closer to understanding cattle and pigs we can begin learning about market gardening. We are about to start with some baby steps into this venture which eventually might look like this:

Ridgedale

The above image shows Ridgedale Permaculture, Sweden. Their market garden is very tidy, enclosed and has pathways covered in woodchips for tidyness and fertility.

Here in Andalucia the sun during summer is very harsh and burns basically everything. Shade is important.

This is an area that cannot be easily used as a paddock and we want to turn it into a shaded market garden as an experiment. The area is right next to where we usually move about and thus it should be easier to take care of the plants. The area is a bit sloped and we plan to build a retaining wall, fill it up and level it.

GardenOne

For shade we want to put up a light metal structure with retractable shade cloth. During summer we put it on and during the rest of the year we can move it back.

There is almost no rainfall during summer. Plants in a market garden are usually annuals with shallow roots and even in more temperate climates providing a constant water supply to garden beds is common.

We already have water pipe in the area and can hook up a drip irrigation system for the future beds. The slurry storage of the quarantine shelter can be used to store irrigation water while there is no need to quarantine the pigs.

The overall challenge will be to build fertile soil.

Fertile soil should result in a no-dig operation with frequent application of compost. Not far away we have already designated an area for largish scale composting and we can also employ the chickens / more chickens for it.

The market garden needs to be fenced in to protect it from any animals including the chickens and dogs.

Progress

24.06.2020, We have started to prepare the area for the market garden.

2020 06 24 Garden

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