Farmers...questions!

[dillonandmarasmom]

Hey all you farming mamas!!

Two friends and I are about to tackle a 3 acre plot and plan to do sections (one fallow, the rest full of fall veggies, etc). We are pretty new to doing large plots, have a meeting with a CSA owner on Monday, but would like to have some info ahead of time to narrow our 6 million questions down to, say, 20 or so!

Questions I have been thinking about:

Rows or flat ground with drip line? (we use drip line in our smaller plots (we have a garden-based CSA), but for larger plots, would it make better sense to do more traditional rows?

Lots of different veggies per plot, or stick to 2-3 companion plants per section? (We practice sq. ft. gardening now, but want to be efficient with the larger area)

What is your favorite cover crop? We plant to get the entire area covered (or perhaps just the fallow se ction) for future plantings to get the soil "fixed" and ready.

I'll leave it at that for now, since I have too many questions to reasonably type out and hope to get answered!

Thank you SO much!!!! It is exciting to embark on something new:.

[lightheart]

maybe this will make your questions 6 million and 1...

What about doing wide rows in the plot you are growing in and plant a cover crop in the paths between the rows?

I haven't ever put out 1.5 ac of crops before so this is just me thinking... on whether to do a couple of types of veggies or a whole bunch, I would think that variety of plants would make for less chance of crop failure in case of disease or insects, it would also long term not deplete the soil of whatever nutrients that the 2 or 3 plants would be taking up, although that could be worked around like your saying with the cover crops and rotation.

What are you going to do with the produce? use it yourselves or sell it? Gotta decide what your market is in your area, if there is a cuke farmer right down the street that is well established in his market it may be difficult to break into his customers, but if it would mean you folks would be the only ones really growing cukes in your area the market is totally open for you to fill.

What type of equipment are you guys going to use to work the soil with? Do you have a tractor, is it a big one, or something small?... I guess I'm not quite understanding what

Rows or flat ground with drip line?

means... rows, I've got a vision in my head, but flat ground with drip line??? I'm not understanding.

[dillonandmarasmom]

We are a small (yard) garden CSA--like 400 sq. ft at a time. We grow for the "host" family (the home where the garden is installed and maintained) as well as about 3-4 other CSA shares per garden. So far it has worked beautifully.

Now we have been given this acreage, and we are very new to larger plots.

By flat land with drip line, I mean an area that is raised slightly after having been double-dug and had compost galore added, then we plant strategically and lay drip line according to where the plants (companion plants) are in the plot. This has worked incredibly well in the smaller gardens. But, is it realistic to do that with bigger areas? My questions stems more from what you first described: 2-3 veggies or several?

We plant only organic/heirloom plants. Our local farmers markets have scattered heirlooms, but none that are heirloom only. We choose according to what is lacking around here, and we supplement with the basics (except that our "basics" are obscure versions of them...no *white" cauliflower, for example).

HTH. We are the only CSA of our kind around here, but are branching out to cover our farmer's market. So, this acreage is a new venture for us. Pretty daunting at this point.