Saturday, April 17, 2010

Biointensive Garden Project


Each intern has a major project. Mine is to create and manage a biointensive plot.
It's a fancy way to describe the dense growing of plants by "double digging" the soil, which allows the roots to reach deeper, adding lots of compost, and allowing compatible plants to grow together. The principles originated in many places, such as rural Paris gardens in WWII, and Irish and Chinese gardens.

Why am I interested in biointensive farming? After my experiment this summer with nine 20 x 5 foot beds I'd like to try it on an acre or more. It would also be fun to try out, or teach, in an urban setting.

I got help from Monique to broadfork the plots (a broadfork is twice the width of a pitch fork, and is used to loosen the soil without churning it).

The other interns' projects are:

Heather - greenhouse
Andrew - Chickens
Monique - Bees (and flowers)
Nitya - Permaculture

More on these later.

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