Permaculture Farming

Archive for March, 2009

hugelkultur – raised bed gardening sans irrigation

Question: would a series of microfarms have been better able to withstand the rigors of the dust bowl days in the 1930s?

instead of the large cleared expanses that were prevalent in the southern plains states in the US in the 1930s (and still are today), would a series of small micro-farms interspersed among the wilderness have been better suited to cope with the dust bowl conditions back then? or would they have been just as vulnerable to the winds and drought as the large open tracts were?

Answer: Any thing that broke up the expansive acres of plowed ground would have helped the dust bowl days of the 1930′s. A series of small farms or micro-farms as you call them that grew alternate crops other than the crops grown on the expanse of broken ground certainly would have helped the dust bowl or the blowing away of the top soil. It probably wouldn’t have helped the drought conditions much. You say the conditions in the 1930′s (and still are today) is not really a fair or accurate statement. Agriculture and farmers learned a lot from the dust bowl days. There are still expansive acres of cleared acres of land but most of it is farmed with no tillage or minimum tillage of the land. Cover crops or green manure crops are grown during the off seasons so that the land is not plowed up and left bare like in the 30′s. The droughts will come but the top soil will not be lost to the wind with today’s agriculture. Trees are planted as wind breaks. The technique of micro-farming and Permaculture inter-dispersed with the typical farms will be a big help, the more the better, but they won’t be the savior of modern agriculture. As far as the climate is changing, there have been ice ages and melt downs before over thousands of years and undoubtedly we will have them again. We should do everything in our power to help change it but I think most of it is out of our power and I don’t fear for myself or my children or my children’s grand children despite what Al Gore says. I just do the best that I can with the land that I have to conserve the land, water, and wildlife and pass it on to the next generation in better shape than I got it. And I hope that I have taught my children to do the same.

Poultry Incubator Temperature