I have a few articles that are meant to be read as a series, one following on the other and building upon that information. One of the first series I started was how to grow and maintain a productive garden without breaking the bank, yourself or the environment.
The very first article in the series discusses the concept of such a garden, what does it mean to be economic from a homesteading perspective and the relative cost associated with raising veggies vs buying them in store. I did the number crunching and reported it so that you don’t have to.
Here I summarised a part of my thesis research. Conservation Agriculture is basically a large-scale commercial system for sustainable crop production on farms. This can be easily down-scaled an applied to backyard vegetable gardens with quicker and higher success rates. An expansion of this system includes ‘Hedging’, but with a focus on natural vegetation to draw in pest predators, a similar concept I followed in my Insectary Post.
3.Integrated Organic Gardening
An attempt to consolidate all the different concepts of garden management into one coherent system with separate parts (Soil, Water, Plants and Animals), which can each be address separately and as a whole. I introduced integrated organic gardening with my Beginners post and added some examples of the first level in each separate part.
4.Vegetable Garden Planting Guide & Management
This is a summary of sorts, which brings together the previous research on the topic and my observations in the garden. It also promotes the idea of not sticking to monoculture methods of planting, but rather adopting a more loose and messy planting style. It benefits the soil, water, plants and animals of the vegetable garden and tries to establish a mutualistic relationship between them so that they work together to provide you with the best garden at the minimal amount of effort.
Thus, this is my work smarter (or messier) rather than harder mindset! LOL!
Whisker Flowers 