Organic growing at Whitmuir

• Background to the farm

• Growing for a local market (100 families)

• Accepting the climate/changing the micro-climate/tholing the weather

• Early days

Why organic?•Systems approach – trying to understand and work with nature, rather than dominate

•Quality of produce – dry matter, taste

•Attention to soil health, not just current production

•Precautionary principle – growing food for self and to sell

•Wider philosophy of fairness, part of wider choices about future

•Agriculture more than agribusiness – good work, not units of labour

ChallengesFertility

Drainage, shale and claggy soil

Balancing supply and demand, costs and income

Succession

Staying enough on top of the weeds

Wind

profit

Leakage to rest of food chain, banks

High yields of commodities

Plant breeding for yield uniformity, IP

Pesticide use

Chemical fertiliser pollution

Ghg emissions

Loss of biodiversity above/below ground

Loss of organic matter

Specialist large scale monoculture

High gearing -

Specialist large machinery

Simplify, control, extract

Loss of good work and small farms

Comparative advantage, food miles, export, process

‘Conventional’ agriculture

Why a rotation?Compromise between monoculture and diversity (interfering enough to get the job done)Reduce likelihood of pest/disease build-upUse different plant characteristics to manage soil/weeds/fertility over the sequence

Example rotation

1 Potatoes – need high fertility after ley, canopy helps suppress weeds

1.5 Overwinter cereal/ryegrass by end Sept – incorporate in spring and add more compost or manure before..

2 Brassicas go out mid May.. Deep-rooting Harvest during autumn/winter, leave weeds or sow clover for ground cover

3 Onions early as poss, leave rest of strip till leeks ready. Plastic helps weed control

4 Carrots/parsnips to follow – sow in May, harvest over winter5,6 Clover/chicory/grass ley

Large pests @ Whitmuir

• Rooks/jackdaws • Pigeons• Mice• Rabbits• Chickens• Cows• Pigs• Children (but not mine of course)

Small pests @ whitmuir

• Leatherjackets - cabbages• Slugs – ailing plants• Flea beetle – swede, japanese leaves• Blight – potatoes, tomatoes• Blackfly – broad beans• Powdery mildew - courgettes• So far, lucky with • Carrot root fly, cabbage white, clubroot, white rot

Indigenous plants

• Couch (rack and ruin)• Buttercup• Dockings• Thistles and creeping ones• Fat hen• Chickweed• Unidentified flourishing objects

Indigenous plants

• Couch (rack and ruin)• Buttercup• Dockings• Thistles and creeping ones• Fat hen• Chickweed• Unidentified flourishing objects

Some things we’ve learned

• Covering soil even inside tunnel in clear plastic helps a lot in spring, also fleeces

• Intercropping can work, but quite specific• Time to catch up in spring – except onions• Every day counts in autumn• Double sow (at least) parsnips• Give cabbage seedlings plenty room• Direct sowing lettuce saves time • Picking outside leaves rather than cutting• Japanese leaves work best after midsummer

Books we like

• Charles Dowding on salads and no dig• Eliot Coleman on precision• Growing Green - Iain Tolhurst and Jenny Hall :

good on green manures, and techniques• The square foot garden -

www.gardenorganic.org.uk/organicgardening/gh_sqft.php