Has anybody actually got BIOINTENSIVE yields?

[gilbert]

I'm sure some of you have at least heard of the Biointensive system popularized by John Jeavons and Ecology Action; the Bountiful Gardens seed company is run by Ecology Action. Their main book is "How to Grow More Vegetables."

The yields they claim for the method are are really high. Has anyone tried, and if so, what are the results? Did you even get their beginner or intermediate yields, let alone their advanced yields?

British garden writer John Seymour started popularizing a variant of this method in his later books, after visiting the Ecology Action site in Willits, California.

I can't comment on it, because I have never tried it. I went to start double digging my first bed, and broke a digging fork on the subsoil.

[raymondo]

Jan 4, 2016 14:14:10 GMT -5 gilbert said:

... I went to start double digging my first bed, and broke a digging fork on the subsoil.

I'd take that as an omen! The method is too much work for my liking. The thought of any kind of digging, let alone double digging puts me right off.

[billw]

I've always thought it would be interesting to see the energy balance on this method. How many calories do you harvest, vs. how many you expend doing all the prep?

[steev]

I once "double-dug" 100' of trench for irrigation lines; never again!

In practice, of course, you only do the awful part once, and then just reap the benefits in relative perpetuity; if you survive the prep, the energy balance goes 'way up thereafter.

While I see the value of the technique, which is much like ripping the ground with a chisel-plow or subsoiler, only unmechanized, I'd only do it if I had somebody else to actually do the grunt-work, or maybe only a few feet on occasion. When my brother gets his RV park/restaurant going in Baja, he wants me to consult on a veggie garden for it; I'm thinking a backhoe, if one is available, otherwise, it's Manuel Labor.

[prairiegarden]

I THINK but wouldn't absolutely swear to it, that that was the method used by 4 Indian farmers who posted record yields this past fall. I'll try to find the link. It came up as a follow up item to a story about crop failures with GMO seed (also last fall), and those farmers beating up a Monsanto rep who tried to tell them the failure was their fault. A nice juxtaposition.

[steev]

Whopping on a Monsanto rep; always good news.

[oxbowfarm]

I think the Biointensive Method has a lot to offer. I also think many of the claims need to be taken with many grains of salt. There are so many variables in agriculture that yield figures are only vaguely useful, and I do like that all the crazy charts in "how to grow more veg...." has beginner, intermediate, and advanced yeilds. I think the beginner yield targets are for the most part reasonable targets.

There are aspects of the Biointensive method that I think are over-the-top. I think double digging or some alternate version of subsoil loosening are often beneficial in a new site, especially with a very heavy soil. I question the necessity of repeating the digging operation for every growing bed every year as recommended. That is not a traditional aspect of French Intensive or Chinese Intensive gardening as I understand them. Also, intensive gardening really does require a very careful attention to water management, which the Biointensive method mandates via hand watering! This is unrealistic for most gardeners not possessing unpaid slave labor (sort of joking). The method also demands A LOT of organic compost which is covered in the method, but they kind of fail to emphasize how much compost you need and how much time you would be spending making the compost per their system. French and Chinese systems tended to use a lot more direct applications of other forms of organic matter. Horse manure in particular for the French. If you read Farmers of Forty Centuries you notice how much the book talks about the insane efforts made to recycle every form of organic fertility back to the fields, including human waste.

[gilbert]

Yes, the vegan aspect of the Biointensive diet and soil care has always been a sore point with me.

[steev]

I'm convinced that deeper soil loosening when initially breaking ground is very beneficial to annuals and biennials; not so much for perennials; I think it promotes deeper movement of organic matter by soil organisms as well as facilitating root-growth; again, I don't think it's something that may be worth doing more than once, if one regularly mulches and composts, to maintain the input/return of organic material to the soil.

Lacking appropriate machinery, I'm about as likely to double-dig my planting beds as I am to turn my compost pile; been there, done that; not gonna kill myself at my current age and scale of gardening; I've got other fish to fry.

[reed]

When I first moved here I did that to a small area about 15 x 20 or so and even then I didn't do it all at once. I dug deep and put mostly black locust branches and limbs in the bottom. Top soil and sod went back in next and the deepest down solid clay on top. For a long time that is all my garden was and I canned all the beans and tomatoes I wanted from it as well as had some potatoes, onions and a few other things. That was a long time ago but the spot I did it too is still my best soil.

[richardw]

Well i suppose i could claim to have set up a Biointensive system, not for that reason though. When we bought this property it was mid winter 16 years ago, we moved in two days after a 12 day run of savage frosts that had blown the house water pump...great!! with two kids under 2YO. I wanted a garden come spring but was faced a entire property of 12cm deep twitch-grass or couch as others know of it, having dealt with that grass before i knew it would take a year- 2years of spraying to kill out but i was determined NOT to have a garden constantly battling twitch grass so i had to find way to get rid of it. So i decided that the best way was to bury the top 12cm layer under the subsoil, using two wheelbarrows i would dig out 50cm X 50 sq-cm (20cm deep)in one barrow then another 20cm of the subsoil in the other,then the top layer was tipped back into the hole, then that barrow was used to go and get half a barrow of horse shit and sawdust and that went on top next( I had a trucking company bring in a load when we moved), finally the subsoil tipped on top. This done twice gave me my one metre wide bed, i ended up doing this to 171 square meters giving me 34 beds, 24 beds were added later but these were not double dug as there was no subsoil on that side of the garden just shingle under the top soil, i used large sheets of plastic covers layed out for two years to kill the twitch in this area. What is now the pathways between the double dug beds the 12cm layer of twitch was borrowed out and piled up elsewhere, this hill ended up been planted in trees. Recently two beds have had that combined layer dug out and about 30cm layer of shingle removed with extra soil from else where added, these two beds are now about .75m deep, these are for root crops which i plan on doing two more and thats it.

[richardw]

Just to add, in that total 171m of beds only two single pieces of twitch found there way to the surface to which they were promptly dealt with.

[steev]

I did somewhat the same one place I lived; the backyard was all crab-grass, so once a week I'd dig a 2'x2'x2' hole, put the weeds down, dump in the week's kitchen-compost bucket, and return the soil; very good results.

[gilbert]

Supposedly, all the compost crops are edible, mostly grains, and it takes 4000 square feet to grow all the food for one person, and all the compost and seeds needed to keep the system ticking. Personally, I would grow less grains, more roots, cultivate less area, and haul in straw/ hay from waste areas, which would be sustainable for a while anyway.

[D&Y]

Crops like kenaf or cardoon generate a lot of material for the compost pile, and winter cover crops go in also when I clear in the spring.