Also I have been inspired by the work of an American called Jacob Mittleider who developed a method based around raised garden beds known as “Grow Boxes” which were just wooden sided gardens filled with a customised growing media which consisted of some form of organic matter such as peat or sawdust mixed with a course material such as sand or vermiculite. A typical example might be 75% Sawdust and 25% Sand. These beds were then fertilised with quite complex and precise formulas of chemical fertilisers which were sprinkled by hand around the plants on the beds.
Mittleider called his method “Poor Man`s Hydroponics” and it certainly produced results although I have question marks about the quality.
Grow-Boxes are bottomless frames
Grow-boxes enclose small plots of soil. They are usually made of wood or cement and are leveled in place. Grow-boxes can be any length or width, but most people use either “mini” grow-boxes, 18 inches wide, or “standard” grow-boxes 4 feet wide. The walls are 8 inches high.
Grow-Boxes are filled with “custom-made soil,” a mixture of sawdust and sand, or other inert and organic combinations together with a balance of fertilizers. The custom-made soil in the frames is used year after year. It is never changed nor discarded.
Wooden framed beds have some good points, but I think the aesthetics, performance and permanence of low level moulded concrete walls is far superior.
Concrete Demands Organic Matter !
So Mulch, Mulch and More Mulch !
Because I am basically an organic kind of guy, I do like to minimise the use of chemical fertilisers, also in the Post Peak Oil World they will either not be available or highly expensive. However having studied extensively the field of ” Biological Farming” which is a farming movement which combines the best of organic and conventional farming methods, I have made use of their more sophisticated and advanced understanding of chemical fertilisers and applied it to Organoponic Raised Bed Gardening.
It is an ORGANIC DOGMA that ALL CHEMICAL FERTILISERS are BAD for the soil and food quality. It depends on WHAT chemical fertiliser and HOW you use it.
My favourite chemical fertilisers are Calcium Nitrate and Potassium Sulphate, but lets start with the first one. Cal Nitrate is virtually the only chemical fertiliser that has an alkaline and not acidic reaction in your soil.
It has a high calcium content in the readily available soluble form that plants can easily absorb.
Calcium is incredably important for plant growth and quality
Ag Lime often does not supply enough soluble available calcium to plants
Nitrate is the powerhouse of plant growth and yield
The Radionic numbers for Cal Nitrate are very good, which means it has a good energy !
It is effective in small amounts and more than justifies it`s high cost.
It is very soluble and is easily used in fertigation
It will balance the acidity and compensate for the nitrogen draw-down if your beds contain large amounts of Sawdust.
Now let us consider Potassium Sulphate, otherwise known as Sulphate of Potash, but I call it Pot Sulphate.
Pot Sulphate has two very important minerals in it, potassium i.e. K and sulphur i.e. S
We say NPK but with many crops such as brassicas and legumes we should say NPKS
Potassium is a difficult nutrient to get in the organic form and many soils are chronically deficient in it.
Once again the energy and radionic numbers are very good with this fertiliser, unlike the more commonly used potassic fertiliser
Potassium chloride which is “death” and contains chloride which is what you put in your swimming pools to keep them sterile.
To breakdown organic matter you need Sulphur as well as Nitrogen otherwise all the carbon will just be oxidised off as CO2
You need N:S ratio of 10:1 for nitrogen to be properly utilised
Pot Sulphate is easily solubilised in water and used in fertigation.
So the above examples give us an idea of how we can use chemical fertilisers to enhance our soil fertility and not damage our soil or lower our food quality. In fact quite the opposite !
Some friends experimented with adding Yellow Clay Dust to the
concrete and got this Mellow Yellow Adobe Effect
but it is better to just plaster the walls with clay, sand and cement, then stain
I have called this method Kiwi Organoponico because my friends and I have been expanding and improving on the Cuban Model of Organoponico and I also call it Wiki Organoponico because it is a collaboration amonst a dozen or more people and everyone who starts working with this method adds their Two Cents Worth.
23m long bed at Pawarenga
The ultimate goal with this method is to practice Permanent Mulch No-Dig Gardening and to feed the soil through the mulch with Rock Dusts and other natural inputs that can be sourced locally. However to get the system up and running, it can be beneficial, cheap and easy to utilise some chemical fertilisers, but one must first learn how to apply them in a responsible and intelligent manner.
Ben Bergman`s Organoponico, wide pathways allow
the grass to be mowed with a ride-on mower