In life we have been taught since our childhood to be neat and clean. That means everything should be arranged and orderly. While it may be of value to teach to our children to be neat and orderly, it does not work so well in the context of organic farming. An organic garden can be beautiful and aesthetically extremely pleasing. However it will never look orderly or disciplined like chemical and industrial farms look. Rows and rows, acres and acres of neat rows of one single type of plant, crop, and vegetable. It may seem pleasing to our mind and senses which are conditioned by artificial order, however it is not the rule of nature.
So what is really the problem with mono-cropping (single species plantation)? This question is more easily answered by understanding how intercropping is beneficial. But a short and logical answer is that mono-cropping creates a weak system where one pest, one drought, one unfavourable climatic condition, can wipe out an entire crop resulting in complete loss for the farmer. Once more the forest has a lot to teach us on this topic. The forest is one of the highest biomass producing eco-systems and more precisely tropical and evergreen forests have the highest production amongst types of forests. What we typically see in such forests is that it has the highest biodiversity. Very rarely will you find only one species growing in even a tiny area. Biodiversity is the strength of ecosystems. Won't we have better luck if we learn to imitate the forest system of production? Let us look at some benefits of intercropping in organic farming and gardening. Pest Control If your garden bed has more than three types of plants growing on it, and no same plants are touching each other, it reduces the impact of pests dramatically. There is a very simple explanation for this. Pests usually move from one plant to the other and usually pests like one or two kinds of plants. When there is one straight line of the pests' favourite vegetable it will keep going from one to the other and keep multiplying. If the pest eats one plant and then next it encounters a plant that it doesn't like, then it will think there are no more of its favourite plants and so it may disappear or simply remain in small numbers. Nutrient Control and Optimization Every plant has different nutrient requirements. If you have a monocropping of only vegetables such as cauliflower or sweet corn which are high nutrient consuming plants, then your soil will become depleted very quickly and will require you to keep adding hight amounts of nutrients externally. This is both harmful to nature as well as inefficient. Intercropping high nutrient consuming vegetables with low nutrient extracting and nitrogen fixing plants will give you a diverse and higher yield. This chart below will give you some idea of what are high and low nutrient consuming vegetables. 1. Fruiting Vegetables (e.g Tomato, Brinjal, Cauliflower, Cabbage etc.) High 2. Leafy Vegetables (e.g. Spinach, Latmat, Methi, Corriander etc.) Medium 3. Roots (e.g Carrot, Raddish, Sweet Potato etc.) Low 4. Legumes (e.g Tur dal, Chawli, French Beans, Soya bean etc.) Nitrogen Fixing Nutrient management automatically leads to less requirements of water, fertilizer, and mulching since plants can form their own mini-ecosystem with less needed from the outside. So how can you do it? As I always say don't be afraid to try something out. Trial and error is your best friend because only your context will tell you what can be best intercropped and how. There are several established examples of intercropping and companion planting. Tomato and Marigold Companion Planting: This is a very common example. Companion planting is where the two plants are meant to be with each other because of how beneficial they are to each other and to us. Tomato pests are mostly nematodes which means they come from the soil. Marigold roots have a property that kills these soil nematodes. So they do very well together and at the end of the day you have beautiful tomatoes and marigold flowers to harvest. More information on companion planting and intercropping can be found here.
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The best part of gardening is planting your babies and watching them grow... This is definitely the fun part. So now that you have understood how to make compost and prepare your soil for planting, it is time to plant. What do we need to know about Tomatoes? Soil: Fertile, deep, and well-drained (however, wild tomatoes can grow easily in tough soil) Water: Frequent watering required but don’t let them get soggy! Nutrients: Compost and Vermicompost Climate: Nice warm and in full sun Okay let us take it step by step. Most vegetables require the following steps. 1. Sourcing Organic Seeds or Seedlings 2. Starting Seeds 3. Transplanting Seedlings/Sowing Seeds 4. Intercropping/Companion Cropping to Avoid Pest Problems 5. Maintenance (Watering, Nutrients, Weeding, Pruning) 6. Harvesting 7. Saving Seeds Sourcing Organic Seeds of Seedling is extremely important for all organic farmers or gardeners. Even if you are growing your tomato in a pot, you want to eat organic. Depending on your location it may be difficult for you to find seeds and seedlings that have not been treated with chemicals. You definitely want to avoid buying hybrid seeds /seedlings. Often if you buy seeds in a shop that are not hybrid, read the fine print. It may say treated with thiram or some other chemical. In the case that you cannot find organic, you can grow those as well but make sure you add no more chemicals to your soil or plant. You are most likely to find organic seeds from someone who grows organic vegetables. Often there are some villagers who grow ‘local’ or ‘gauthi, gauran’ vegetables. You can ask them for their seeds as well. Starting seeds: Once you have the seeds, you can start then in seed starters. Make sure the soil for your seeds is the best soil you have. It needs to be fertile and without stones as much as possible. You can also start seeds in a pot or on a small patch on land in your garden. Sow the seeds only 1 or 2cms deep. If the seeds go in too deep then the chances of germination go down. Even scattering seeds is okay if you do not have birds who might eat your seeds. Depending on the quality of your seeds, 1 out of every 3 seeds will germinate. Keep the soil moist and avoid direct sunlight. However cold weather and cold soil does not suit germination. Transplanting seedlings can take place once your seedlings have grown approximately 5-6 inches tall. If you have bought seedlings from a nursery, then the sooner you transplant the better. Prepare the soil for planting and level it so that there is no slope for water to run off or favor one or two plants more than others. Make 3-4 inch holes at a distance of 20 inches. Often tomatoes need support, so planting then in one line is better if you are planting on the ground. Planting one tomato plant per pot is usually the best. Make sure that the pot is not too small because tomatoes require a lot of nutrition to produce fruits. Transplant the tomatoes with care so as to not damage the root system. The roots and part of the stem should be under the ground. Don’t be too gentle otherwise the plant may not remain erect. So be gentle, but firm. It is good to water the plant immediately after transplanting so as to lessen the shock. Intercropping/Companion Planting: It is important not to plant only tomatoes because they are likely to be attacked by diseases. Every plant has a companion plants that keep these pests away. One of tomatoes’ best companion plant is Marigold. Plant Marigold seedlings alternatively with tomato seedlings. They will grow together and keep your tomatoes happy. Maintenance of tomato plants has two major components. One is building support and the other is adding nutrients. Since tomato plants require fertility to grow, adding compost/manure/vermicompost during flowering helps in the formation of fruits. Tomatoes can be allowed to sprawl however to avoid rotting of tomatoes by their touching the ground, supports can help. There are many different kinds of support. I will mention 3 kinds. 1. Stick Support: It is the most simple method by which you can put one single stick for each plant along the stem of the plant and tie the two together. Make sure the stick is longer than the plant to keep up with its growth. 2. Triangle Support: This is also a method for supporting a single tomato plant. Put three sticks in a triangular formation around the plant and cage the plant within the space of those sticks by tying strings. You can even get ready made cages as seen in the photograph below. 3. Trellis: The trellis method can support more than one tomato plant. Place two 4-5ft thick sticks or bamboos on either end of your tomato plant bed/ line of planted tomato plants. Tie two strings across the two sticks, one at the top and one at the bottom. Between these two horizontal strings tie several vertical strings close to each tomato plant. So when the tomato needs support, all you need to do is wind them along these vertical strings. The photographs below can help (click for bigger picture). Harvesting tomatoes is easy. Eat them when they look red and juicy! If you want to transport and sell them, it is advisable to pick them a bit before they turn red.
Saving seeds for the next season is essential and efficient. It will help you preserve organic seeds of certain tomato varieties, and also save you the trouble of looking for them during the next round of tomato growing. Here is a good website with information on how to save seeds. So you are now ready to start growing some tomatoes. Don’t forget to water regularly, add compost, and mulch, mulch, mulch! |
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November 2018
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