The Jeavons Center Mini-Farm Report
by John Jeavons,
Executive Director, Ecology Action
 I’ve been doing this for a while now, so people
often ask me for gardening advice. And while
I can occasionally address a question directly
with a generally applicable tip, the real answers
can only come from getting acquainted with the
land where you are, and learning to work
harmoniously with your part of the Earth,
your garden. As my mentor Alan Chadwick said:
"It is not the gardener that makes the garden. It is
the garden that makes the gardener."
But I also understand that everyone must start
somewhere, and “get to know your land” may not
be immediately helpful when confronting an aphid
invasion, so my second answer (maybe it should be
my first? Only?) is: educate yourself. The beauty
of growing food and working with the soil is that
every year, every season, every day in the garden is
a reinvention and re-creation of the knowledge—the
rich human heritage—handed from one gardener to
the next, across time and space, stretching across
the globe and back to the first person who planted
and tended a seed to harvest...and then taught
someone else to do it. If you’re wondering about it,
someone else probably has, too. And so, in answer
to the questions I receive, I say: read, Read, READ!
Over our first 52 years, in answer to our own and
others' questions, Ecology Action has published over
fifty books, booklets, and how-to videos, and a huge
array of related articles, all available to the public
in print and/or electronic format. For a really good introduction
to growing food and soil using GROW
BIOINTENSIVE® (GB) Sustainable Mini-Farming, I
recommend the following selections:
Q: Where do I start?
A: My first book, How to
Grow More Vegetables (HTGMV) is 350 pages
long and provides a comprehensive introduction to
GB. It is a good book, if I do say so myself, and I
recommend it … but it’s long, and detailed. If you
want a wonderful, shorter, approach for novice
farmers, try The Farmer's Mini-Handbook. We've
translated this popular “30-page HTGMV” into nine
languages so far (French, German, Hindi, Portuguese,
Russian, Spanish, Turkish, Korean, and Miskitu).
With key illustrations, few numbers (yay!), and in the “enhanced” version, eight beautiful full-color
teaching posters, The Farmer’s Handbook offers
a wonderful approach, as beginners grow into an
expanded process. And it’s free!
Q: How can I possibly grow grain without a
hundred acres and a combine?
A: For everyone
who wants to know how GB can make basic grain
raising and harvesting possible on a small scale
appropriate for a home garden, I recommend Self-
Teaching Mini-Series Booklet #33: Grow Your Own
Grains. It really does work. And growing grains
with GB, you grow calories and compost crops
simultaneously! Right now, the TJC mini-farm soil is
beautiful and enhanced through the growth of barley,
cereal rye, and wheat crops, from which we expect
a good harvest of delicious grain and compostable
biomass later this year.
Q: How can I grow crops in a drought?
A: The past four years were difficult ones at TJC,
with wildfires and a severe drought impacting our
ability to grow crops. For a time, we had to reduce
our annual growing space to seventeen 100ft² beds
(plus perennials). But even when rainfall dropped
to 20 inches from our usual average of 45+ inches
annually, we continued to grow our crops with
high productivity. This is because GB uses only 1/5
to 1/8 the water required to grow the same crops using
conventional methods. As climate change makes
seasonal rain uncertain, it’s important for every gardener
to become skilled in water conservation to
protect the harvest, and our ecosystems. Self-Teaching
Mini-Series Booklet #35: Growing More Food
with Less Water is a good place to start this journey.
Q: How much energy does GB really save?
A: It is easy to prove GB provides higher yields
and lowers water and fertilizer use: we can weigh
produce, measure water use, and keep track of
fertilizers. It is not so easy to evaluate the total
energy input in farming systems, which includes the
calories (energy) of labor, calories embedded in the
tools we use, and calories used getting food to our
plates—processing and preserving. In Self-Teaching
Mini-Series Booklet #37: Energy Use in Biointensive
Food Production, two crops (onions and flour corn)
serve to illustrate how as little as 6% the energy
is used across the board with GB compared with
conventional farming.
Q: I read The Farmer’s Handbook, what
should I read next?
A: Once you’ve mastered the basics and have a reasonably improved soil and skillset,
you can use GB and smart crop choices to plan
and grow a nutritionally complete, balanced vegan
diet for one person on 2,000ft² (or less). That’s 1/50
the area currently used to grow an average US diet.
You can start with just one growing bed and work
your way up! Self-Teaching Mini-Series Booklet #38:
A Path to Peace and Sustainability: Growing Soil,
Food and Seed in As Little As 1,000 Sq. Ft. combines
beautiful writing and design with excellent details
on this topic, and is a good “vision document” that
provides a deeper dive into both the philosophy and
the method of GB for the beginner...and beyond.
Q: What do you do at TJC when…?
A: Every
garden site differs, and what works in one place may
not work in another. But for those curious about our
methods, Self-Teaching Mini-Series Booklet #41:
Reflections on Crop Cultivation Practices is the
inside scoop for our location in the mountains east of
Willits, CA. This booklet contains crop information
and cultivation approaches, developed over half
a century at TJC, updated as we continue to learn
from our work.
Q: I’m learning GB, there’s a lot going on in
the world, and I need inspiration!
A: We hear
you! Ecology Action is a small organization, with a
big responsibility to spread GB to as many people
as possible. The accelerating challenges we face—
individually and globally—means more people than
ever (billions around the globe) will need the skill to
grow fertile soil, abundant nutritious food, and an
income—and be functioning and beneficial parts of
their community. To address this need, I developed
the (just-released!) Self-Teaching Mini-Series
Booklet #44: Ultra: Accelerated Learning and
Teaching Approach as part of an initiative to train as
many people as possible to become GB practitioners
in as little as a 6-week to 6-month period. The goal
of the Ultra initiative is for each trainee to have the
equivalent of a 3-year Ecology Action Apprentice’s
perspective and grasp of GB, although they will
not yet have all the technical information on using
the method. The booklet is intended (with some
clarification by a mentor when necessary) to provide
a foundation for people training to use GB as they
learn to work with nature, to create solutions to the
challenges facing us, and to thrive as individuals
and as a part of the whole. It is not intended to
provide training in the day-to-day techniques, which
can be learned from resources offered by Ecology
Action our global partners. Instead, it is intended to provide a feel for the experiential and conceptual
understanding of the philosophical and even what
might be called a spiritual (or deep subconscious)
connection with the seasons, cycles, and choices that
a seasoned gardener develops a feel for over time,
and which beginning practitioners of the GB method
sometimes struggle to understand.
Q: What can we do about…everything?
A: Self-Teaching Mini-Series Booklet #45: The
Negative Tolerance Buildup Effect and a Positive
Transformation (just-released!) shows how GB
can transform five key challenges in the world into
positive opportunities:
- Grow fertile farmable soil instead of depleting
it.
- Conserve water while increasing yields.
- Use less energy in all forms.
• Require far fewer imported nutrients while
growing more nutritious food.
- Grow healthy, abundant food for a healthy,
balanced population.
This reading list is not a comprehensive one, but it’s a
good place to start. And as you explore and learn and
grow your garden and your skills: stay curious, use
your “Aikido Eyes,” collect your data regularly, and
work from a place of Joy. And as always, remember:
"You must give to nature more than you take.
Obey it, and the earth will provide you in glorious
abundance." - Alan Chadwick
Grow Hope
Grow Abundance
Grow Biointensive!
♥
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