Re: Need advice on Farmall for cultivating garden

Posted by Hugh MacKay on April 15, 2006 at 11:43:50 from (209.226.106.144):

In Reply to: Re: Need advice on Farmall for cultivating garden posted by Dave H (MI) on April 15, 2006 at 06:07:19:

Dave: As far as these row widths are concerned, history has changed a lot of the rules. When I was a kid just about everything was geared to the width of the horse's backside. Precisely the reason for 36" to 42" corn rows. We have seen corn rows come from those widths down to 30" and yes even down to 20".

What history has taught us is no matter what the crop, one aims for a canopy or ground cover quickly as possible. This is why I used 20" rows for items like radishes, carrots, onions, beets, etc; 26" rows for turnip, rutabagas, head or romaine lettuce and other quite leafy vegetables; 30" rows for peas, beans, corn, etc. I like 36" rows for cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli.

Vine crops are another matter, you spread them as far apart as they will spread; pumpkins 8' , cucumbers 5', etc. Keep them in rows in the early growth to achive cultivation.

Potatoes are the interesting one, when I was a kid we were planting those in 30" rows, then as yields increased it took more soil to keep them covered, and with that came 36" rows and some farmers are now looking at 42" rows. It's nothing more than keeping them covered. Less sun burned potatoes, plus keeping tops from coming in close proximinity to the potatoes. We have learned that if tops with blight never contact the actual potato the blight will not spread to the potato. Thus we kill the tops before digging or the rains leach blight through soil to the potatoes. Another factor with the potatoes are the long egg shaped russets for baking. Sized, those sell for a premium, and for some strange reason wide rows will increase the percentage of large baking potatoes.

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