Re: introduction and a WHOLE lotta questions

[Aurora Farm]

Jennifer:   Others have talked about more global issues...the weeds and what they tell, soil tests, etc.  Since I've mainly been a gardener, let me talk about that two acres you have in mind to garden.  Don't worry about soil tests with that precious patch.  You will so improve the soil on that small scale endeavor over the next couple of years that a soil test now will be meaningless.  COMPOST, COMPOST, COMPOST is the answer to your need to supply wholesome food for your family.   Now rethink your need for a 2-acre garden this season...you don't need that much land to grow family food--even if you strive for and eventually achieve 95 percent of your table needs.  Think more in terms of a half acre this year. That is doable with hand tools, after an initial plowing and harrowing.  Concentrate on a half acre--that's roughly 100'x200'.  Done intensively, with raised beds, you can grow food for two or three families on, that 20,000 square feet.  Say 40% of that is paths and tractor turnaround space, and you've got 12,000 square feet of bed space, 80 beds 50 feet long.  2 beds for salad, 6 for root crops, many for soft fruit, 2-5 for tomatoes and peppers, 10 for winter squash, 15 for grain and beans, including sweet corn, 2-4 for garlic and onions, the equivalent of at least 5 for flowers, [though flowers shold be interspersed throughout the vegetables], a couple more beds for extras I'm maybe not thinking of.  This much space will give you surplus to sell and plenty to can, freeze, dry.   Manfred mentioned adding the compost preps to the goat manure in place.  I disagree.  I would somehow get that stuff out of the barn and into a proper, aerated pile.  Odds are it's very compacted, and though it's true that the forces of the preps would radiate throughout the compacted manure, you're going to have to get the stuff into shape to use, so you might as well break it up with picks and shovels [or a frontloader?] and get it outside where the worms will get into it.    A 50' long bed could easily use a cubic yard [one cubic foot every 2 feet, say, or a wheelbarrow load every 4 feet] this first year, so you see the imperative to get going now.   As for books, the explanation of Biodynamics and the Steiner preparations in "Secrets of the Soil" is superb.   Get your preps now, from Josephine Porter Institute.  You need barrel compost, horn manure, horn silica, and sets of compost preps.  Call there and tell them what you're doing, and they will advise what you need.  Be aware that the future of the preparations in the U.S. is in grave question, so buy as much as you can afford for this a future years.   I was born and raised in northern Kentucky, and had my first farm in Woodford County, so I have a pretty good idea of the climate and can advise you on your timing for this self-sufficiency garden.  Key question, you don't mention a greenhouse.  Do you have any possibility for one, or extensive, sunny space in the house where you can raise plants from seed?  You can add 10 weeks or more to your gardening season with even a funky greenhouse.   Consider getting a cow.   Blessings,   Oh...and start with good seed!   Woody and Barbara Aurora Farm is the only unsubsidized, family-run seed farm in North America offering garden seeds grown using Rudolf Steiner's methods of spiritual agriculture.  http://www.kootenay.com/~aurora