by Margarete Langerhorst
Reviewed by Dave Darlington
"This is probably the best all-round practical guide to organic growing and the only all round practical guide to vegan - organic growing that I have read. Published in 1996: it's time for an English translation."
Permanent Cover
I first came across the impressive work of Margarete Langerhorst and her husband Jacobus through an article that appeared in 1985 in the German magazine 'BioGarten', through this article that I became acquainted with the growing system devised by Gertrud Franck and described in her book 'Gesunder Garten durch Mischkultur (2). This system lies at the heart of the Langerhorst practice of mixed cropping. Essentially it means growing vegetables in equally spaced rows in a specified order depending on the size of the vegetables, its growing season and its compatibility with plants in the neighbouring rows. A form of crop rotation is achieved by moving all the rows along a specified distance each year. Great use is made of successive cropping and of rows of green manures between the vegetable rows, so that there is a permanent ground cover of plants. Where nothing is growing, the ground is covered with a mulch of dead plant material.Vegan - Organic growing at its best
What Margarete Langerhorst has developed is the Gertrud Franck system in her l.5 hectare (3.5-acre) market garden in north-eastern Austria for over 25 years with spectacular success, as the stunning photographs in this book show. This is vegan - organic growing at its very best - no-dig, no machinery, mulching, green manures and, of course, no animal products used. This book is a distillation of her huge wealth of experience and is full of down-to-earth information - crop plans, rotations, row spacing, planting methods, green manuring methods etc. Any grower who is using mixed cropping (and that should be all of us!), even if they do not fully adopt the Gertrud Franck method, will find many stimulating ideas in this book. For example, all rows except those for very early crops are first sown (in March or early April) with a green manure, which is hoed off and left as a mulch before the main crop is planted. As well as the usual clover and mustard, widespread use is made of spinach as a green manure. Some of it is harvested and the rest is mulched. Herbs are allowed to seed themselves and grow anywhere in and around the vegetable rows, particularly Yarrow, St. John's wort, mullein, borage, chamomile and dill. The Langerhorst experience incorporates and confirms the organic principle that you get healthy plants through a healthy soil. In a healthy humus-rich soil plant pests and diseases are hardly a problem.The author has found that this is true even for slugs. For the first few years they had a serious slug problem, but this diminished as the soil improved. "Since 1989", she says, "our garden has been slug- free, despite the presence of mulch and irrespective of weather conditions".Rock-dust and calcified seaweed ?
Amongst the enormous amount of information in this book there are only two points about which I have serious reservations. One is the widespread use of rock dust and calcified seaweed, which I consider environmentally unfriendly and unsustainable. Rock dust seems particularly popular among organic growers in Austria, but, while acceptable on a small scale, it cannot be recommended as a method to be used by farmers and growers everywhere because of the energy used in its production, the damage done to the landscape by quarrying and the exhaustibility of its reserves. Similar arguments apply to the use of calcified seaweed. Vegan - organic farmers and growers should be trying to rely solely on green manures and composts to maintain fertility.The other weakness in the Langerhorst system is their method of potato growing. The author correctly draws attention to the futility of the traditional method of growing potatoes in ridged-up soil and even refers to her method as "growing potatoes on the flat", but in fact it appears that she plants the potatoes in drills and covers them with 2 or 3 inches of soil, an unnecessary disturbance of the soil and a waste of time and energy.
However this is probably the best all-round practical guide to organic growing and the only all-round practical guide to vegan - organic growing that I have read. Published in 1996 it's time for an English translation.
(1) The title translates roughly as "My Experience of Mixed Cropping".
(2) The title means 'A Healthy Garden through Mixed Cropping', but the book is available in English under the misleading title 'Companion Planting'
