The principles of grow biointensive gardening

To learn the grow biointensive method of gardening, I've been pouring over John Jeavons' book How to Grow More Vegetables. A couple of major principles distinguish Jeavons' methods from others. In general, Jeavons advocates an approach that is sustainable. In other words, he advocates a system in which resources used up are balanced by resources created. So instead of sending the aspiring gardener out to spend massive amounts of money on garden supplies and to plant crops willy nilly that deplete the soil, Jeavons recommends composting, crop rotation, and building soil structure, particularly through something he calls "the double dig"--more on that later. To get the maximum amount of produce from the minimum amount of land he recommends placing plants very close together instead of in rows and growing your own seedlings rather than buying seedlings or planting seed directly in the ground. 

Those are the basics. Simple, but still a little intimidating. The book gives detailed plans for how to develop a garden starting with 100 sq ft and I found myself getting bogged down a bit in the details. This morning I talked on the phone to Margo who has just finished a 3 year internship at Jeavons' Ecology Action institute. Margo gave me lots of encouragement and made me feel like I'm on the right track. Thanks, Margo!

Part of my problem is that I'm getting a bit of a late start--my seeds just arrived two days ago from the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange--and my cool weather vegetables should have been started a couple of weeks ago so that I'd have seedlings ready to go now. But after talking to Margo, I think I have a plan. I've decided to plant seed directly in the garden as soon as things dry off a bit here and after I've gotten the results of my soil test back. I took a soil sample to the Co-op last Saturday and hope to hear something soon. My goal is to plant my cool weather crops no later than March 20. But I'll  start some seeds indoors too so that if my seeds planted outside start to falter, I can replace them with the seedlings.  

I'll start my warm weather seedlings about 2 -3 weeks before the last frost--which as everyone knows is a moving target. For middle Tennessee the last frost falls anywhere from April 6 to April 21. 

In the meantime, I'm off to start my seedlings!