Great, a new paradigm that looks promising: French Intensive Method

I fell in love with Korean Natural Farming, as well as Masanobu Fokuoka's natural farming approach.
Then I fell in love with no-til, and Gabe Brown's work (for farmers) and Charles Dowding's work (for annual veg gardeners).
Then Dr. Elaine Ingham's work, focusing on the population and ratio of soil microbes.
I believe in them all.

And now, while poking around Lillie House Permaculture's blog, I discovered another paradigm, which is possibly useful for both my annual beds and possibly my hedgerows and food forests--French Intensive Method (FIM).  I'll have to do that next year, though, but it'll speed up my learning to compare my current garden to what I read about FIM.

For an overview, see https://transformativeadventures.org/2018/05/15/french-intensive-methods-for-permaculture/.  Mike Hoag (of Lillie House) seems to focus on the intercropping.  I remembered hearing that there was more to it, and I remembered a story of how the manure would be collected from the horses who were pulling the veggies to market, and then used to keep crops warm.  So I looked for another source of info.

I found the PDF, Intensive Culture of Vegetables (French System) by P. Aquatias.  (I'll refer to this as FIM from here on.)

This book was written in 1913.  It's slow going in parts, and for a while, I had no idea what was going on because the word "lights" meant (sort of) "windows", or specifically the 3 window panels that get attached as the top of a coldframe, and I didn't figure that out until my third time through the relevant chapter.  

I love how they use horse manure.  I have a weekly supply.  I might try it.  

They store it in summer, and then in winter, they mix it with fresh manure to get the right temperature, then spread it out under where their coldframes will go.  Then they cover the fresh manure mix with a layer of old composted manure, lay out the coldframes, and finally put a layer of really old manure (now safe soil in which to grow food) into the coldframes.  They put starts in there when the time is right.  Since the top of the coldframe is glass, they can put straw mats on them to provide even more heat at night.  

In 1913, some of these supplies were expensive and some not, and now in 2020, the expensive items changed places with the non-expensive ones.  160 pounds (for frames and "lights) in 1913 would be $21745.89 today, so divide that by 100 frames (3 "lights" each), and that would be $217 per frame.  Yeah, I could make a frame cheaper than that today.  Especially if I got old windows from a construction reclamation center.  The straw mats would be expensive though.  And glass bell-jars (cloches) are an up-marketed item now.  But holy cow, I get free manure from 2 mustangs, and the price of manure in 1913...Wow!  But I digress.

FIM also provides a strict schedule for succession that I might try.  Seems like Charles Dowding has already figured out a more modern plan, though he doesn't intercrop as much as Mike Hoag suggests, though Mike is using FIM in his perennial beds, so maybe that's why.

I wonder if the manure is necessary, though.

"It is this heat which repays the grower by enabling him to produce his crops out of season."  The book says that the manure gives you a gain of 3 degrees F in their zone (presumably zone 8).  And the frames and mats can give you and extra boost of 6 degrees at night.

But listen to this amazing gardener I discovered today--listen at 1:43:

Her method gives her a temperature gain just by planting things super close together.  Though she is sowing on top of fermenting compost.  Hmm.

Need to read more and start experimenting.