Where do you find your organic material? My husband,6 kids, and I moved to our long awaited castle in the country. I love it! I HATE my farm field. It is heavy dirt. Alot of clay, no organic material, it used to be a corn/soybean farm. We only bought 5 acres with the house. It feels like 100. I put all of the organic matter in that I can get my hands on but it is so big. Should I only do an acre at a time? I'm going to plant trees on two acres in a couple of years. So that leaves three acres. Are cover crops my answer? I should also say it floods every spring in the field also. So I can't get out there without danger of sinking up to my knees in mud. I'm not kidding, I through my back out and was stuck out there untill my husband got home. He had to pull me out. (Dont laugh he did enough of that)Can cover crops go in in the late spring?
You need to grow your soil. Adding organic matter is much easier when you can grow it. Sow a spring cover crop of peas or favas with daikon radish. Follow in the summer with sudan grass, alfalfa, and mammoth red clover or buckwheat. follow that with vetch and winter rye or oats. Don't bother tilling them in...just mow them VERY short when they are getting ready to bloom...the summer mix can be mowed down several times. Plant right in the mowed humus, or rip the soil and or drill plant. The long brittle roots of the daikon radish, and the long roots of the alfalfa help to loosen the soil. The sweet sap of the sudan grass promotes biological activity in the soil and repells pathogenic nematodes. The massive amounts of organic matter produced by the rest of the stuff is a great soil builder, and attracts worms as it decays. You might see if you can get local farmers and/or the city to dump leaves or woodchips on your soil if you don't mind dealing with some residual chemicals. I haven't noticed enough to worry about in my suppliers, but each location is different.
And I won't laugh at your stuck in mud predicament. Somewhere in Nebraska, about four feet down, fossilizing slowly to confuse future archaeologists, is a pair of reeboks, socks and one pair of jeans with a pair of panties still attached. That stuff is like GLUE! And yes, I should have sold tickets. The family still likes to crack up while telling tales of that embarassing moment.
Thanks for making me feel better about getting stuck in the mud. I'm going to try your dirt RX. Thanks Where do I find all that kind of seed I have never herd of most of it?
That's real good advice. Territorial seed company has most if not all of those ( if memory serves correctly). The trees will survive without the extras in all likelihood. Don't forget to compost. I also get a mulch here made from ground up christmas trees after christmas usually available through march when most people start getting out and doing their yards. The county provides that as a means of recycling the trees. Call your county extention agency as well as your local agricultural dept. Another thing available here is good dirt FREE from the local vocational school when they have extra. Good luck!
As long as you're growing excellent pasture, why waste it. Get two Angus cows, a half dozen goats/sheep, and some chickens. You will have the best pasture in the area.
You should fence the animals so that they are herded together and can eat grass and trample soil on a rotating basis. Give the pasture at least 30 days (90 is better) before returning the animals to the same place. The animals harvest the grass for you and as for their retirement plan, you eat them.
So if you have 5 acres and fenced it into ten half-acre plots, you could leave the animals in one field for a week and move them to the next field. It would be nine weeks before the animals returned to the first field.
You could actually measure a soil growth of 1 inch per year doing this.
You guys are great!!! I ordered from Gardens Alive the cover crop the other day. My husband says NO MORE ANIMALS. I tryed. I have one goat, thirty chickens, and 15 ducks already. All there by-products go in the field. I also have 223 trees comeing this year. Thanks for the help.
