Soil Building Experiment #1

Last month I shared what I've been learning about soil building ("Carbon: What I Didn't Know"). The nutshell version is that soil microorganisms are what make (build) new soil. Here's what I've learned summarized:

• Soil bacteria break down compost and mulch into organic matter
• Soil fungi build organic matter into new soil
• Both feed on carbon provided by
• the plants
• the mulch
• Conclusion: Feeding soil microorganisms = building the soil

Building soil in a small area such as a garden is relatively easy. The gardener applies compost and mulch, and the microorganisms do the rest. We can further facilitate the process by allowing the mycorrhizal fungi to grow and create a network. This is where the no-till technique comes in, because tillage destroys the network.

I will readily admit that we have been tilling, so a big part of these experiments is trying to figure out how to switch to no-till, especially for larger production areas where garden beds aren't practical.

The area we chose for our first soil building experiment is where our row of fruit trees grow, outlined in red in the map below.

See "Carbon and Soil Building: Designing a Plan" for map details.

There are two apple trees, two pear trees, and a small cherry tree down the middle with elderberry bushes along the fence. In the past we've cut the grass there and dried if for hay. Here's how it looked from the bottom of the slope (right edge on the map) before we began.

Planted with sorghum-sudan grass for a hay crop.

Before we did anything we took a look at the soil itself. We dug two samples, one at the top and one at the bottom.

Sample dug at the top of the area.

This sample is typical of soils in the southeastern United States. Any place on our property where we've had to dig (for fence posts, huglekulture swale beds, etc.) this is what it looks like: sandy loam topsoil and red clay subsoil. The sand doesn't hold water, so in hot weather our topsoil dries out quickly after a rain. And it contains just enough silt so when it dries out, it's as hard as concrete!

The bottom sample looks a little better.

Sample dug at the bottom of the area.

The top inch or two has roots and clumps of soil clinging to the roots (clumps are good; they mean soil microorganisms have been busy), but it contains little organic matter and is mostly the same sandy loam.

Excellent soils are said to look like black cottage cheese, and obviously we have a long way to go! It is possible to build soil with only cover crops, but we hoped to give it a jump start. We took stock of our own resources and decided to add some of this...

Aged manure from cleaning out the old goat barn.

This is what Dan scraped out of the former goat barn after we moved the goats. Some of that manure is years old, but it's been under roof, so there has been no nutrient leaching.

Also this...

Mulch pile from the tree trimming company.

Earlier this summer our electric company hired tree trimmers to clear everything away from the utility lines. Dan asked if we could have some, and they dropped off two loads of chipped wood and leaves. Here's what we decided to do.

First I trimmed back the trees and bushes. Then I broadcast a cool season cover crop mix of wheat, oats, winter peas, Daikon radishes, and crimson clover. The fibrous roots of the small grains add biomass below the soil surface, the peas and clover are legumes which fix nitrogen in the soil, and the large roots of the Daikons help loosen the soil. I also read they are nitrogen accumulators and store nitrogen in their roots.

Next Dan cut the grass back with our mulching lawn mower.

Trimmed back, planted, and mowed. The brown patch
at the bottom wasn't from tilling. That's the grass you
saw in the "before" photo, dead and brown from mowing.

The grass clippings covered the seed like a light layer of mulch. I covered that with a layer of the old manure,

then a layer wood and leaf chips.

A week later it was starting to grow.

We hit a hot dry spell about that time, so I was concerned about the seedlings drying up. Even with hot days and no rain for three weeks it continued to grow well.

Here's how it looks now.

One month after planting.

The plan is to let this cover crop grow all winter, then underseed it in the spring. The cover crop will be cut down, leaving the clippings to mulch the new seed and add more carbon to the soil. The idea is to alternate cover with harvest crops to build healthy, productive soil.

Soil building is a slow process, usually measured in years, so I realize it may take awhile to see improvement in future soil samples. Even so, we've  already seen a response.

Ten inches of new growth.

New growth on one of the apple trees! I can't tell you how much that lifted my spirits.

This is a long post, I know, but it will serve as a record of what we did, as well as our starting point for measuring progress in the future.

Soil Building Experiment #1 © September 2018

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Carbon and Soil Building: Designing a Plan

So how are we going to apply the knowledge we've collected in "Carbon: What I Didn't Know?" How are we going to increase soil carbon and build our soils?

Soil building is a biological process which requires a symbiotic relationship between living plant roots and soil microorganisms. Some of these organisms break down organic matter, and others secrete a sticky substance called glomalin. Glomalin binds soil particles (sand, clay, and silt) with carbon-containing organic matter to make soil. In addition, carbon is what feeds these microorganisms, so by adding plenty of carbon to the soil, we build the soil.

The soil in the southeastern U.S. is extremely poor, so we have our work cut out for us. I've been researching various methods of building soil and have learned that how we're going to approach it will depend on how we want to use the land. To visualize that, I mapped it out.

We have three goals in regards to land usage: gardens (green in the map above), pasture (lavender), and areas for producing field crops such as wheat, hay and other winter feedstuffs. Those areas are blue. All of these are the areas for which we need to develop soil building strategies.

Gardens. I have a kitchen and canning garden ("the garden") for annual vegetables, a slowly expanding perennial herb garden, and a couple of permaculture hedgerows. These are our smallest areas and so easiest to work with. For the most part, we're already on the right track, because we compost,  mulch, and don't use synthetic fertilizers or weed or pest killers. The plan is to continue building my huglekultur swale beds and get back to more diverse companion planting.

Pastures. Another area in which we've done some things right is pasture. For these, I've had some success with my Modified Fukuoka Method. I broadcast seed on the bare ground and cover it soiled straw and wasted hay from the goat barn.

Mixture of pasture forage seeds growing through barn cleanings.

I've only been able to spot seed with this method, however, so progress is very slow. We need to address the entire pasture rather than small areas in it. Cattle people do this with intensive rotational grazing. Our situation presents a few challenges for their method, but this is the direction we're headed. The first step will be to further subdivide our pastures. I'll have more on that later.

Field crops. In farming lingo, these would be called "cash crops." But since we're using these crops ourselves instead of trading them for cash, I prefer to call them production crops. Production areas are similar to a garden in that the crop changes seasonally, but they are much larger than a garden and so need different methods for managing.

Sam walking through last summer's corn seedlings.

Large producers like Gabe Brown build soil on large acreage with cover crops and no-till planting. However, they have large equipment to do so. The smallest no-till seed drills for small tractors run about $7000 - $8000 on up, which is out of the question for us. However, we're not the only ones trying to figure this out. I've been reading and researching and have come up with some ideas to try. I'll blog more about that soon.

I feel like we've been trying to figure out a huge puzzle for the last several years, except that some of the pieces have been missing. Finally, those missing pieces seem to be falling into place. It will still require a lot of work and experimentation on our part, but at least I know we're headed in the right direction.

Next in this series, "Soil Building Experiment #1."

Carbon and Soil Building: Designing a Plan © Aug 2018

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Of Seeds and Sweet Potatoes

Of sweet potatoes, I was surprised to find this one the other day. I got it from storage to make oven-baked sweet potato fries for dinner.

It was sprouting beautifully! Usually I stick a sweet potato in water to let it root and sprout, like this

This one went in right after I harvested it last fall. I always hope I'll get a beautiful growth of vines for winter greenery, but I never do. I get very few sprouts until spring, when the weather warms up. I figure it's probably because my house is too chilly all winter to encourage sweet potatoes to grow.

Of seeds I've been doing some late indoor planting. Not that it isn't about time to sow directly into the ground, but usually indoor plantings are started about six weeks before the last projected frost date. These future tomato plants are late in that regard...

...but earlier than if I planned to sow them directly into the ground! We have a long enough growing season that I can do that, but we're late on garden bed preparation too, so this is a start.

I didn't order many seeds this year. These came from Sow True Seeds.

Some of them are new for me: anise hyssop and cardoon, others are new varieties: Southern Brown Sugar cowpeas are supposed to be a "best tasting" variety, and Shin Kuroda carrots are said to do well in clay soils. The sorghum is for livestock feed, although some day I'd like to try my hand at making sorghum syrup.

At the moment, most of my planting energy has been focused on our pastures. I've had such good success with my modified Fukuoka natural farming method that I use it to spot seed every time I clean out the barn. Pasture improvement is a specific homestead goal for 2018, and more specifically, to establish the most diverse year-round polyculture pasture I can manage. Sounds simple, but it's been a slow process with a significant trial-and-error learning curve. One problem is limited local choice of seed. Around here tall fescue is sold as the cool season grass and Bermuda is the warm season choice. The only pasture mix I can find locally comes from Tractor Supply Co. in 40-pound bags to the tune of $150 each. So I started looking for other options.

One is deer and turkey food plot mixes in 50-pound bags for under $25 each. They are cheaper because they contain mostly annuals. The one I bought last fall contains: wheat, oats, rye grass, crimson clover, peas, and rape (canola).

In addition to that, I bought a 5-pound bag of "Herbal Ley" from New Country Organics. It contains a mix of legume and forb seeds: sainfoin, yellow clover, alfalfa, small burnet, forage rape, chicory, plantain, red clover, white clover, birdsfoot trefoil, and forage brassicas.

I also found the website of Seed World. What I like about this company is that I can purchase small quantities (as little as one pound) from a huge selection of pasture and wildlife food plot seeds. I can make my own blend; sericea (perennial) lespedeza, hairy vetch, birdsfoot trefoil, Bahai grass, chicory, orchard grass, etc.

To my pasture mix I add annual summer pasture seed from the feed store: sudan and millet, plus seeds I've saved myself: Austrian pea, oregano, yarrow, echinacea, vetch, and radish, turnip, old garden seeds, plus any native grass seed I can gather from non-pasture areas.

I mix all of these together

and head out with a bucketful of seed and a wheelbarrow full of barn muck. The annuals give inexpensive variety and will hopefully fill in until I can get enough perennial forage established. I don't expect it all to come up, but I hope that something will do well no matter what kind of summer we have this year.

After I finish getting the goat barn cleaned out, it will be time to plant our summer garden.

Of Seeds and Sweet Potatoes © April 2018  

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Hello May!

May has arrived all fresh and green. The air is sweet from honeysuckle!

Meowy on the fence post with honeysuckle.

With all the rain we got last month, the ground has been muddy, so I still have lots of planting to do!

Buck pasture

In the pastures I've been overseeding the winter forage with warm weather seed. Above you see a mix of wheat, oats, and peas growing. I'm filling in the bare spots with brown millet and sudan grass seed. The trick is to keep the chickens out until some growth is established.

The winter wheat is heading.

Wheat

Soon I'll overseed this as well, also with pasture seed for the does. That way the girls will have more summer forage as soon as the wheat is harvested.

Our field corn is up.

Sam walking through the corn seedlings.

This year I want to experiment with living mulch, so I spent Saturday sowing clover in the corn patch. Even rain compacts our soil, so I used a garden rake to lightly prepare the surface for the seeds. The corn rows are parallel to the gentle slope of the land and I made my scratches going the same way.

This will give the new seedlings something to grab on to, plus, I hope, help keep the seed from being washed down the slope by rain. That should work for a gentle rain; if it's a gully-washer all bets are off.

Last year I only planted a seed patch of field corn, but for the previous three years I experimented with cowpeas in the corn. In the end I decided that the cowpeas needed more sun, so this year I'm trying something different. The cowpeas will get a spot of their own elsewhere.

In critter news, the ducklings are getting bigger.

We started with twelve but are down to ten. One drowned in the water dish and one disappeared.

The kids are all going on three-months old and most of them will be going to new homes this month.

Conner with Beau to his left

Sky with Jessie in the background.

Windy

Goals for the month include getting the rest of the garden in and planting our first experiment in silvopasture. Next time I'll have a garden update, and I'm working on a workshop blog post as well. That's coming along slower because of Dan's work schedule, but he's making progress.

How about you? Moving in on summer or winter? What are your goals for the month?

Hello May! © May 2017 by Leigh

at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

More Winter Projects: Pasture and Grain

Last time I showed you my latest hedgerow project; this post I'll show you our other outdoor winter projects - pasture and grain-growing.

We live in a mild enough climate so that most winters we can have winter pasture as well as summer forage. Last summer was so hot and dry, however, that I was late in planting. I like to plant cool weather forage in September and October, but I postponed planting until the rains started to come.

You might recall this photo from a post at the end of last December.

We've had enough rainfall and mild days to get good growth.

Here it is just before I turn the girls and kids in there. Goats must be
introduced to fresh new pasture slowly to let their rumens to adjust.

I also planted two areas for the bucks.

This is a deer and turkey forage mix of wheat, oats,
and winter peas from the feed store, just starting to grow.

Do you see how the grass is growing in rows?

A closer view.

Dan disced, but it should have been leveled too, so that all the seed didn't roll into the little furrows.

If the soil is bare then I just toss the seed directly onto the ground. This is good for spot seeding and also larger areas. I plan the plantings for when I need to muck out the barn. We don't have a seed drill so I hand broadcast it and if I can, cover it with barn cleanings.

Deer forage mix seed broadcast and lightly mulched
 with straw, hay, & manure from the goat barns.

The straw and hay from the barn covers the seed and the manure helps it decompose plus adds nitrogen to the soil.

After a couple of rains these seeds are sprouting and grass is growing.

A picture like this always looks so pretty to me!

On to grain. Every year we try to plant about a quarter-acre of field corn. This year we're moving that location to a spot that is not prone to blackberries and morning glories. Dan prepped the soil and I planted with the same pasture seed as a green manure crop.

Sprouting wheat, peas, and oats will become green manure.

Green manure is a cover crop that is tilled into the soil while it is still young and green. It adds both nitrogen and organic matter to the soil.

Our winter wheat is coming along as well.

Right now it just looks like grass, but soon it will begin to grow.

It's called winter wheat because it's planted in the fall and harvested in spring. Summer wheat is planted in spring for a summer harvest. Once it's harvested I'll plant it back to pasture.

So those have been my outdoor projects this winter, and as a result the place is greening up nicely. No complaints about that. 😄

More Winter Projects: Pasture and Grain © March 2017 

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Poor Man's Fertilizer

Father was pleased. The soft snow was six inches deep, but the ground was not yet frozen.

"Poor man's fertilizer," Father called such a snow, and he set Royal to plowing it into all the fields. It carried something from the air into the ground, that would make the crops grow.

Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy 

We were blessed with four inches of poor man's fertilizer over the weekend. 

Why is it called that? Because according to The Old Farmer's Almanac, snowflakes attract and deposit atmospheric nitrogen onto the soil. Heaven knows we can certainly use more nitrogen in our soil

I'm saying "blessed," although I'm sure those of you with more than enough are thinking of it as anything other than a blessing. Our chickens didn't think it was a blessing and refused to come out of the coop. The goats weren't impressed. Only the ducks were willing to venture out in it.

On the Thursday and Friday before, I planted two of our pasture areas. I planted the buck pasture in a deer and turkey forage mix of wheat, oats, and Austrian peas.

I planted one of the doe pastures in winter wheat.

It's been gradually melting, although the temps have barely gotten above freezing. A warm-up is predicted by the end of the week so it should all be gone by then. I just hope it was enough cold to hopefully help reduce next summer's insect population. We seem to have more but problems after a mild winter.

Will we get more snow in the days and weeks ahead? Hard to say. January and February are typically our coldest months, although we've gotten snow as late as March. I reckon we'll just take it as it comes.

Poor Man's Fertilizer © January 2017 by

Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

October To-Do List

October is the month we can usually expect our first frost. Most of the planting should have been done by now, but with so little rain last month, the soil is either powder or hard as a rock. It's also the month in which we tend to some seasonal chores. So what's on the to-do list?

Garden Planting

Most of the fall garden should have been planted in August and September, but I keep waiting on rain that doesn't come. Still to plant:

• Greens in the hoop house: lettuce, kale, claytonia, arugula
• Root vegetables (these should have been planted already but better late than never I suppose): mangles, beets, turnips, carrots, and radishes

Winter Wheat

I mentioned in this year's Master Plan post that we are changing where we grow field crops to a different paddock.

Blue is proposed

The new location will need a fence (maybe electric) and ground preparation to plant,

but with the ground so hard from so little rain we're behind on soil preparation here.

Winter Pasture

Deer and turkey seed is an inexpensive way to plant a winter pasture.

I like to sow pasture seed right before it rains, because I don't like to leave it sitting on the ground, even mulched (see "A Modified Fukuoka Method of Planting Winter Pasture") because of the chickens. Usually I hand broadcast to fill in bare spots, but it will take more this year because we lost most of our pasture due to the hot, dry weather.

Confining the Seed-Eating Culprits 

Escape artists, every one.

Given the opportunity, the chickens will consume every last pasture and crop seed we plant! That means they will have to stay confined until the seed is sprouted and growing. On the to-do list are wing clipping and checking the chicken yard fence for any escape points that need to be mended.

Meat Harvest

We can start this when the days are too cool for flies. This year it will be mostly ducks and maybe a few chickens.

Firewood

Here's part of what we have done.

We have a good start but there is still quite a bit to split

Here's part of what still needs to be done.

Woodstove Chimneys

These need to be cleaned of soot and buildup inside the pipes.

Finishing the Little Barn

Seasonal chores put projects on hold, but we'll still work on finishing the Little Barn as we can.

First coat of barn paint on the new door and first windows in.

What about you? What's on your October to-do list?

October To-Do List © Oct 2016 by Leigh 

at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

Around The Homestead

So what have you all been up to while I've been on blog break? Besides working on Critter Tales, here's my news.

Weather

We've been getting a lot of rain lately: 2 inches during the last week of September, 2.75 inches during the first week of October, and over an inch yesterday. One thing it's done is to give me a chance to evaluate the improvements I did earlier this year to our natural swales.

There's still some runoff down the hill, but not as much as there used to be. The worst of all this rain has been what it's done to our corn.

Unwelcome Guest

One morning, as I went into the goat shed to feed the goats and do the milking, something scampered out of the feed room. Must be one of the cats, I thought. I called, but no cat came forward, so I took a look and saw a raccoon tail. I knew they were around, but so far we'd never seen them. Very cute, but unfortunately they will kill chickens. In fact, the next morning Dan heard a panic in the chicken yard and found the raccoon there. A chicken head count revealed one missing, but without a chicken body it's impossible to guess what happened. Needless to say, I'm going to try out a new recipe or two and Dan would like to try his hand at hide tanning.

Cheese Making

I've just gotten started on this year's hard cheeses. More on that in an upcoming post.

Nuts

Happily, the squirrels didn't get all the pecans after all. We'll have pecans for us and also acorns for the goats and pigs. I'm happy about that because the last two years were poor in the pecan production department.

Winter Numbers

We've been working on getting our livestock numbers down to what we call "winter level." This is our minimum number of each critter type, to make sure we can feed them all properly and house them in bad weather without overcrowding. Next spring we'll see expansion once again with baby chickens, goats, and pigs.

Sneak Peek

This is my current favorite idea for a Critter Tales cover. I'm thinking about updating my five-year-old blog avatar, so that one photo would change. What do you think?

Winter Pasture

The mild, rainy weather has been good for sowing winter pasture. I've been seeding all the spotty areas using a modified Fukuoka method. More on that next time.

And ...

More misadventures in goat breeding. Stay tuned.

So tell me how October has been going for you so far.

 Around The Homestead © Oct. 2015
by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com/