Monday, August 26, 2013

Enriching the soil: Green everywhere by winter

Manure amendment
I'd like to have a lush, green, living cover on every inch of ground before the first frost.  For the most part, that's going to be easy to do, but there are some areas that will be a bit of a challenge.  One of those is around the horse barn.  The dirt there is mostly sand, with some round river rocks.  Not very much organic material, and stuff just doesn't grow there very well. 

To fix that i'm added manure and will use the power rake to remove the rocks and debris from there; leaving a nice seed bed.  for this year I'll probably just lay down a pasture mix; grass will keep the soil in place during the winter rains, and will be a good holding pattern until I figure out what goes there for next year.  This area is relatively close to the house; so I may make it the kitchen garden next year.  I'll watch to see how the ground looks after I get done with this dirtwork. 

If you leave ground in this area fallow, you get both undesirable weeds and blackberry bushes.  Blackberries are to the northwest what kudzu is to the south:  A huge nuisance.   So this is a little bit of a cross between farming and gardening and landscaping.  Eliminating some plants in favor of others. 

1 comment:

Joe said...

That will get the job done!Is that from your pigs or left overs from the dairy operation?