Spreading more compost

It didn’t rain last night (there was a chance). So, this morning, I spread compost on the small field near the orchard, at the end of which I planted the 50 asparagus crowns earlier. My compost spreading process involves two tractors, a manure spreader, a loader, and a field cultivator.

This is the field before I started. I disked it a few days ago. Last year, we tried to grow corn here, but the crows and other varmints interfered with that. The soil doesn’t have a lot of humus, appearing to be mostly clay. Like much of the other ground on our farm, it was used to grow tobacco in the past. There were tobacco stalks in it when we moved here almost eight years ago.

I took compost from the piles at then end of the field. Yesterday, I used from one of the piles for spreading on the garden.

The manure spreader that I have is an old one that I bought last spring. Of course, it’s not as old as the one I used before I got this one. I’ve only been able to use this one the last couple of days even though I bought it a year ago. Thankfully, it worked fine today. I pulled and powered it with my 1966 International 424. This has been a very good tractor since I bought it 7.5 years ago. I use it for just about everything.

Part way through the process, I took a photo of my progress. I’d already spread 10 loads at this time, and the first pile was completely removed and I had started on the second pile. I loaded the spreader with the loader tractor. I would’ve liked to have used the Bobcat, but it needs the battery charged. The voltage regulator doesn’t work on it. I ordered another one. Hopefully, that will keep the battery charged.

In all, I spread 13 loads on the field. I estimate each load at around 3,000 pounds. Since the spreader is PTO powered, I ran the tractor in first gear to allow the compost to be spread as thickly as possible. I also went over the same ground at least twice. It’s amazing how little it looks like when it is no longer piled up.

Once I finished spreading, it was time to rip the compost into the soil. I didn’t want to leave it on the surface to dry out and lose some of its goodness. Thankfully, most of the time while I was working it was also overcast.

The field cultivator I used has seven shanks and does a really nice job. This ground was a little harder than the garden I worked yesterday. So, I couldn’t get it to go in quite as deep. Almost as deep though.

It started to rain a little just as I finished working the compost into the ground. I considered that a blessing. It wasn’t much rain, but it was nice to have a little to wet the compost into the ground a bit.

The final photo is of the field after I finished. The soil doesn’t look much darker than before in the photo, but it is a little. It will take several years of working in compost to get it where I would like it to be.

We’ll use this field as a second garden area. I don’t know that we’ll use all of it this year. What we don’t, I hope to sow buckwheat or some other beneficial cover crop on.

Warm and dry in March

Last post I mentioned how we usually warm up and dry out in March. It happened again. We’ve been experiencing summer-like weather for the last few days, and it’s been keeping me busy.

On Sunday I had 50 asparagus crowns to put in the ground. I put lots of compost into the trenches I had already dug and set the asparagus crowns in it. I was able to get them all bedded, and hopefully they’ll be happy.

I also plowed an area for our field corn. It’s not a very big field, but hopefully we can grow enough for corn bread. Last year the crows ate the seed out of the ground and then the raccoons and deer tried to demolish what the crows missed. Hopefully, we’ll do better this year. I’m going to spread a good bit of compost on the soil before it’s time to plant since this particular plot has some poor soil. I actually plowed it a few years ago but didn’t plant anything in it. So, it’s had a bit of a break. I think it previously had tobacco planted in it, as just about every field here has.

Yesterday, I planted the nine cherry bushes that were anxiously waiting to be set in dirt. I put two in front of the house so that we can enjoy their blossoms in the spring. The other seven I set out in a row near the new asparagus rows – they’re on the edge of the orchard. I used the 12” auger on the tractor to dig the holes which was much easier than using a shovel. I dug them deep and put lots of compost in the holes before planting.

Yesterday afternoon I spent working on the manure spreader. I bought the spreader last spring, and the first time I went to use it, the apron chain broke (that’s what walks the material to the back of the spreader). I’ve been needing to fix it, and it’s been waiting patiently. In anticipation of spreading some compost on the gardens, I decided it was time to get it done. I took the chain out, replaced the floor with some new beech boards I had (it had a plywood floor with a few holes).

After buying the necessary hardware and links for the chain, I bolted the floor boards in, repaired the chain, and put it back in. I wasn’t able to try it out until this morning. It seemed to work fine, though. However, on the second load, another link in the chain broke. So, I had to shovel everything out. It occurred to me that at that point, I had shoveled more stuff out of the spreader than it had actually spread for me. I replaced the broken link and made a few adjustments, and then it worked fine.

I spread the pile of manure and bedding we cleaned out of the barn last fall – that was the accumulation from the winter before. Most of that I spread with the loader tractor and a grader blade after the manure spreader broke. I used a friend’s field cultivator to rip the material into the dirt and work up the ground. Then, I spread several more loads of compost from another pile on the garden and ripped it in.

I’ve got another garden area to spread compost on and to work up. If we don’t get much of the rain that’s possible tomorrow, I’ll see about doing that later this week.

Putting plants in the ground

It felt a lot like summer today. Our high was about 80 degrees. We had rain a couple of days ago, but the warmer temperatures and breeze that has been blowing is beginning to dry things out. Usually, there are a couple of weeks in March/April that it dries up enough to work the garden and begin getting some things planted. It’s till too wet to work up our main garden area, but maybe we’re getting closer to that drying period.

I did work in the dirt a bit yesterday and today. A couple of months ago, I ordered some plants. They arrived this week. So, I thought it would be a good idea to get them in the ground.

Yesterday, I planted three Rosa Rugosa plants that Anne ordered free from Gurneys. I planted some in front of the house we lived in before we moved to Kentucky, and we enjoyed them. One of the reasons for getting them now (besides the fact that they were free with the Gurneys’ promotional coupon) is that Rosa Rugosa produce many nice-sized rose hips. We want to harvest them for tea.

Also yesterday, I put six hazelnut trees in the ground. We would like a good nut source. The wild nuts around here are hickory and black walnut. Primarily, we’ve used hickory nuts.

I’ve been digging into one of my compost piles, the smallest one actually, for these plantings. Today, I dug into it a bit more for the strawberry beds. I finished my work on the Bobcat earlier in the week and was able to use it for moving the compost. About three years ago I framed two beds about four feet by 50 feet using some cedar boards and slabs. I added some compost to them and planted strawberries.

We had a few strawberries the next summer, but the deer and weeds were hard on them. Few actually survived. So, yesterday, the boys pulled out all of the old weeds from the beds to get them ready for today. This morning, they dug out the few remaining plants, and I filled the beds with compost. I would say the layer of compost was 6 to 8 inches deep. We then used grub hoes and then the tiller to work it into the soil in the beds a little.

Once the beds were ready, we planted the 100 strawberry plants that arrived two days ago. We also replanted the ones that survived from the previous planting. Later, after they are established, we’ll mulch the plants well to help keep down the weeds. I think weeds are the greatest problem with growing strawberries.

We still have 50 asparagus crowns to put in the ground and some cherry bushes, too. This afternoon, I disked the area where we tried to grow corn last year. At one end of it, I used the turning plow to dig two ditches. On Sunday, we’ll put compost in the ditches and plant the asparagus in them. We’ll also put the cherry bushes in the same area – it’s actually on one side of our small orchard which seems like a good place.

Later, I’ll put compost on the ground I disked today. We’ll use it for garden along with the main area in front of the new house which will also receive as much compost as I can spread on it. I can see already that I won’t have enough compost and that I need to haul in a lot more stuff.

We’re enjoying the spring weather, for sure. Next week, we ought to be able to get the cows out of the barn and back on grass. They’ll appreciate that, I’m sure. It’s really nice to see things greening up and the early spring flowers. One of our plum trees just bloomed today. There will be a lot more blooms on other trees soon.

Imagine a mountain of compost. . .

I’ve been exploring the blogosphere recently. I’ve searched for blogs of interest, ones that are related to and address some of the topics in which I’m interested: homesteading and agrarian objectives primarily. Using Live Bookmarks in Firefox, I read several blogs regularly, several recent additions. There are people doing some amazing and interesting things out there. It’s inspiring to read what others are doing.

In “My Blog List” in the right hand column of this blog, you can find most of the blogs that I regularly read. I still have to add a few that I just found yesterday. There are only so many blogs that I think I can realistically keep up with. I don’t know how many that is for sure, but I’m confident that I’ll find out eventually.

One of the blogs I just found, Farm Livin’ is the life for me, had a link to the writer’s husband’s posts about composting at Homesteading Today. I’m still reading what he wrote; his posts are really good. They are worth taking the time read. I like his radical approach to life. His composting endeavors are incredible (check out the photos of his compost piles here). A lot of good information.

My composting has been limited and somewhat sporadic. We had a compost pile when we lived in Bloomington, Illinois, but it was almost always deficient in carbon materials. We got leaves from the city and horse manure from a neighbor when we lived there. I could have done much more. We had a compost pile the first couple of years we lived here, and then we started giving all the household scraps to the chickens, ours or my parents’. I’ve had a compost pile or two near the barn created from cleaning out soiled bedding. We’ve used all we’ve produced.

I’ve also hauled manure from the local stock yards at different times, and I had three dump truck loads of it delivered last fall. I really need to do more with that because it’s a free resource, except for paying the guy who hauls it in his dump truck. If there’s someone at the stockyard running the Bobcat, he’ll load my truck for free. I need to bring home a lot more of that stuff to compost. I’m also thinking I need to acquire a whole lot more carbon materials. You’ve got to have the right balance between carbon and nitrogen for good composting.

Shortly after we moved here, we used a composting toilet for a few months, employing the principles found in Joseph Jenkins’ Humanure Handbook. I got fresh sawdust from a local sawmill and constructed a cabinet with a toiled seat fitted over a five-gallon bucket. It worked quite well, but we switched back to a regular toilet because of the convenience (it was a long way to the compost pile which was down the hill, and I was the only one carrying the buckets to empty them).

My current composting system involves processing dried organic matter with a machine that compresses it into elongated cubes. I then run the dried organic matter through digestive processors a little each day during the winter. The processors make a concentrated and enriched product which is placed on and mixed into carbon material in the barn. I add more carbon material at about the same rate that the dried organic matter is processed. This is allowed to build over the winter until the spring when I move the processors out onto green fields at which time they will harvest and process organic matter, depositing the nutrient enriched product directly on the field. Once those processors are working on fresh, green matter, I’ll employ some aerators who’ll work for a few hundred pounds of grain to stir up the accumulated mass in the barn and ready it for distribution on the garden and fields.

Sounds impressive, right? I guess I could’ve just said I have cows eating hay and pooping out good stuff in the barn right now, and that I’ll have pigs work it up in order to eat the grain I’ve put in it. As I showed in my previous post, I’m also using a horse to process organic matter and contribute to the fertility of the soil. I’m glad to keep the material from the farm on the farm, but the land here could use a lot more brought in. Most of what I take off of the hay fields isn’t going back on to them; it’s being put somewhere else after processing. It would be nice to have a larger system so that more could be added on all the fields.

One of the things that limits my ability to haul in or have hauled in material from off the farm is winter. Not because it’s cold. Rather, the places I have to stockpile material and build mountains of compost are all in the bottom, and during the winter, except when it’s frozen (which is only sometimes), it’s muddy. It gets wet and stays that way. I can usually get in and out with my truck, but it makes ruts and slides around a bit. Forget about having a larger truck get in there – most drivers don’t want to get stuck there, and I don’t blame them.

Anyway, reading about Forerunner’s composting endeavors has got me thinking. I have a lot to learn. I’m glad there are others sharing what they’ve learned and what they’re doing.

Hunting with my boys

We had two weeks of rifle season here in November. I did not see any deer. Dad saw some three different times, but, alas, he didn’t harvest any of them. Even though we didn’t get any deer (actually, I got a small one with the van the week before rifle season), it was still enjoyable to spend several hours in the woods or in the deer blind.

The boys wanted to go hunting with me. So, one morning I woke Malchiah up at 5:00am to go out with me. We walked to the blind in the dark and got situated. Once in place, the idea is to sit still without making noise while watching for deer to come by. Sitting still and quiet for 2.5 hours for a six year old is a pretty big task. Malchiah did admirably well, but he grew bored after the first hour. He laid down on the ground and played with a piece of wire. He did perk up and get excited when a flock of turkeys crossed the creek and began working their way across the field. He encouraged me to shoot them, but I explained that it wasn’t turkey season and that a rifle isn’t the best gun to use for shooting a turkey. After the turkeys went into the woods, we headed back to the house.

Ramiah went out with me that afternoon. Perhaps, sitting still and quiet for that length of time is easier for an eight year old, but he still was fidgety at times. Still, no deer came by during our time in the blind that afternoon. No turkeys either. Ramiah went with me one more afternoon during muzzleloader season. No deer then, either. But, we watched two coyotes walk across the field.

Venison from the deer we shoot and ones that neighbors give to us is the primary meat we eat during the year. This year we have a steer to process, so the limited amount of venison won’t be a problem.

Someday I expect the boys will do much of the hunting to bring home meat for the family.

Deep bedding

I had to move the cows to the barn earlier this year than I wanted. That was the fault of a failure to plan ahead sufficiently and the fault of having more than just a couple of cows. We had our two milk cows, Chucky Joe (steer for beef this winter), Buster (a young steer for beef next winter), and Aggie (Buster’s mother who belonged to a friend). Spice was also on the pastures eating grass. So, the grass ran out earlier than I wanted.

I prepared the barn for housing the cows over winter. The hay Dad and I cut is all stored in the barn. So, it made sense to me to move the cows to the hay rather than move the hay to the cows. Besides, I’d rather have the cows warm and dry during the winter.

The last couple of years when we’ve had one or two cows, I’ve kept them in the barn, too. I would put down fresh bedding every day after removing the soiled bedding. This bedding and manure was piled outside to compost and be used in the garden/fields later. It was a lot of work, though, forking out the heavy, wet, soiled bedding twice a day.

This year I’m trying something new for me: deep bedding. The idea is to not clean out the cows’ mess but, rather, to continue adding fresh bedding on top, letting it accumulate and build up inside the barn. Adding fresh carbonaceous materials (bedding, like, old hay and straw) traps the nutrients in the manure, holding them and allowing the composting process to begin. The non-aerobic composting that occurs within the bedding will also provide some heat for the cows. It makes a nice soft floor/bed for them, too. Adding fresh bedding every day keeps their beds clean and dry which helps the cows to stay clean and dry.

They have a small area to lounge outside, too, but they spend most of their time inside the barn where the hay is. This is good. All that good stuff coming out their backsides is being incorporated into the bedding for later use.

I’ve been adding oats to the bedding as I throw down more old hay or straw. These are to feed the pigs. No, I don’t have any pigs, but I plan on getting a couple in the spring so I can put them to work.

The thing about the bedding is that with several thousands pounds of bovines walking around on it and the composting action going on within, it will be packed down and will be dense. I don’t relish the thought of forking and shoveling it loose in the spring (my back hurts just thinking about it). A better idea is to let a couple of pigs loosen it for me, aerating it and helping the aerobic composting process along. But, pigs need a good reason to root it all up. Hence, the grain that I’m adding. It’s pig food for when I get a couple pigs in the spring.

If I ate pig, this would be idea. But, I don’t eat it. It’s a moral choice. So, I’ll sell the pigs after they’ve worked for me by getting the bedding loosened in the spring. I expect that the bedding will be three feet deep or more by then. Think of all the good nutrients to be added to the garden and fields!

Oh, one more thing. With all that carbonaceous material being added, it does not stink. If it smells bad, that means you’re losing nutrients. The carbon materials hold the nitrogen and other nutrients. That’s a great thing about compost – you don’t loose the good stuff!

Our new pond (part 4)

I worked the two full days in order to add height to the dam. The most tiring part was associated with the stress of driving my truck, my tractor, and a backhoe on top of the dam. I especially don't like when the backhoe leans to the side and when I got it into some of the soft topsoil on the back slope. I decided I didn't need it up there.

The method that seemed to work well for me was to load clay into my truck from a couple different places in the floor of the pond. Then, I drove this onto the dam and dumped it where I wanted it, spreading it out some as I dumped. After several loads, I switched to the tractor and blade to move the material where I wanted it and to pack it some more (the truck tires were doing a pretty good job of packing).

After getting enough clay built up, I took a few loads of top soil to put on top and spread that around. It went fairly well.

 
This photo shows the outcome of my efforts. I added enough material to put the top of the dam two feet above the primary spillway (the 12" culvert). This also allowed more freeboard above the emergency spillway, which is a good thing.

 
A little closer look. The section I built up looks darker because of the topsoil I added.
Digging clay and soil out of the pond bottom helped to add some more structure for fish. Structure is basically variation in depth, especially differences within a short distance There is a fair bit of variation on the bottom.

 
This is a view looking toward the dock from the dam. I was trying to show how the dock is on a ridge with drop offs on either side. There's also another elevation change going into the shallow end of the pond which is a result of digging out clay and top soil to raise the dam.

 
Looking a little to the left toward the shallow end. One of the things I wanted to do but haven’t done yet is to make a small beach area toward the house where I drove in and out of the pond hauling material.

 
This photo looks past the pond from below the dam toward some of my fields. Shortly after finishing the dam height project, I seeded the dam with fescue. At this point, I needed to finish the dock framework and then wait for rain to fill up the pond.

Baling hay

One of our summer activities is baling hay when the grass in the fields has grown enough and the weather cooperates. The first step in the process is cutting the grass using my 1950 John Deere MT with a John Deere 8W sickle mower. I enjoy mowing. It’s pleasant to hear the two cylinder engine putt-putting along with the clicking of the sickle while watching the grass fall. We had a nice stretch of weather forecast, so I mowed the field behind the ridge on a Sunday afternoon. It’s four or five acres in size.

Ramiah and I walked through the field the next morning with pitchforks to break up and spread the grass where it had gotten clumped together. This is an important step to ensure that the grass will dry. Green or wet grass will not make good hay; it has to be dry. Thankfully, this task didn’t take long because there were only a few clumps and the weather was forecast to be excellent drying conditions.

Late Wednesday morning, I raked the hay into windrows. It would have been dry enough to bale on Tuesday afternoon, but we were occupied with other activities. For raking the hay, I use my 1966 International 424 with a Massey-Ferguson rake. One of the challenges on the field behind the ridge is to rake the hay away from the upper edge where there is a hump left from it being plowed years ago.

Once it was raked into windrows, it was about 11:30. Dad and I decided that we would start baling, planning on finishing baling and picking up the bales after lunch. So, I hooked up the baler, a mid-50s IH 45T that doesn’t tie consistently, to the 424 and headed to the field.

When baling Dad walks alongside the baler, watching for any bales that aren’t tied properly. He also pulls the finished bales off the baler and stacks them together with any other nearby completed bales. The old 45T is doing well when it ties a dozen or more bales consecutively without messing up a knot. It seems like we have to stop a lot to retie bales. If we don’t get things in order when it missties, it’ll mess up on the following bales. It’s a nuisance, but better than putting up loose hay. I’d like to get a more reliable baler when I can (but it needs to not be too expensive).

After we completed baling the field, we quit for lunch. After lunch we came back with the truck and trailer to pick up the bales and take them to the barn. It doesn’t take too long to pick the bales up from the field and stack them on the truck and trailer. Putting them in the barn is probably the hardest part. If I didn’t have 300 bales of straw stacked in the middle of my barn, I could drive in with the loaded hay and toss the bales up to the loft. As it is, we have to back the trailer up to the straw and toss the bales through a smaller opening into the loft. I tossed them up to the loft, and Dad stacked them.

 

By the time we had them all stacked in the hay loft, it was time to quit. We only baled 98 bales this time. There’s still another field to cut and bale. I’m watching the weather. It’ll probably be next week. I expect 150 bales out of that field. With what we have left over from last year and what we’ve already baled, we ought to have extra hay this year.

Chucky’s Pond

Using a single wire connected to a solar fence charger, I’ve fenced a corridor from the barn to the alfalfa field. Josey spent two weeks in the field which I previously fenced with a single electric wire. Josey and Tilly are now together, and they seem to get along fine. They’re grazing the corridor. In a few days, I’ll fence another paddock for them in what has until this point been a hay field. I’ll still cut and bale hay on it because it’s bigger than they can keep up with, but they will have plenty of green grass to eat as I rotate them through the field.

I fenced another area for Chucky. I’d love to let him be with the others, but even though he’s a year old, he thinks he needs to still nurse. Josey is enough of a doting momma that she’ll let him, too. She wants to baby him. So, they’ll be kept separate. They can see each other and sniff noses over the electric fence, though.

In the paddock Chucky’s in, I dug a small pond before I put him in it. Later this summer, I’d like to have the whole area made into a pond. I’ll move Chucky before then, of course. For now, I wanted to provide a drinking hole for him, and I wanted to see if there was clay under the topsoil. I dug down only about four feet, and there is clay. It’s not red like the clay near our house site, but it’s clay. That’s good. Clay will help the big pond hold water when we have it made.

I dug Chucky’s pond the day after we had a fair bit of rain overnight. It only took about 15-20 minutes to dig using the borrowed backhoe that’s been here for about three weeks. In about three hours, the hole was full of water. We’ll see how it does as far as holding water is concerned. Right now, we’ve had plenty of rain and more forecast for later in the week. The real test is for when things get a bit drier, whenever that will be (we’ve had rain nearly every day for a week and a half).

Field preparation

Besides the garden areas, I worked on preparing the soil in two small fields during the last couple of days. Each of these fields is about half of an acre in size. Our small corn field was in one of them last year while the other one lay fallow. Actually, I disked it and seeded it with spring wheat last year, but the spring wheat idea didn’t work too well. So, I just let the field lay. I bush hogged it and then had it limed last fall.

Last year’s corn field is near the alfalfa field, down past the pond. I was going to grow several different varieties of dried beans in it this year but decided not to after all so that I might have more time to devote to working on the house. I was undecided about what to plant in it until this week. I had bought some Austrian Winter Peas to plant a year or so ago, but did not get the chosen field worked and ready for them. I stored them in an old freezer in the barn which was supposed to keep the mice out. I say supposed to because they found a way in anyway. I did finally stop them – they were more interested in the corn I had in there than the peas, though. Three years ago I planted a half acre in peas and oats and made hay off of it. The goats love it. So, I decided to plant the field in peas and oats for this year.

To begin prepping the field, I sub-soiled it. Then, I disked it two times. I used the field cultivator on part of it to rake some of the corn debris to the sides of the field. Then, I broadcast 100 pounds of oats and about 85 pounds of peas over the field. Finally, I disked the seeds into the dirt. I wasn’t worried about having a perfectly prepared seedbed, just having the dirt loose enough for the seeds to be in good contact and lightly covered with it. I may not make hay off of it but, rather, may pasture the cows on it later and till in what’s left. Either way, I hope the peas will help add some nitrogen to the soil since they are legumes.

The other field behind the ridge is long an narrow. I didn’t want to plow it, but I did want to work it up a bit. We’ll grow corn along with winter squash and pumpkins in it this year. I began by sub-soiling this field and then disking it a couple of times. It actually worked quite nicely. Yesterday before taking back the equipment I borrowed from Gill, I decided to go ahead and run the field cultivator through. It worked great. In fact, the cultivator tried to go in deeper than my tractor could pull – the wheels would spin when it was too deep. This really broke the ground up nicely. I’ll let it sit for a few weeks now since we won’t plant corn until May. It should disk up quite nicely at that time.

It’s good to get some of the soil preparation work done now. I have so much to do on the house, but I need to be able to have other things done and out of the way so I can focus on it. This time of year and during the summer, there are so many things that need doing that I just don’t seem to get to some of them.