COVER CROPS
Yesterday I mowed and mulched all the weeds and grass on the back pigs field and John sowed the cover crop.
This one is oats and red clover. Oats grows fast and is described as a great healer for the land. Red clover is a legume, with nitrogen fixing qualities, again good for the soil.
The ground is never tilled but the seeder leaves lovely patterns.
I asked John to sow thickly as I am fighting thistle in this field.
It is cool again this morning.
Time to get up.
Celi
34 Comments on “COVER CROPS”
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Next spring do you harvest the cover crop at all?
By next spring the oats will be long dead- but the red clover will make a nice undercover for next springs planting of sorghum for the pig gardens.
Perfect weather for planting: )
It is!
I get that tilling is bad, turning the layers is bad, as all that has to re-establish. But what about soil compaction from the heavy equipment?
I believe that the enormous machines are having a terrible effect on the fields . But the seed drill we have drills the seed INTO the ground as opposed to on top for the chickens and birds to see. So if I want a cover crop I need to use the tractor. It is not too too big – a lesser evil.
Will you use the sludge from the duck pond to fertilize? When I had ducks it didn’t take long for their swimming pool to fill up with nasty poo water and I found it to be most excellent in the flower beds and gardens. This weather is lovely!! We’re enjoying 70’s and low 80’s down here, and a little rain too!
I dredge the pond straight out onto the field. I do it every morning with a shovel
The tiller’s not the only thing that leaves pretty patterns. Look at the colours in the ripples on the duck pond! The reflection of the tree is broken into rings. Amazing!
Yes! It is rather beautiful
Oh and the marks come from the drill – I have stopped John dragging out his tiller – it just spreads the thistles. He does it hard though – he loves his iron
there none so happy as duck in a pond…and none so lucky as those that sowed their oats and clover….have a great day
Those ducks are ALL About the water
There’s an eye catching green duck circle on the right. It’s gone cold here too, after hours of rain this morning.
Yes – that is a reflection from the willow tree I think.
A portal to another world!
I have been a mostly silent reader of your blog for way too long so just wanted to say that you are still my hero when it comes to farm adventures and entrepeneurism, Cecilia. You are such a kind and beautiful person and I am so glad to know you even though it is only through blogging.
And I you. Take care darling girl.
Good morning. I love your lil duck pond. How deep is it and what are the pink bags for?
It is not deep at all – the pink bags are sand bags – I use them to help me shore up the edges so as I dredge it I can make it deeper. It is a work in progress!!
I was curious about the pink bags too. Glad I read the other comments.
Beautiful pictures with the sun streaming from the left casting a haze over John.
I was going to trot out the old saw … Man may work from sun to sun, But woman’s work is never done. … but I suspect that you both work very hard.
John’s problem is that he works very hard elsewhere 6 days a week. So when he gets back to the farm he is too tired to do much of anything / poor fellow. We will see how retirement suits him – I am afraid he may sleep for a year.
That lone chicken at the duck pond looks either envious or too prim to muck about like the other ‘kids’! Looking at the pattern of John’s seeding, I can see fashioning a quilt top that follows the patterns and colors. Oh, it would be so-o-o beautiful! By the by, what do you do with the chicken poop? We were afraid it might be too ‘hot’ for the gardens.
‘Come on in, the water’s fine’, the ducks say.
‘No, I’ll get my white feather dirty’, she replies.
It sits in the compost pile for a year – then it is just fine for gardens.
Weeds drive me to distraction. I don’t think I could ever stop/sleep knowing there were more weeds to pull.
I love cover cropping… here we use it to rest & improve our -small- garden beds, and harvest green tops for the chooks🐔 and the bees love the flowering varieties 🐝
There is an odd store in Bel Lomond that sells ‘homesteading’ supplies. I am not really certain what that means, but I can guess. Some of what they sell seems to be a bit fancy for my taste, but it is interesting. They stock seed for some cover crops that I would not have otherwise considered, and the seed is not very expensive for small areas. Even for areas that are too steep to use, the cover crops keep down more flammable vegetation, and stabilize the surface soil. We have used some of the more traditional types at the farm. I am hesitant to use anything too weird at home because the area has not been too contaminated with exotic vegetation yet.
I love how you flow on your farm in a natural way. Hard work, I know, but a joy for us to share. ❤
I hate thistle. I started fighting it in 1994 when I bought the property. Digging it up and burning it after it dried to destroy it. Trying never to let it go to seed. After all these years, we now very seldom see one. Thank goodness.
Thanks for sharing this interesting slice of life. Wishing you a nice week.
It sounds like a pretty peaceful time at the farmy, Celi. I never had the desire to send the post cards I bought from you years ago; they are among my favorite pieces of photography of farm creatures.
Oh yes! That first set. I never did that again you know. I still have piles of them.
Good to hear the ground isn’t tilled ….