[Homestead] Soil fertility

Jeanne Driese jeanne13 at earthlink.net
Thu May 22 08:37:25 EDT 2008


Hey Rob,
Your are in Virginia, right?  Have you ever heard of 7 Springs Farm. in Check VA? Their catalog is on line and it tells how much of "stuff" to spread per acre.
He has cover crop seeds too.
Here is the website
www.7springsfarm.com
Hope this will be of some help.  They are great to deal with.  Have been using their products for about 6 years and have never been disapointed.
Jeanne
tnhillwoman
North East TN zone 6
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Robert Walton 
  To: homestead at lists.ibiblio.org 
  Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 7:55 AM
  Subject: [Homestead] Soil fertility


  Here is the project. I have about 2 acres that has been fallow for
  years. I've had it 4 years and bushhogged it off each year. Before
  that there were maybe 4 or 5 year old pines on it, it was cropland
  before that.  There were brambles, honeysuckle, weeds, saplings,
  grasses, etc growing there. Soil test a couple of years ago shows it
  is acid (5.2), low in all nutrients. I plowed it up this spring,
  planted oats in March on part of it and Buckwheat mid April on the
  other. The oats and buckwheat are growing, but poor as expected.

  I plan to disk up this land soon and I'm planting buckwheat and
  cowpeas for summer cover/green manure. About the end of August, I'd
  like to plant another round of buckwheat and then rye/vetch/crimson
  clover in October. I'll try to have lime spread in August. I'm hoping
  that a good disking will be enough tilling to kill the cover crop and
  knock back weeds and brambles. If the weeds are really bad in the
  fall, I'll plow.

  My main goals this year are to build some fertility and to get some
  control over the brambles. I want to crop this land next year, corn
  mostly.

  It would be great if I could fertilize this land before the next crop.
  Natural and chemical fertilizers are high priced.

  Option 1 chemical: 500# of 10-10-10 an acre would be a real modest
  application. It's about $126 an acre

  Option 2 natural: 1 ton of rock phosphate is $450. A ton of Greendsand is $460

  Spending $1000 an acre is a big, big investment. I realize that the
  two options are not Apples to Apples, because the rock phosphate is
  going to last several years. The greensand is going to aid the clay
  soil.

  I'm probably stuck with the chemical option, the vendor is closer and
  I don't think I can swing $2000 to amend the soil on these two acres
  (In addition to lime). What I need is some basic nutrients so that the
  green manures can grow for me.

  Has anyone used rock phosphate, greensand or other amendments on acre
  or larger plots? How much did you apply, what did you find the results
  to be? Are these prices in range?

  I'd sure like to go organic from the get go here, but I just don't see
  it as practical. I'm thinking that if I can get a bit of fertility in
  the soil, I can build on that by liming and green manures and end up
  with a workable field.

  Rob - Va
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