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Subject: Market Farming
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- From: SaladG AT aol.com
- To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
- Subject: [Market-farming] Hard Ground
- Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 21:31:38 EST
We really haven't experienced this very hard ground in our buildings. A couple of years ago we started using a ground hay mulch in them. After the plant emerges I start bringing in mulch and putting it around the plants. We keep adding mulch all the time it seems to me it will get as deep as a foot at differnt times, and as it degrades the depth changes and you have to add more. Holds the moisture in the ground and smothers out the weeds . Doesn't seem to be any more work than bedding down a hog house everyday, only difference is I don't have to carry it out and spread it. This time of year when the outside work is kindof put to a halt because of mother nature, I take a potato fork in the buildings and spade it up. In the spring(Febuary) I dig it up again and level it off. I usually don't have to till the beds up, whereas the winter has had enough freeze and thaw that it mellows out really nicely. I don't even try to grow year around in my area, I really feel that the soil needs a rest just as much as I do. I do have a building with brambles and strawberrys that all we do is keep drip working using the same mulch and just keep adding every year. We use a grandular fertilizer and add it to our mulch every six months , I like this better that trynig to regulate it through our drip system. Our drip system is hooked up to our greenhouse and I need a differnt formula for greenhouse than what we need for the hoophouses.
Just some thoughts on hard ground.
We have clay loom soil.
Phil From Iowa.
- [Market-farming] Hard Ground, SaladG, 11/24/2004
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