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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] mulching pathways

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  • From: SaladG AT aol.com
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] mulching pathways
  • Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 11:32:13 EST

For a number of years we planted all our gardens to rye in the fall, and when spring came I used a mower and cut strips in the rye and left 6' strips, then tilled the area's that we mowed with out rotary mower, and usually had to till twice to kill the rye.Then laid plastic where we tilled.  The main purpose of this process was to protect our seedlings from the strong spring south winds that we have every spring in the high flat that we grow on.  The tall rye gave some protection to the young seedlings, but we do not plant that area any more and use a more protected  area, along with the hoophouses.  The rye was always cut with our mower after the season really got going and really never caused any major problems, I never let it mature enough to go to seed, other grasses would come in later in the summer to cover our driveways between crops, and this makes picking a lot easier when it seem to rain every other day and the mud gets a foot deep in between the plastic mulch. We still use drive ways in our gardens  to get the gator and other picking equipment between rows, and just let the natural grasses grow up in between and mow every week.
 
Any more we use a lot of ground hay and use a lot of it in place of the plastic mulch, use a spreader to put it down on the ground about 6"deep.  Works really good to hold out the weeds.  Have had to add some later to hold out weed. but has worked pretty good.  I'm always trying to use what I can grow or find on the farm for all my resources instead of buying someone else's products.  We grow 90% of our own potting  soils from hay, paper, cardboard, food waste(grocery store produce), or what ever we can find in our area. I learn something new every day about this project, been a lot of work but a lot of fun.  Grocery stores pay quite a bit a ton on waste products, so it really isn't to hard work with someone that you can save them a ton of money over the long run.
 
Phil from Iowa



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