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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
  • To: Homestead List <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Homestead] [Fwd: Re: Increasing Fertility]
  • Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:02:07 -0500




There's plenty of red clay both here and 75 miles further south where I
grew up, in fact, there was a LOT of red clay down there.

A bit of local history..
As you know, I live in a little pocket valley in northwest GA, part of
the ridge and valley area of the Appalachians. Even hilly areas were
farmed heavily in the early 1900's. This valley grew so many
watermelons that people came up here from two counties away-I've heard
as far away as from Atlanta, but I doubt that far.
There's a lot of underground water for melons-a lot of soil moisture.
People rode up to the river, paid to ferry across, then paid the
enterprising black farmers, former slaves, to bring them into the valley
to buy melons and moonshine. This little pocket of north GA is blessed
with good water for brewing all types of beverages.<g> Anyway, the
black community grew and prospered from the trading as they provided the
"taxi" or wagon service from here back to the river/ferry/railroad. My
land was practically ground zero for production of melons, cotton, corn,
and shine.<G>
I'm told that melons grew all over where my house and woods are, all on
the hills of the ridges, and that cotton was grown in today what are the
pastures. Near creekbeds, corn was grown. When I first moved here, I
was told all of this by a neighbor who was in her 90's and has since
passed on. She also told me that two revenuers are buried somewhere out
here, too. If you think about it, watermelons really don't need flat
ground...the vines cover anything and they are harvested by hand. The
hills were farmed just like the bottomland, just different crops. At
some point, I think during the 1910's and 1920's when the use of
mechanized equipment was more prevalent, they stopped working the hills
and of course the forest grew. Also around that time, the National
Forest itself was created. When they stopped growing cotton, the
pastures were used for cattle and horses.

So my pastures have been monocropped with cotton and had erosion
problems, but since the 30's and the lessons of the Dust Bowl, people
have been building them back up. My little garden area was different
than the pasture soils in that more topsoil remained, and since it
has been garden for a while, it has been amended over the years..When I
moved here, I could still see the outline of a pile of cow manure, and
no one had had cows in the barn for 20 years. I spread that black gold
out across the garden as much as I could. I personally have amended the
garden soil with all the goat barn mulch from my goats and from a
neighbors horse barn...I've raised pigs in there. I've also added waste
hay, grass, leaves, and everything else I could find. If I could afford
it, I would amend my pasture land the same way. All I can do is try not
to let animals overgraze it, practice rotational grazing, overseed where
I can, and manage what I have. Pasture management is not easy here
because of the rocks.





bob ford wrote:
bev, one thing i'm curious about is why you need to do so much with your soil. GA is known for great soil quality. You are too far north for red clay. If you are in a hilly area, it should not have been overfarmed, like rob said has happened to VA. I would have thought you would have great thick black soil in that region..........bobford


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--- On Sun, 11/16/08, EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net> wrote:

From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Increasing Fertility To: bobford79 AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org Date: Sunday, November 16, 2008, 3:31 PM We had a small, 1/8 acre garden when I was a kid, and we always burnt it off in the fall..I think the prime purpose was disease preventing and to keep bugs from overwintering. It also made it easy to till under in the Spring.

bob ford wrote:
My uncle, and other people where I grew up, would
'burn' their
fields/gardens every year or two. Would that
accomplish the same
result? Is it even allowed anymore?
-- “Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda





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--
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to
hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda



--
“Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda




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