Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["Norma Sutton" <sweetspringfarm@gmail.com>]

Hi Harvey,
I mulch with my winter barn bedding.  I use the deep beding method for my sheep and goats, ie/ as the first layer is soiled I add a second, etc until spring when everyone is turned back out into a pasture.  The heat from the urine breaks down the bottom layers and heats up the upper layers keeping the animals warm in really cold weather.  Granted each stall has plenty of ventilation so that the smell isn't a problem.  I also use a layer of barn lime under the whole mix.  We used this mulch over the potatoes this year and around the tomatoes.  Even when the top was bone dry, the bottom of the mulch was nice and damp.  It solved the keeping the roots moist as well as the time released fertilizer problem.  
Now for the larger fields - corn, wheat, etc.  I move the livestock across those in early spring.  The animals tend to like the weeds better than the grass(good in the hayfield especially) and leave their dropping behind under the grass.  Each year I'm seeing improvements on the year before.
Norma

On 9/3/06, Harvey Ussery <huboxwood@earthlink.net> wrote:

> An important aspect often missing from email discussion on
> farming and gardening is scale of production, equipment
> matched to growing systems, and cropping systems
> rotations and planting / weeding schemes. . .

> The surface applied compost, protected under the moist mulch,
> undergoes a natural process of mineralization and enhances
> soil fertility and soil microbial activity.  ~Steve Diver

Apologies, I should have specified the scale on which I am focussing.
The article I'm writing will be oriented toward the garden/homestead
scale, not farm scale. And what your last sentence suggests, Steve, is
definitely the direction in which I am heading. The big limitation for
me is getting enough mulch material (without purchasing big loads of
it). I decided early this year to do a lot more mulching of all my beds,
but then we had the driest spring on record, and I only got one cutting
off the pasture for mulching--ended up not doing nearly as much mulching
as planned/hoped. And what subsequent mulching I did do was from the
lawnmower bagger. I'm sure those of you who have tried lawn clippings as
mulch know the frustrations.

~Harvey

--
Harvey in northern Va
www.themodernhomestead.us

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is
used."  ~Wendell Berry
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