Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["McBride & Putnam" <dragonhill2@netzero.net>]

It very seldom gets as low as 5 degrees here, except as a wind chill temperature so maybe tagasaste could survive as long as it was protected from cold winds.  Certainly something worth trying. 

 

I had planned on sorghum as a summer thru fall crop, harvesting it for milo, forage or even syrup before freezing temperatures.  Johnson grass can get high concentrations of prussic acid too; I can't remember the conditions that bring it on tho'.

 

Claudia

 

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Dianne Palmer-Quay

To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Sent: Saturday, January 26, 2008 7:35 PM

Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] animal feed

Claudia wrote

<I'd like to try Tagasaste too but I'm not sure it can grow in our zone (6/7).  Maybe I could get it started in a few micro-climate areas.   And I was thinking the other day that sorghum and some of the small grain could be grown in small spaces just about anywhere around the yard and garden, even grown as ornamentals around the house, until they are ready to cut for the chickens.  I think a surprising amount of small animal feed could be grown in this way.>

 

The Bountiful Gardens catalog states that they have been studying tagasaste in their research garden (Willits, CA) and that its takes cold to about 5 degrees F.  How cold do you get?  (I have yet to see 5 degrees here in central SC.)
 

My concern with sorghum is the prussic acid content (more of a problem in young and tender plants or after frost).  We poisoned one sheep last year with an ornamental plant (that I bought for the bees without doing my research for the ruminants) and I don't care to repeat that!  I think sudan grass is lower in prussic acid.

 

Dianne

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