Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Mulch

livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "mcoldiron" <mcoldiron@crcom.net>
  • To: "Healthy soil and sustainable growing" <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Mulch
  • Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2008 19:59:44 -0500

Let me ask a few questions about your operation please. You use hay for mulch and don't plow it in each year, so I'm assuming you just ad to it each year as needed. But how do you plant? Do you grow seedlings and plant that way, or do you have some sort of special planter? Would you rather use wood chips if you had them? Like you said, they'd last a long time, especially if you don't plow them in. Or, is there something special about hay? Do you drip irrigate? How big is your garden, if you don't mind me asking? What types of things do you grow and what part of the country do you live in? What type of soil do you have, sandy loam, sandy, clay, what we call tight land, etc...? Your answers will give me an idea if your type of operation will work in my area?

Thanks for the detailed response.

TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b

----- Original Message ----- From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 1:16 PM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Mulch



Wood chips take too long to decompose and use up available nitrogen, which forces you to add it in some form to grow crops, and that can get expensive. Plowing under mulch at seasons end means plowing under browns which need added nitrogen, and it means plowing which exposes soil humus to more air and degrades your soil organic matter levels. Running faster to keep up. Of course I use hay. Straw is too light and blows off in one day. I get a few "weeds" but I'd be nuts to fear alfalfa growing in my beds. It fixes soil nitrogen and deep roots bring up subsoil minerals and add organic matter to the soil. Fact is, most hay doesn't have much weed seed, or shouldn't, and hay is usually cut and baled before it goes to seed. I grew up with hay and it's just not full of weeds. The hay I get is the free loose stuff around the sheds at feed stores. After applying it I do water it in once or twice. I don't mess with it on windy days anyway.

You're concerned about getting enough hay and how to spread it and what to do with it in the fall. Why do anything with it? If you can't get enough hay or it's too much area to spread, then you're working too much land. Intensive vegetable production can make a ton of money on little land, and if you make the learning curve you can do it without machinery, fertilizer, pesticide, fungicide, or paid labor. And keep your costs ridiculously low. I do. Fertilizer has tripled in the past year.

Most farmers understand their profit is what's left after all their costs. But they don't believe they can hold costs to a bare minimum on small plots and sell retail and clear 90% profit. They're caught in the cost-price squeeze. By selling retail direct, you can make a good sideline income (I do even at my age) or a good living on very little land without heavy debt for startup capital, given fairly acceptable climate, soil, and markets. Or you can go dead broke on a thousand acres, as millions of farm familes have done over the years. Get big or get out is the worst advice USDA ever put out. I'd string 'em up without trial.

Don't try to use big farmers methods on small plots. They want you to because they want you out of business.

paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 7/3/2008 at 7:48 AM mcoldiron wrote:

Sorry I got the Subject wrong on the last post.

Paul, let's talk about mulch a little. You say don't use wood chips and
don't plow mulch in at the end of the season. Is there something wrong
with
wood chips? Why not plow mulch in at the end of the season? How can you
use hay with all the seeds? Won't you just get a lot of hay growing in
your
garden? I can see straw maybe, but that's not available that I can find.
When you say yours doesn't blow away, how is that possible? Does yours
comes from round bales? Do you water it in such that it makes a mat? Is
your garden protected from the wind?

You say - do it small and then work up. I agree to some extent, but a lot
of the problems I run into only show up when going larger. To me the
purpose of trying something is to find the problems to see if they can be
worked out. Anyone can grow an organic garden if it's small enough.
Larger
gives rise to questions like "Where do I get this much hay?" and "How do I
haul it?" and "Now that I have it, how do I spread it around?" and "What
do
I do with all that hay at the end of the season, plow it under?" you get
the
picture. Larger brings up the "real" questions.

TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b


----- Original Message ----- From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
To: <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 03, 2008 12:07 AM
Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] pickup trucks?



Ken is right that the principles are the same. Trying to reduce tillage
is
a good start. I'd add this: your climate is not suitable for some crops,
and even if you can manage to grow them it'll be unprofitable. Hauling
water costs too much. Forget wood chips, and you don't plow under your
mulch whatever it is. BTW I'm using loose, spoiled hay and it does not
blow away, even with our frequent 50 mph winds. Dryland farming probably
won't help you; our winds just blow loose dust into the next county. The
last thing you want is to lose what topsoil you have.

Mark, I don't know how much land you're trying to work into organic
vegetables. Best to start small and make small mistakes. By small I
don't
mean a few acres. I mean a few square feet. When you learn to grow in a
postage stamp garden then you learn what it takes to grow in a larger
area. How large? I make a good sideline income market growing on one
sixth
of an acre. And I have a much higher gross and net, per square foot,
than
most any large farmer. If you're younger and have more startup capital
then you may be able to work it into a full time income.

There are a few rules of thumb we've worked out and verified in practice
ourselves. Retail, like growers markets for example, or farmstands.
Wholesale puts you at the mercy of the middleman who pits one grower
against another to pay him the lowest price. Grow what will sell
locally,
grow what people normally buy in the store, not what you think you'd
like
to grow. Not globe artichokes. Limit yourself to higher value crops for
the ground space they require and the labor they need. Not watermelons.
Grow in permanent beds (not necessarily raised or framed) with permanent
aisles to walk on, and plant intensively as explained in books on that
I've mentioned before. With smaller root crops you get far more
production
per square foot than with wide tractor rows. With larger plants you
don't
get the same increase, but by growing in permanent beds you still make
the
gains from not compacting the soil by walking on it. I do this and it
just
a better way from every standpoint. I can go
into a lot more detail on these methods with documentation, including
mulch issues.

Now, crop selection is up to you, and whether you will double crop,
irrigate some way, and so forth. How you extend your growing season is
up
to you, whether you grow starts or buy them, spend for low tunnels or
hoop
houses, and so forth. Your aim will be to hold down costs relative to
your
total gross income, obviously, because the difference is your pay. This
is
just a broad outline. BTW none of these methods are original; they've
all
been done and described in many places for many years.


paul tradingpost@lobo.net

*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********

On 7/2/2008 at 3:19 PM mcoldiron wrote:

I'm trying to move toward organic vegetable farming as much as possible.
I
still till the soil like a regular farmer, but am trying to find a way
not
to do it so much and conserve water. I live in a very hot and arid part
of
west Texas with an annual rainfall of 18 inches or less. The soil is a
sandy loam. Due to the unpredictable rain here I want to try using mulch
and drip irrigation. The well water isn't good, so it'll have to be
hauled
in.

I have questions about mulch? It's so windy here until the end of June,
that anything other than wood chips will just blow away. Can I use wood
chips for mulch? If so, what will that do when I plow them under each
year?
Will their decomposition tie up the Nitrogen so I can't grow anything for
a
year or two? What about planting, won't the chips interfere with the
planter? Sure could use some very basic "been there done that" advice.

Thanks
TxBeeFarmer (Mark)
West Texas Zone 7b



_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 8.0.101 / Virus Database: 270.4.4/1531 - Release Date: 7/2/2008
7:02 PM

_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland



_______________________________________________
Livingontheland mailing list
Livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/livingontheland



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 8.0.134 / Virus Database: 270.4.4/1531 - Release Date: 7/2/2008 7:02 PM





Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page