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market-farming - soil prep was Re: [Market-farming] Drip Irrigation

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  • From: "Liz Pike" <liz AT laughingbrookfarm.com>
  • To: "Market Farming" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: soil prep was Re: [Market-farming] Drip Irrigation
  • Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 08:41:02 -0400

> phosphorous and potassium. Does anyone have experience preparing this kind
> of soil? I almost think it needs something like peat moss to loosen it
up -
> but that's pretty expensive on a three acre piece... Has anyone used
rotten
> sawdust for a similar purpose in clay?

One of the best things you can do to build the soil is to start
incorporating cover crops & green manures into your production schedule.
(If there's anyway to take your land out of production--can't remember if
you're growing already or just starting, sorry--and just concentrate on a
year of these, you'll see a major difference also. You can work them into
your cropping schedule, like I used to do, but that year will give you a
major advantage over insects, fertility, water retention, etc.)

Here's a recent article in which you may be interested.

ftp://ftp-fc.sc.egov.usda.gov/NC/NCweb/Technical/sqnl/sqnl-4-03.pdf

Though the article deals with no-till production on small acreage, Alex says
alot about the use of a cover crop rotation to build his soil quality.
Their farm is one of the best producing here in NC.

Here's also a link to a book put out by SARE "Managing Cover Crops
Profitably". It's in html format, with embedded pdf...you can save the pdf
to your harddrive. http://www.sare.org/handbook/mccp2/index.htm

Liz Pike
Laughingbrook Farm
Westfield NC
http://www.marketfarming.com
http://www.laughingbrookfarm.com









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