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  • From: Paul Bucciaglia <pbucciaglia AT yahoo.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Market-farming] Re: round bale mulching
  • Date: Tue, 23 Sep 2003 11:39:42 -0700 (PDT)

Re horsing round bales:  I was amazed at how easily they unroll.  Get a bale spear and put them where you want them, and 2 people can easily unroll one, maybe one very large person.
 
Re tomatoes:  someone thought this was too short a season crop to mulch but I strongly disagree.  They are in the ground in New England from late May until late September, which is a long time to keep cultivating the ground.  Once you stake them you can't cultivate with nearly all tractors.  And keeping the ground covered pays big rewards in terms of even moisture (reduces fruit splitting), fruit cleanliness, disease reduction,  weed control, and reduced soil OM loss. 
 
Re weeds in the mulch:  this is where it pays to grow your own.  I seeded about 1.5 acres to rye and had it harvested at anthesis.  No viable rye seed, and it was very clean, almost no weeds.  Hard part for me was asking the neighbors to do the cutting and baling as they are busy at this time with their own hay.  So I paid them handsomely for each bale.  The savings in weed control alone more than payed for each bale.  SOme day as the farm business grows I may get my own baler, but thats a ways off.   It took about only an hour or so to unroll 3 round bales, which mulched 3 rows of tomaotes and one eggplant (planted into plastic mulch in the rows).  I haven't tallied my tomato numbers yet but I was amazed at how much fruit we harvested, most farmers here in Southern New England had a horrible year for tomatoes so we sold just about everything. 
 
I should note that I have sandy soil, your mileage may vary in clays which dry out and warm up much more slowly.
 
Paul
 
 
 
 


Paul Bucciaglia
Fort Hill Farm
Organic Vegetables, Herbs, and Flowers
18 Fort Hill Rd.
New Milford CT 06776
(860) 350-3158


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  • [Market-farming] Re: round bale mulching, Paul Bucciaglia, 09/23/2003

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