permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jan 20, 2015 at 10:55 PM, judy <vidaljudy@hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hello Lawrence,
> Below is an attempt to address the issues you raise. Thank-you so much for
> offering to help. This seems like a lot of information!
>

Sorry for the delay in a reply which has been in the works for the past few
days. Have been busy cutting and splitting firewood between rainstorms.



> 30 acres....
>

I would keep vehicles and farm equipment off as much of your land as
possible and only walk or bicycle along paths created for that purpose. Do
this to reduce or eliminate soil compaction
and changes in the natural flow of water across the terrain, disturb local
ecosystems as little as possible, preserve the existing soil seed bank and
disturb plant colonies as little as possible.

>
>
>
> what kind of soil
>
> I have a NRCS Soil Mapping which indicates: lewbeach channery
> loam, onteora channery silt loam, Vly channery silt loam, willowemoc
> channery
> silt loam all with 8 to 15 percent slopes.  This document can be accessed
> online, I think. Details “unlimed, it is strongly to very
> strongly acid”. Soil test in garden confirmed need to lime. Elevation in
> uplands is 1,750 feet
>

I've never heard of those soil types but the loams sound interesting. I
have Georgeville silt loam here and it is one of the best in the state;
comparable to clay loam in performance but more permeable, so much so that
it will not hold water for long; water impoundments are strictly wet
weather.
New York has some very fine agricultural soils, some due to rich glacial
deposits, highly mineralized I would imagine.  If yours is very acid I
would recommend high calcium lime, dolomitic lime, shell meal, azomite and
aragonite, also wood ashes, a blend of all those applied conservatively. I
would also incorporate as much organic matter as possible into the soil and
grow legumes such as vetch, clovers especially tall sweet white and yellow
clover, mellilotus alba, Austrian winter pea, buckwheat and rye grain,
possibly also winter rye and sorghum sudan grass.
This should help get cropping cycles started.


>
>
> what are the landforms like, i.e.
> grades, slopes, lay of the land, where
>
> the water goes when it rains
>
> When the water flows it goes either into a ditch by the road or
> onto the neighbors’ properties downhill, one of which is a larger stream
> feeding into the East Delaware I believe.
>
>
>
> Property is situated at the end of a valley: translates into
> high winds.


Plant windbreaks such as Eastern red cedar (my top choice), pine, fir,
hemlock, spruce.


> Used to be part of a much larger farm which was subdivided in the
> 70’s. Shape of the 30 acres is bizarre to say the least: Beautiful old
> farmhouse sits at bottom of a slope by the road across from which there is
> a 7
> acre very gently sloped haying field. Property around the house is pretty
> narrow (maybe 2 acres) and goes up the mountain in a bottleneck and then
> widens. Up the hill, behind
> the house, there is a level open field that was planted with blackberries
> which
> have taken over and don’t seem to produce (I can’t figure out why. Old
> timers
>


> remember picking berries as children) When I pull up the brambles the soil
> is a
> deep black: the roots have done a wonderful humus building job. I suspect
> all
> the pastures were overgrazed (this is traditional cow country)
>
> I would try to revitalize those blackberries and also locate vegetable and
herb beds nearby, small bush fruit like blueberies,
possibly hardy figs, elderberries and eleagnus.

More later in next reply.


>
>
> are there any streams or ponds
>
>
>
>  To the east of the berry
> field, not too far, there is a pond which is spring fed. This is the NYC
> watershed. Up by the pond there are several streams running amuck and
> creating
> some boggy spots. Made the mistake of having the tractor go up there to
> clear a
> path and learned the hard way how the ruts worsened the water dispersal.
> Below
> the pond is a wonderful pasture (maybe 4 acres)
>
>
> are there any woodlands, original
> growth, harvested or harvestable timber
>
> About 10 acres above the pond is forest/coyote land: a few old trees, lots
> of new growth. It is clear to me that parts were pasture many years ago.
> The
> old stumps are still there, though almost totally decayed. Succession
> seems to
> have set in. Would make wonderful sylvopasture. Don’t think there is enough
> wood to harvest for anything other than firewood. Further east of the pond
> are
> perhaps 5 acres of old pastures that is being taken over by succession but
> could still be brush hogged if tractor could just get up there without
> rutting
> out a lot of the land.
>
> So basically, more than half the acreage is not readily
> accessible when there is snow, unless one had a snowmobile. Last year I had
> snow up to my knees when I went up the hill.
>
> wells
>
> Well by the house has not been in use for decades
>
> springs
>
> The hill above the pond is full of springs
>
> buildings, barns, greenhouses, spring
> houses, grain or hay storage
>
> Spring house is located up the mountain on somebody else’s
> property and gravity feeds the house plumbing.
>
> Across from the farm house there is a huge 75 year old 2 story
> garage/barn. I don’t know if hay could be stored in there.  (venting?
> There are windows) There is
> electricity but no water. Somebody kept chickens in the upstairs (very old
> dried poop) There is a falling down barn north of the garage, but it is not
> part of our parcel so we just get to watch it tumble.(part of the original
> farm)
>
> buildings, shops, livestock barns
>
> open fields
>
> So, as I described there are 2 open fields totaling about 12
> acres
>
> when was last time any of the acreage
> was plowed, harrowed, tilled
>
> Oh, probably 50 years
>
> is there any permanent pasturage
>
> I don’t think so
>
> any fencing
>
> To my despair it (barbed wire and wooden posts) is all
> collapsed. The entire property seems to have been perimeter fenced at one
> time.
> Beautiful old stone walls run along the perimeter and delineate old
> pasturage,
> but never reaches more than 2 or 3 feet tall and in spots has been trampled
> over.
>
> what is the quality of the soil on
> the acreage and are soil supplements
>
> needed, i.e. nitrogen, potash and
> phosphorous from rock powders
>
> and are these supplements available
> to you nearby, i.e. manures, biomass,
>
> rock phosphate, greensand, azomite,
> aragonite, high calcium limestone,
>
> rock dusts from local rock quarries
>
> Local farmers could give me manure which I am afraid might be saturated
> with fertilizer and GMO refuse.
>
> I did a soil test for the garden last spring and lime is what is
> needed most. I have the paperwork and poured over it with a friend who is
> into
> soil amendments and never followed thru with his recommendations because
> they
> didn’t seem super urgent to me and I am quite overwhelmed with everything
> else and
> besides I wasn’t sure where to put the stuff anyhow!
>
>
>
> I have 5 huge bales from last year’s haying which surround the garden (had
> them put there as windshield) and I intend to
> use in raised beds this spring
>
> is there any farm equipment on site
> or can it be borrowed or rented or can
>
> tractor work be hired out
>
> I bought an old Massey Ferguson (10X10 I think) and a brush hog
> (4 feet wide)which I do not manipulate myself (I hire someone by the hour
> to
> run it) Brushhogged the berry field about 4 times in an effort to get rid
> of
> the brambles. If I had more goats, fencing and water figured out, they
> would do
> the job. Am friends with a farmer 2 miles away who has everything and is
> super
> busy.
>
>
>
> Start by addressing this list of
> issues
>
>
>
> What I have done in the past 18
> months:
>
> -       to the east of the house put up makeshift coop and shelters:
> have raised 12 black Spanish turkeys, 9 chickens and 5 goats. Have been
> doing
> the electric fence daily rotations (except in winter) and free ranging for
> the
> birds. In warm weather took goats on wonderful walks into the forest. (The
> life
> of a part-time sheppard is quite wondrous. It is clear the critters
> preferred
> the sylvoland to the open fields.) Frozen water and gates pried open with
> hammer deal in winter. This fall I harvested the goats as I couldn’t
> imagine
> going thru a second winter with all those animals and the ice and the make
> shift shelters. The goat sausages are delicious.
>
> -       Across the street I put in a garden, all by hand, with hoops to
> try to extend the season and realized this summer that it is right next to
> the
> old grandfathered sceptic. Annoying. So in the fall I created tall raised
> beds
> with wood and chicken/turkey pooped bedding further way from the sceptic
> and another 2
> above the house and garage/barn. I’m thinking of putting some hazelnut and
> chesnut trees just above those 2 huge raised beds. (forest garden?)
> Shlepping
> wheelbarrows of pooped bedding to the various beds has been quite the
> affair.
>
> -
>
> My goal: this spring I would like to
> get more turkeys (I kept 6 to see if I could breed them) and get off the
> organic grain deal and have some kind of worm cultivation. I’d also like
> to get
> more goats, but cannot continue the labor intensive, inefficient technique
> of
> bringing them out to pasture where I lug the water and the electric fence
> and
> back into the corral with the chickens at nite. I’d like to put them in the
> sylvo pasture where there would be water and perimeter fencing. The
> problem is
> I have no idea how to do the fencing and how to get the water from the
> pond/streams
> to them. I have raised a Maremma LGD and she is good and could protect a
> small flock from predators (hoping to breed her in order to have more
> LGD's).
>

> > From: lfljvenaura@gmail.com
> > Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 23:26:11 -0500
> > To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> > Subject: Re: [permaculture] BBC How Plants Communicate & Think - Amazing
> Nature Documentary - YouTube
> >
> > On Mon, Jan 19, 2015 at 10:20 AM, judy <vidaljudy@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Good Morning,
> > > I have been reading your missives for a year now and thank-you for
> > > teaching me so much!I would like to take a PDC and remember a list of
> > > certified instructors was put out a while ago. I am located in the
> > > Catskills, upstate NY where I moved 18 months ago to care for my 92
> year
> > > old mother and her 30 acres.Any recommendations?Happy New Year!
> > > Sincerely,Judy Stewart Vidal
> > >
> >
> > We could attempt to offer advice here; this is one of my favorite
> subjects
> > Here are a few questions:
> >
> > 30 acres....
> >
> > what kind of soil
> > what are the landforms like, i.e. grades, slopes, lay of the land, where
> > the water goes when it rains
> > are there any streams or ponds
> > are there any woodlands, original growth, harvested or harvestable timber
> > wells
> > springs
> > buildings, barns, greenhouses, spring houses, grain or hay storage
> > buildings, shops, livestock barns
> > open fields
> > open land that has been or could be cropped
> > when was last time any of the acreage was plowed, harrowed, tilled
> > is there any permanent pasturage
> > any fencing
> > what is the quality of the soil on the acreage and are soil supplements
> > needed, i.e. nitrogen, potash and phosphorous from rock powders
> > and are these supplements available to you nearby, i.e. manures, biomass,
> > rock phosphate, greensand, azomite, aragonite, high calcium limestone,
> > rock dusts from local rock quarries
> > is there any farm equipment on site or can it be borrowed or rented or
> can
> > tractor work be hired out
> >
> > Start by addressing this list of issues
>

-- 
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
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