They are super organic -- cover crop, green manure, no-till, permaculture -- all of that. Saved my season and they will let me do my native farming technique stuff -- 3 Sisters plantings + sunflowers. I'm getting a cordless electric mower (new toy) for the paths and between rows. Down the road I want to hook up the batteries to solar and charge them right in the field.
My first 20 minutes on the new (old) farm were spent watching their bees swarm. A cloud 20' tall and 10' wide that hum and buzzed as loud as a small waterfall. Awesome. I had never seen bees swarm. They settled on a pine tree branch and we are reaching out to beekeepers to see if anyone wants some (more) or how we can get them to back to our hives. The bees did this about 10 hours before the first rain storm in 3+ weeks. Not sure if the events are related. Got me interested in learning more about bees and how to share this field with them.
We had a session with the Compost Whisperer at the acidic farm and he loved our compost. Learned a lot in 2 hours, mostly that lasagna piles are okay, not ideal, but should be turned and mixed. Better to chop everything down small and put newer, hotter stuff in subpiles before making the larger mix (or adding to existing mix one). Commercial compost is over-worked, turned 6 times a week, to make it black quickly (because customers want black compost). Best compost is dark brown with no ash pockets and none of the bigger twig/bark stuff, nothing identifiable. Younger compost has more nutrients than aged but too young compost will mulch your crops and lock up nitrogen. Compost should be kept between 40 and 60% moisture and you can use a tarp or high tech covering to either keep water in or keep it out depending on what is needed. Turn the pile the first time at about 2 weeks and then at increasingly longer intervals but don't allow it to compact on itself. If it is too cool turn it. If too warm add water. Windrow should be 4' high with a wide base and a peak as this shape limits surface area making the moisture content level more stable and controllable. For smaller (garden) compost pile, a mound shape is fine. Carbon to nitrogen (in raw materials) should be between 20 to 1 and 30 to 1. The inital mix should be 10% earth/soil/mature compost to help inoculate the pile. Looking forward to trying it at the new farm.
I limed (dolomitic) the acid farm but will put most of my beans on the new one which tested around 7 PH.
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