Building Soil – Literal Road Farm

Using our cows for rotational grazing is one crucial step toward farming for a future. Planting cover crop is another. But…planting a cover crop was a bigger undertaking than you might think.

And we did it! Yes, the newbies got a fall cover crop planted in part of the old hayfield!

It took the help of another neighbor to borrow a big enough tractor, the generosity of our local conservation district to have a seed drill to rent for cheap, and a seed mix shipped across the country (to get what we wanted)…plus cooperative weather.

And it all came together. The week we had the seed drill reserved was perfect weather wise, and it hadn’t rained so the ground was dry. (That meant we didn’t have to worry about tearing up the field with the big tractor.)

neighbor shows Bob controls on borrowed tractor — *Our neighbor Bob shows our Bob the controls on the borrowed tractor.*

The fall cover crop seed mix is wheat, barley, sorghum sudangrass, radish, winterpea and forage turnip. It’s designed to help build soil but also feed our cows.

This mix will put nitrogen into the ground, help to break up the hard clay, and provide our cows with healthy forage next year…if it makes it through the winter.

*Bob puts the seed mix into the bay of the seed drill.*

That’s the big unknown. Our weather can be unpredictable in our valley because we get either warmer or colder than the surrounding area. This seed mix is meant to overwinter. Fingers crossed it will.

*Seed drill in action! The grooves are where the seed drill has carved out a groove plus dropped seed.*

We did make one mistake: We cranked up the density too high. We didn’t see enough signs of seed in/on the ground, and it didn’t seem like we were using as much seed as we wanted to.

Turns out we were wrong about that, because once the seeds sprouted, we could see just how close together they were planted. Oops! Here’s hoping they don’t crowd each other out as they grow.

That also meant we didn’t cover as much ground as we could have, but we planted about three acres of the 10-acre field, and we were happy with that. It was our first time, after all, and three acres was our plan.

After our luck held with getting the seeds in the ground, we were blessed again a few days later with just enough rain to cause the seeds to sprout. In the picture above, you can see a radish and grass-like seedlings growing. YES!

Now that we’ve done it once, we plan on doing this every year, even if it means we have to buy a bigger tractor rather than count on borrowing one. Our goal is to be planting cover crops on every field in a rotation, because some pastures will need to be grazed, meaning we can’t plant the whole farm at the same time.

OK, so you might be wondering, “Why didn’t you simply plow up the field and replant it?” Well, that gets into the whole no till approach, which will have to wait for another post.

We were like kids on Christmas morning on this September day. This is a huge step forward for us and our goal to be farming for a future. It was something we had learned about and longed to do, and what a treat to make it happen!

And that’s enough for now. 🙂

Our property is 22 acres and the back 10 have been a hayfield since we got here 12 years ago…but not, because we’ve had so many issues with finding reliable people to do the hay for us and the field just got in worse and worse condition.

Learning about building soil and carbon farming, we decided we’d turn it over to rotational grazing and just buy hay from someone else. That 10 acres already looks better! You can see how green the grass is in the foreground of the photo above…despite the hot, dry summer we’ve had.

We’ve had the cows on two sections of it, about 2+ acres each. Why didn’t we use the whole 10 acres? Because the north end is in such sad shape, there’s no point in putting them out there. And we only have three cows right now (technically two cows and a heifer), so we had enough grass with only using half of it.

And oh, do they love it! For example, when we moved the cows to a new patch in mid-July, we hardly saw them for several days. They only walked back toward the barn for their morning and evening grain and for water then went right back to grazing…as they should do!

This has meant mowing (brush hogging) the field too, and that alone has made a huge difference. It made us aware of the extent of our tansy ragwort infestation…but more on that in another post on pasture management.

Mowing stimulated grass growth as did the grazing. On the section that is so poor, we will rent a seed drill and borrow a bigger tractor and get cover crop planted that will start the process of building soil which in turn will help the plants we do want to outcompete the weeds. Plus it will provide better, healthier forage for our cows.

I stand in the field and I look at the green grass and the fat cows and I think, “This is right.” We can buy hay. We can’t buy healthy soil.

(And honestly it’s cheaper to buy hay than to go through all the hassle of trying to find a trustworthy person to cut and bale ours for us.)

So this is right. The animals tell me it’s right. The grass tells me it’s right. My gut tells me it’s right.

Category: Building Soil

Seed Drill Success!

The Grass IS Greener…When You Graze It