Cover Cropping | The EASIEST Way to Amend Your Soil | October 16, 2023
Vložit
- čas přidán 10. 09. 2024
- Planting a cover crop behind your gardens or fields is one of the easiest ways to amend your soil, with just a little up front work. Be sure to check with your local feed and seed stores first to purchase your cover crop mixture before resorting to online options.
The mixture I used ➡️ Rays Crazy Fall Mix
The spreader I use ➡️ amzn.to/3ZV21kI
More Cost Efficient Spreader ➡️ amzn.to/46uETf7
More on cover crops ⬇️
• Getting These Gardens ...
If you enjoyed this video you may also enjoy this playlist ⬇️
• All Things Garden
Our Etsy Store ➡️ thelawsonfarm....
Find True Grit merch here ⬇️
www.thelawsonf...
Join our Facebook group and share your gardens!: / 639624823908914
Instagram: ...
TikTok @tg_appalachianways
Contact us: Hello@thelawsonfarm.com
Write us: P.O. Box 138 Lawsonville, NC 27022
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Music: Folk Bed
Musician: music by audionautix.com
License: creativecommon...
#covercrops #amendingsoil #easygardening
The mixture I used ➡️ Rays Crazy Fall Mix
The spreader I use ➡️ amzn.to/3ZV21kI
More Cost Efficient Spreader ➡️ amzn.to/46uETf7
More on cover crops ⬇️
czcams.com/video/_6iSVTHu3Os/video.html
If you enjoyed this video you may also enjoy this playlist ⬇️
czcams.com/play/PLnKpaj6ZJDIowwC1Refr3PX28dOT3I1Yq.html
Our Etsy Store ➡️ thelawsonfarm.etsy.com
Find True Grit merch here ⬇️
www.thelawsonfarm.com/youtube.html#/
Join our Facebook group and share your gardens!: facebook.com/groups/639624823908914
Instagram: instagram.com/truegrit_appalachianways?igshid=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA%3D%3D&
TikTok @tg_appalachianways
Contact us: Hello@thelawsonfarm.com
Write us: P.O. Box 138 Lawsonville, NC 27022
As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Andy, you are the hardest working man. You can tell that you love working with the soil and it pays off from the harvest you and Meghan get from your crops. Love watching your videos. So glad I’ve found your channel.
Thank you!
A farmer's day doesn't end when the sun goes down. Even for the healthiest of men it's still an exhausting job. A job they dearly love. Thank you Andy and Meagan for always presenting the homestead lifestyle as it truly is.
Trust in God and be blessed
Boy you definitely got your work out today!! Whewwww I'm tired already just watching you! Good job!!
Andy your always working your a fantastic worker you and your family. ❤️
We're all out of shape, steam just plum give out😂 All you've done has worn us out. Have a blessed day 🙏❤️
hahahahah
I remember doing that with my grandpa
Hey guys. I’m wondering what y’all do to ready your raised beds for winter. Maybe even some thoughts on what you would do if you didn’t have manures for compost. So many of us have small raised beds gardens and no animals. Thanks for all your great content.
So for raised beds you can do cover crops as well or put down a good layer of mulch, such as straw or hay or even leaves, just something to keep the soil covered, you'll see us doing that in an upcoming video , not to our raised beds but some small in ground garden beds we have
@@TrueGritAppalachianWays thank you. I have leaves. I’ve never used cover crops because honestly I’m not sure what to do with them if they go to seed or what to do in the spring to plant. I use to have animals so I had all sorts of manure compost but not right now. I look forward to that video. Thanks!!
You work really hard!!! Bless you for all you do!!!
Thank you so much!
Great job!
Great video Andy you should have a great cover crop with two bags good luck god bless
I am looking forward to the cover crops growth.
Great job Andy. Yep I know the feeling about being out of shape while while walking across the disc or tillered field spreading seeds with a spreader. I just done that this weekend. I tillered under the buckwheat & cow peas and planted a mixture of Crimson Clover, Winter Rye & some Hairy Vetch for a winter cover crop. First time planting Hairy Vetch. Enjoyed your video friend.
Thats a great combination! hope it does well for yall
One thing to think about, too, is "Chip Drop" and Tree Leaves. With the chip drop program, you can get entire truck loads of freshly chipped trees from local arborists and yard crews. Everyone in the hort business is reporting on how fantastic this stuff is for boosting your soil health and vitality, especially if you have clay. Because you're getting all of the tree and not just bark or wood, the bits provide a wide spectrum of nutrients, and at different times as they break down. Depending on where you are, you might be able to get a goodly number of truck loads to spread out on your fields.
Tree leaves work just as well, but getting as many as you'd need would be a challenge. On smaller plots, you can cover the ground with a foot of autumn leaves and you'll see a huge difference in the soil profile in just one year as the leaves quickly break down and encourage activity in the biome.
Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention planting hedgerows of Panicum (aka Switch Grass) on contour across the land wherever you could. Like trees, the Panicum virgatum roots incredibly deeply, up to 10', and all that nutrient then goes into building their leaves. So when you cut the grass down in the spring, you're getting a fertilizer/mulch that is very rich in various trace minerals and little things that aren't usually available to plants that have a shallower rooting structure. Plus, those famous roots of the Panicum actually help to infiltrate water and air into the ground where it boosts the overall ecology. Studies have found that crops grown downhill of the hedge of Switch Grass actually benefit from the underground flow of water and nutrients made available to them by the Panicum. In other words, it's a double win.
All of that is great advice, in our garden at home thats how we've built up the soil over the years is with leaves, im a landscaper and have hauled home tons and tons of leaves, but never enough for a field this size, as for wood chips, i used to have a good connection to get all I wanted but dont anymore, every tree guy locally knows I need some but we're so rural here that they hardly ever do any jobs close enough for them to bring them by, thats another reason the chip drop thing dont work for us either, we've only owned this field about 3 years and just got it cleared off from overgrowth about two years ago and we're slowly trying to build it back up, prior to it growing up it was over worked tobacco land which most everything around here was
@@TrueGritAppalachianWays It ain't easy, is it?! Like the old riddle of how you eat an elephant..... one bite at a time.
I'm slowly piling leaves up in a small field, just doing it one little grid section at a time. Of course, my plot's nowhere near as big as what you're dealing with. Might be worth trying, though, if you could put up some chicken wire to box off a 10x10 section and fill it with a foot of leaves and let it overwinter rather than planting it with a cover crop. Next year, box off an adjacent section. Might take you a hundred years, but what else do you have to occupy your time?! :D
I am keeping my eye out for old rotten hay that I could roll out over it but haven't really had the time to put towards it, if the field was at our house instead of 1/2 mile up the road it would make things easier
@@TrueGritAppalachianWays Maybe borrow a big ol' chipper and make some chips right on site as part of a "clean up" operation to tend the edges.
I've been looking at those Daikon radishes to break open the soil and add a slew of organic matter deeper, but the real issue, I think, is that none of the cover crops really get below a foot with their roots. Seems to me that you develop a hardpan layer real quick, and that just helps the water run off the land, even if it's running underground where you can't see it. No organic matter and a hardened layer.... sounds like a recipe for disaster, imo.
It's almost got me thinking about planting for the Landscaping industry, at least for a little bit, so the land can benefit from the deep-rooting nature of things like the Panicum virgatum while I get a cash crop. Switch Grass is a fantastic alternative to hay or winter feed for cattle and horses. Then there's the crews doing erosion control for the city/state government who need plugs of locally-grown native grasses like the Panicum. With a government budget, that'd be a really nice market to tap into!
I haven't had any luck so far, but I'm still looking!
❤❤❤
If you are looking for height, keep an eye on the oats as many of them have been bred to be short (idea is less straw might be more grain). Winter Rye has been messed with less so it's taller for more biomass. Oats I used in my cover crop ended up being shorties.
yea I'm aware of that, I also used rye and crimson clover mix on a field not far from this one so im going to see what i like better. I hope I get some good growth from this mixture my local guy talked really highly of it, of course he was probably just trying to sell it to me! haha
was about to say, "aint no way," when i saw you hand spreading the acre. then i see you talking about how hard it was.... yep
Haha yep I have a spreader for the tractor but didn't want to go through the trouble of unhooking the disc then hooking it up only to hook the disc up again
Been there for sure. I picked up a pull behind atv spreader this year exactly bc i was tired of hooking and unhooking 3 point each time. @@TrueGritAppalachianWays
👍🙋🙏❤🙂
Any thoughts on creating compost from hay, garden scraps, and manure to cover a field this size?
That's the problem when you get larger than garden size, you need to grow the compost in the field itself.
I really wish I could create enough compost for a field this size, but as the other guy stated you pretty much have to grow your compost in place for one this size. however I have considered finding some old hay somewhere that was close to being rotten and rolling it out over it if i could find enough of it
Lots of work, hope it rains for you.
Annual rye gives us the best organic matter yield but we have to hand broadcast, luckily don't have to cover an acre that way
You mean Winter Rye grain. Other channels got into trouble putting down rye grass which is the opposite of what you want. Unfortunate naming programs.
Correct - rye grain type. We call the other type rye grass. Rye grain is probably the most common cover crop in SW Va.@@jvin248
do you use winter rye or rye grass? i've used both and like both
Winter rye -grain type (not rye grass) gives us the most yield and easiest to grow(SW Va)@@TrueGritAppalachianWays
Yep I have another field close to this one that I used rye and clover mix going to see how I like it, I do know from past experience rye does a lot better than anything else in these poor soils
Do you just plant this to put back into the soil? Some is food.. and you plow back in after harvest? .... does just growing these help the soil?
I plow back into the soil, thats its only purpose is to feed the soil, I grow it during our off season. some of the things in this mixture are nitrogen fixers which will add atmospheric nitrogen back to the soil
@@TrueGritAppalachianWays thank you very much.. my soil out in, in hot climate of Queensland Australia very poor and this would be a good way to fix it before even trying to restart a garden which has not been successful regardless of what l do.. l appreciate your help
I wonder what the difference between other seed and weed seed is?
what do you mean?
@@TrueGritAppalachianWays At the bottom of the seed percentages those two were listed.
its just something they have to put on the lable its a very very low percentage but almost every single mixture of seed you buy have a weed seed percentage
😅
Be careful utube will troll your equipment, what a shame 😢😮😢😮😢😮 f j b 😊😊
haha