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@Robert MoonShadow 27758 wrote:

I’ve used ‘commercial’ models of these w/ my landscape company. I found that a higher speed was best for kicking up the heavier stuff and wet leaves, while a slower speed was best for picking up the smaller stuff that a higher speed tended to leave behind. The sturdier {and heavier} models I had weighed 50-75 lbs., but the home-owners models were only 35-50 lbs. The two things to avoid at all costs were doggie donuts and bubblegum. I know this personally, but you don’t need the details…just get rid of the thing & buy new.

yeah, the heavy duty all steel version looked way too heavy. Most of them though were tube and fabric.

we wouldn’t be encountering much gooey trash, and most of it is light empty packaging, I can pick up the occasional unbroken bottle myself.

I’ve been planning a little cargo cart, I am debating putting a hitch on that or making a little two wheel fore cart.

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Mechanically, a little forecart with a standard lawn tractor hitch would work with multiple implements, but I have to be careful to not add too much weight. She’s not a horse after all…

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Hrm… I should look at lawn tractor implements.

http://www.amazon.com/Agri-2dFab-Tow-Lawn-Sweeper-38-22/dp/B000NBF3I0

It shouldn’t be too hard to adapt this for a dorsal hitch. A three wheeled version would have the required balance. I don’t know how larg a piece something like this can handle.

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@Tim Harrigan 27696 wrote:

Raised beds are a good way to manage poorly drained soils, it would be nice to have a lister or other tools to help form those. If you do it by hand, that would also be a long day.

I’m gonna try renting a BCS rotary plow, although it seems they’re not commonly in stock and not commonly rented, so that may be a pipe dream. If I can get the rotary plow I’ll also be using it to dig some edge drainage, try to get the water running off to the neighboring wet land. There’s a fellow with a used one if I can talk hubby into buying equiptment. The volunteer with the tractor does have a plow that could manage it, but not much in the way of skill with it. We have formed some shallow raised beds by hand in areas getting perenial transplants, since we won’t be digging those under later.

@Tim Harrigan 27696 wrote:

Good luck with your volunteer help. There is a large garden near here, seems to be some type of community project. Often on a Saturday morning I will see a big group of folks busy as can be planting and tilling the soil. By mid-summer the ragweed will be head high.

I guess I should count my blessings that I’m doing it mostly myself. Getting stuck hoeing alone what 30 volunteers planted might be too much.

Thank-you so much for helping me with my newbie questions. I’ll have two years of practice with this community garden before I go up in scale again with my own place. I’ve only done small-scale or not in charge before this. I know I have a lot to learn!

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@Tim Harrigan 27674 wrote:

From a practical POV I think you should only put on enough manure that you can easily work into the soil with the tillage you are doing. … no more tillage than necessary

Back to your tillage point, you’re saying don’t till to work in manure, add manure to match existing till? No ammendment between now and when I do fall turn-under?

This year is getting heavy tillage. One pass with the plow when it was too wet, and 1-2 passes with a rototiller. This fall I’m going to till the crops under and try to put in a hill/furrow while I’m at it to encourage earlier spring drainage.

I’ve handled shale softer than the clay lumps coming out of this soil. It should improve as it gets more organics in it. It’s already vastly improved where the sod got torn up well. The single-pass tillage areas are still very difficult to hand dig in, the double-pass areas are nice to dig, but still have some fist sized lumps in it, so it’s not overpulverized. I am limited by volunteer help with the plowing, and not having my own equiptment to do it exactly how I want. I’m trying to rent the machine I eventually want to buy, but apparently the local dealer does not do rentals. Hubby is not enthused about buying any heavy equiptment for the community garden before I have my own market garden at home. (Spring 2013)

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@Tim Harrigan 27674 wrote:

From a practical POV I think you should only put on enough manure that you can easily work into the soil with the tillage you are doing. …Try to work in a legume cover crop like red clover or crimson clover, apply manure over that and till it in.

So you wouldn’t use it as fert around the row crops? I thought the corn at least would benefit from direct application.

@Tim Harrigan 27674 wrote:

It will take time, you can’t do it in one year. Think cover crops, organic amendments like manure or compost, no more tillage than necessary and a 5 year timeline.

Yeah, that’s what I told a volunteer disheartened by the soil, that we’d improve it over time and would not see peak production for five years.

The area is twice as big as what I’ve worked before, and the other plot was A) already broken in, and B) I was not the primary caretaker. I’m trying to take it slow and work what I can do well, rather than rush to maximum production. No sense putting in what I can’t weed and harvest. I’m planning on clover between the rows and byond what I can get planted in time.

You mention red and crimson clover, any reason to choose that over white? I think white is what I found available last I looked locally. I can mail order if there’s a good reason to do so.

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@Tim Harrigan 27671 wrote:

I have been thinking a little more about more of an integration of pasture and woodland because I think in the right circumstances with good management this type of managed ecosystem could be greater than the sum of its parts. It would challenge me to observe much more closely and thereby better understand the interactions of cattle, graze and woodlands, both specific species response and the flux of opportunities that emerge throughout the seasons and over longer periods of time. I have noticed a different mix of forage grasses and broadleaves near the edge of the woodland, mostly on the north edge where it is shaded most of the day. Cooler air and soil temperature, greater soil moisture, delayed maturity of plants so higher forage quality longer and later when forage in full sunlight begins to slump, grasses a little less competitive with legumes and other forages like plantain that are palatable and help provide a more diverse, mixed ration.

In an integrated system, the pigs, or goats for that matter, could be used for management of pasture under cover. If you can get preferential eating of the low shrubbery that interferes with grass growth, and harvest enough of the larger trees to get a dappled sun environment…

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@Robert MoonShadow 27665 wrote:

I’m not sure how effective it would be in an area that doesn’t have cougars…?

I was wondering about that. Man is the only natural deer preadator around here. There was a baby bear wandering in the county and it caused a huge stir. Cougars are near mythical, reported sightings make the news and are accompanied by experts claiming that it was not so because we don’t have Cougars around here. We have fox, raptors, and owls, but they’re not really big enough to trouble deer.

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@dlskidmore 27664 wrote:

I’m surpised there isn’t much market for nut finished meats. Last time I researched this concept, acorn finished pork had a high retail value.

I’m trying to find examples to back up my memory. The highest prices come from artisan cured meats made from acorn finished pork. By itself it’s not much more than grass fed. Artisan bakeries are popping up all around, I’ve not heard of many artisan butchers besides a few ethnic places in the big cities.

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I’m surpised there isn’t much market for nut finished meats. Last time I researched this concept, acorn finished pork had a high retail value. It’s not going to do well with your convential mass market outlets, but if you can sell directly to high end resturants or end consumer foodies, you might see a better $/acre return than with corn.

If my new land comes with an oak forest I’m definately giving it a try, even if it’s just a couple hogs for family consumption. Given how long it takes to raise oak to the age it produces acorns, starting from scratch is not a single generation profitable operation. Oak does have lots of uses, so plant it if you’ve got the budget and land that’s not tilled or grazed, but the only profit is in resale value of the land or for the next generation.

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I would think the rules would vary by state. Does your local cooperative extension office have any information on this? If not, the local health department would probably have some literature on what it takes to have a legal prep kitchen. Some places will allow you to do it in the home kitchen as long as the pets are kept out when you’re working, and standards of cleanliness are kept.

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Blood meal I know I can get locally. I think it’s cow blood…

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Some vendors had scent tags to hang the scents up nearer nose height. Do you use anything like that, or just drop it around on the ground?

How much do you use? It is sold in a little 2 oz bottle. It’s not listed as concentrated, that’s less than one leak for a real cougar.

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@Robert MoonShadow 27647 wrote:

Cougar urine. … I’ve got the website if you want it.

Please do share. Dad used cyote urine when I was younger, but I have not seen any recently.

I’ve gone in three stores and not found any clover or field peas for ground cover in the parts I won’t get to this year. It’s all fragile grasses and fancy chemicals to make it grow. Much longer and I’m gonna just try to germinate a couple pounds of black eyed peas from the supermarket.

Hopefully when I move further out of the city I’ll find some more sensible places to buy seed and supplies.

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I read an interesting memior last year about a fellow that traversed the trail three times. Once to go out and settle, once to go back and bring more family over, and a third time as an old man for publicity and fund raising to add monumnets and markers to the trail. The third time he went all the way to Washington DC to talk to congressmen about getting national monument funds for the trail. He had some interesting run-ins with NYC police, and red tape, ended up trapped in a horse stable while the politicians bickered about getting him a permit to dive cattle through the streets.

If you believe everything in the book, he was tangled up in just about everything that occured at that time period. An interesting read, but not a whole lot about the oxen.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29543

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