Feeling like a farming failure…

[Andy Carson]

That planter works poorly for peas. The drive wheel needs to drive pretty hard in peas to get the right planting rate. I thought this would work based on what happened in my yard, but I think Ill have to swap out the corn/sunflower unit for a soybean unit with brushes. More seeds per spin. It really was designed for that. I did run a few sunflowers through the unit int he field to make sure everything was working fine. The sunflowers, of coarse, don’t require the drive wheel to push so hard, and it works both in the field and on my yard. I only did a test strip on the edge of the pea field though. I ended up finding a neighbor who wanted my rye for hay and would trade this for field work. I’m kinda in the middle of thinking about adjusting my business model and production goals. I think that working 5 acres with a single is still possible, but if the weather gets bad (like it was this spring) it seems to cause this “perfect storm” that leads you to get behind on this and behind on that until you are so far behind you have to get a neighbor to help. In retrospect, I could have gotten alot more done if I had focused on working the plots I could work and not kept fighting my loosing battle with that damned tough rye. It was a huge strategic error to be so stubborn. Another lesson is that figuring out how much field work you can get done is not merely a matter of multiplying the width of the implement by your speed. Simple lesson, I know, but one I needed taught. More importantly, I am questioning the wisdom of growing more field crops that I know I could possibly sell as processed snack foods. Before this year, I had kinda thought that going one acre of corn (for example) would only be slightly harder than growing a half acre. Maybe I got this idea from tractor work, but no matter where the idea came from, it’s not the case with this kind of hands-on slow work with animal power. Growing twice as much crop is really close to twice as hard the way I’m doing it. That means I really ought to only grow as much as I can realistically sell directly to consumers or use for animal feed for my own animals. Not more than this simply becasue I can’t think of what else to do with the land. After all , there are less labor intensive ways to feed animals than growing all your own crops, harvesting them, and bringing them to the animals. In the end I think I’m going to scale back my field crop plots by perhaps half (which is still more than I could probably sell directly to consumers), and use the other half to provide feed for hogs in ways I am still investigating (discussed some in the agroforestry thread). It looks like this might actually produce more pork with the same amount of land, but if it doesn’t I can always switch back to one acre plots (having learned from smaller plots). Maybe this year was a total fluke, I don’t like the idea or having so much productivity lost due to weather. I can’t let years go by with disasters like this year is turning out to be from a crop standpoint and something ought to change. Not that this year has been a total wash, and I have gotten some time to work on “accessory” projects such as raising a farm dog, setting up bee hives, planting fruit trees, raising chickens, building chicken coops, putting up fences, etc. Still though, I had hoped to have crops in the field too.

[Andy Carson]

That planter works poorly for peas. The drive wheel needs to drive pretty hard in peas to get the right planting rate. I thought this would work based on what happened in my yard, but I think Ill have to swap out the corn/sunflower unit for a soybean unit with brushes. More seeds per rotation, and the soybean meter was really was designed for that. I ran a few sunflowers through the until to make sure everything was working fine. The sunflowers, of coarse, don’t require the drive wheel to push so hard. This works both in the field and on my yard. I only did a test strip on the edge of the pea field though. I ended up finding a neighbor who wanted my rye for hay and would trade is for field work. I’m kinda in the middle of thinking about adjusting my business model and goals. I think that working 5 acres with a single is still possible, but if the weather gets bad (like it was this spring) it seems to cause this “perfect storm” that leads you to get behind on this and behind on that until you are so far behind you have to get a neighbor to help. In retrospect, I could have gotten alot more done if I had focused on working the plots I could and not kept fighting my loosing battle with that damned tough rye. It was a huge strategic error to be so stubborn. Another lesson is that figuring out how much field work you can get done is not merely a matter of multiplying the width of the implement by your speed. Simple lesson, I know, but I needed taught this. More importantly, I am questioning the wisdom of growing more field crops that I know I could possibly sell as processed snack foods. Before this year, I had kinda thought that going one acre of corn (for example) would only be slightly harder than growing a half acre. Maybe I got this idea from tractor work, but no matter where it came from, it’s not the case with this kind of hands-on slow work with animal power. Growing twice as much crop is really close to twice as hard the way I’m doing it. That means I really ought to only grow as much as I can realistically sell directly to consumers or use for animal feed for my own animals. There are less labor intensive ways to feed animals, though, than growing all your own crops, harvesting them, and bringing the to the animals, though. In the end I think I’m going to scale back my field crop plots by perhaps half (which is still more than I could probably sell directly to consumers), and use the other half to provide feed for hogs in ways I am still investigating. It looks like this might actually produce more pork with the same amount of land, but if it doesn’t I can always switch back to one acre plots (having learned from smaller plots). Maybe, this year was a total fluke, I don’t like the idea or having so much productivity lost due to weather. I can’t let years go by with disasters like this year is turning out to be from a crop standpoitn and something ought to change. not that this year has been a total wash, and I have gotten some time to work on “accessory” projects such as raising a farm dog, setting up bee hives, planting fruit trees, raising chickens, building chicken coops, putting up fences, etc. Still though, I had hoped to have crops in the field too.

[blue80]

Andy, nice to read your honest hopes goals and fears and frustrations. Obviously with your ingenuity and energy you’ll fall back and punt and make some lemonade…. or a bakers analogy, take the good with the bad put it in the oven and you got cupcakes….:cool:

Have you evaluated using a covercrop roller like I and J makes? http://www.croproller.com

I too am behind, thinking the covercrop roller would be a way to still get some forage planted while knocking down what I have growing, without tilling the soil, but then one needs access to a notill drill.

Kevin

[Author]

Posts