turning pasture over to veg

[jac]

Ok, we have decided to plow a half acre of our land to start growing vegetables. The pasture is an old permament ley. What is my best way of going about this .. regards quickest way to loose the old turf, 1st crop to sow? would barley be a good choice, cover crops to plow in, Any help would be great as a lot of you guys an gals are into this..
John

[dominiquer60]

A few questions for you John,
What is a ley?
What type of crops do you want to grow?
How soon do you want to grow these crops?

Hopefully we will gain access to the other 3 acres of flat ground on the farm and use it for vegetables someday. When we get the go a head from the elder generation, I would like to plow (not very deep) the sod in spring and disc or harrow for a few weeks until the sod it dead. It has been hay field for 15+ years and mostly has perennial weeds to deal with. Once the sod has decomposed and before the summer weeds are tempted, we will sow to medium red clover and oats to establish a healthy stand. The oats will be green chopped early and fed out and not made into straw. We want to focus on getting the clover to do its best before the winter.

The next spring we will shallow plow early any plots that we want for early crops and basically repeat above but plant veg instead. We will plow up more plots a few weeks ahead as needed. I like to establish red clover first for the good that it does to the soil as far as tap roots and N fixing. Some say that a clover stand doesn’t last long, but I find that if you let it go to seed once a year is seems to keep better than the 2 years that the university claims. If you are having a potato leaf hopper issue, don’t mow the clover, it will get worse. Having a stand of clover to start with keeps a beneficial plant around the perimeter of the veg, and what you don’t use makes excellent grazing. We have lane ways between every 10 beds and can fence parts and graze as long as long as the nearby crops are not too tempting. I look forward to having chickens on some of this clover, they seem to really forage on it well and thrive with less feed.

Anyway that is my plan based on my past experience with clover and veg. I don’t doubt that your situation could be different.

Erika

[Tim Harrigan]

Will you be using chemical weed control on the sod?

[jac]

Hey Erika.. Sorry , a “ley” is a term we use over here for grassland, whether it be short term ley or long term ley .. The trans-atlantic thing again:).. I realise we wont get any veg in this year but hope to plant potatos, leeks, onion and lettuce some turnips and carrots next year, hence the urgency to be rid of the old turf.. We have the beginings of what we call a “FFSA”.. Friends and Family Supported Agriculture. We have an abundance of well rotted horse manure{straw}. Land is south facing and heavy loam. We will be doing everything with draft horses so wont be using any quick methods like power harrow… Tim.. dont really want to go down the chemical route if at all possible…
John

[mitchmaine]

hey john, one method of many options might be plowing down your sod and letting your field go fallow for the summer. the advantages would be less expensive in terms of cost for seed for green cover. just harrow it every week or ten days lightly so you are uprooting the weeds and not replanting them. manure or compost it early on and get the weed seeds in that as you go. then mid september, (here anyway), sow it to a winter grain like rye or something to hold your soil til spring. plow that down next april and your good to go.

[dominiquer60]

You could definitely plant some this year once the sod is well rotted. I highly recommend reading/purchasing the Nordell articles and/or DVD they are highly informative and the methods can be adapted to animal or tractor. Additional articles of theirs can be found in many back issues of Small Farmers Journal.

[jac]

Erika I’ll dig out a couple of SFJ and find the adverts, thanks.. Mitch how deep will I need to go.. Deep to bury the turf or shallow 1st time and deep the following spring ?? Will the turf decay quicker if shallow plowed.. Would barley do as a cover crop or is it classed as a greedy crop regards taking a lot out of the soil ? So much to learn to get off the treadmill of the “high imput” attitude of my farmer friends and neighbours.. “Roundup” is really popular round our area ,as is 150hp tractors and power harrows !!! then the same tractors get used to turn hay:eek:!!. Thats me off the subject.. I didnt even ask anyone on our road for advice on this.. They think im slightly mad to want to do this with horses anyway.. Thank you for the info..
John

[mitchmaine]

hey john, what kind of soils do you have over there? sandy loam or clay? are you over limestone? sounds like with old pasture, it’s full of composted organics of different ages. maybe overripe, or acidic and may need tuning. but thats later. i’d plow just deeper than you roots and put your sod down. scratch on the top, feed that with manure, bonemeal, bloodmeal, lime, whatever it takes to balance your soil and grow your cover crop in that. next spring plow same depth and bring your sod right back up. it’s already rich, but may need some more tuning. figure out what your planting cause potatoes, say, don’t like it to sweet. something else might want it different. and read anything the nordells write. good luck.

[jac]

We are on pretty heavy land. Next neighbour up the hill is near to peat. You’re bang on with the lime by the way. our water is full of it. There was a lot of buttercup but I did a lot of harrowing last couple of years and seem to have reduced that ?. I put it down to the harrows ripping the broad leaves of the buttercup and reducing growth ?!?! any thoughts on that one.. Thats one thing I’ve noticed nowadays.. a lot less lime being spread. Economies of the modern farm I guess but false I think. Thank you for your imput. I will keep you posted as the project builds. Its all adding to the info on this site that helps others starting out. dont think ther’s a better one.
John

[dominiquer60]

A soil test is a good thing to do, of course each lab does it a little differently but if you take them regularly from the same place you can see how you effect the soil with amendments. I found a lab here in the states that is independent and I like that because the universities are too influenced by corporations and give poor computer recommendations based on big Ag. My lab cost more, but you get a home visit from a consultant that is not trying to sell you anything other than another series of soil tests in a couple years.

We planted into sod turned this past spring and had some great crops, but noticed that the heavy feeders were not doing well. The first year of freshly turned sod is the easiest, few weeds and good nutrition from the dieing sod. Our test indicates that we need to buy a lot of lime for the entire farm, but the flat, where we have been avoiding manure because of a sensitive watershed, really needs some minerals and manure if we are to succeed next year.

The advantage of shallow plowing is that you sever the roots of your pasture plants. I find that this does kill the sod well and prevents some plants from just trying to re-root after every harrow. I don’t know what would work best for you, but you could experiment with it.

Erika

[mitchmaine]

john, another thought is someone has been farming my place for just over two hundred years. he hacked it out of the forest primevil as payment for fighting and surviving the revolutionary war. i’m guessing someone has been working your peice of ground for thousands of years??? perhaps if you picked the brains of some of your neighbor tractor farmers about how they farm it, and then adapting that to your specific needs might be a good plan as well. i found out last night after some reading that you and i probably don’t have the same plant when we think corn? we would be grateful for all the photos and text you can provide on your project. never talked to a farmer from another continent. keep in touch. mitch

[Tim Harrigan]

John, probably the biggest challenge will be getting rid of quack grass if you have it. You probably do because it was introduced to the US from Europe hundreds of years ago. You might call it couch grass or something different but it is very aggressive and spreads by underground rhizomes so mechanical control means plowing then tillage probably weekly to exhaust the new growth. If you come back with a small grain later in the fall or early next spring consider a high seeding rate to shade it and compete hard. Your neighbors may have some insight but their answer will probably be -roundup-.

Erika, I do not sense the same issues you mentioned from our university soil lab. Actually, their recommendations are modest compared to some I have seen from other places. The assessment should not change much from lab to lab, soil testing methods are pretty well standardized. Where folks part ways is on the recommendations based on the soil tests. So you need to be a little careful when someone is both testing your soil and selling you something (fertilizer, amendments, management, etc.) based on the soil tests.

[jac]

Mitch the area we are in is traditional dairy.. but now mostly beef and sheep. I take your point about talking to some of the neighbours.. or the older ones at least.. thers a man about 2 miles away that grows some vegetables. When we talk of “corn” we mean oats!! Our “maize” is your corn 🙂
Tim the grass you mention is known as “wrack” over here, and its a real pain.. The area we have earmarked was used as the toilet area thru the snow time and now has a nice covering of freshly harrowed manure covering most of the grass. Once we start I’ll post as many fotos as I can. thanks all .
John

[Anthony]

I highly recommend getting a hold of the Nordell’s media for a great background in cultivated land management. Much of what I have learned is a variation of their ‘innovations’ and thought processes. Is is well presented and inspiring if nothing else.

The steps I would take are as follows.

Plow shallow as possible; you want to cut roots, bury the ley in a proper manner so it will not re-root, but also lay it in a manner that allows some airflow for desired decomposition.

Disc/Harrow/Cultivate, again shallow and as unaggressive as necessary, until the ley is dead. Pay attention to the action of your tool and its suitability to the situation and your current goal. Do you want to bury or bring things to the surface? are you trying to break up clods and aggregates or are you comfortable with the way they are? How is decomposition coming along? Are you looking to introduce more air and oxygen? Is the prior growth in appropriate sized pieces?

Plant a cover crop suitable to your location, climate, window of time, and budget. If you plan to plant next spring, I would look for a cover to grow and suppress weeds this summer that is manageable in way that allows you to plant early in the spring next year as well as enhancing soil tilth and texture. Here are a couple situations I would consider in the NE US and are dependant on when you have taken care of the residual ley to your satisfaction:

-plant a quick growing crop of buckwheat in the summer, disc and cultivate/fallow for a week or 2, then repeat if time allows completion of another cycle before late august/early September, at which point I would seed down oats and peas or another cover crop that will put on some growth before hard frost but then die back fully before spring. This dying is critical for management in spring.

-similar to Mitch’s suggestion, fallow and cultivate/harrow for the summer until late August/early September and then follow the above with oats and peas or other crop. This will possibly help more with quack/couch grass and other weeds. Harrow each time your weeds are in the ‘white’ stage, that is right after they have germinated and exhausted their seed energy but before they have had a chance to set down roots. Be careful with having open land over summer if you might get heavy rains, consistent rains, and might be prone to erosion at all.

-similar to Erikas suggestion, sow down a annual legume (clover, I’d probably go with crimson to get it to die back. What were you thinking, Erika?) and an annual small grain (oats, again to die back in the winter.) It seemed that Erika was plowing in the spring as the clover was still living. This depends on how your fields are in the spring (wet/heavy/not well drained or light/dry/well drained) as well as how early you’d like to plant.

I know next to nothing about your climate, so be sure to ask around your area about cover crops farmers use.

re Soil Tests: Most universities today use a strong acid test that is useful for knowing what minerals your soil holds and what might be in reserve for the future but doesn’t give you much of an idea of what is currently available to plants. Many other labs use a weak acid test that gives you a better idea of what is biologically available to plants. The strong and weak acid test methods are fairly standard, but be sure your are getting the test you want. Here’s some more info on the different tests: http://www.aglabs.com/soilTesting.html and labs to check out: http://attra.ncat.org/new_pubs/attra-pub/soil-lab.html . Minerals and pH are related, though not as directly as many tests make them seem. Most ‘alternative’ labs are based on Albrecht or Reams and give suggestions accordingly. I honestly do not know how universities base their suggestions. Figure out what you want out of a soil test/consultation and how much you might be willing to personally investigate on your own, and be sure that you feel comfortable with whatever you go through with.

All of my suggestions are general and should be adapted greatly to your personal situation. Enjoy!

[jac]

Hi Anthony, thank you for that detailed plan.. When you mention setting the ley in a manner to encourage decomposition.. I had planned to flop the furrow right over but take it you mean to leave it more upright ?? Cover cropping has never been practiced round these parts that I can remember. Fallowing used to be common but not since the 60’s.. I spoke with an old farmer a while back and he said “They used to coax a seed bed.. nowadays they batter it into submission “..We should be able to start the plow in a week or two.. we’re only doing a half acre. I’ll take it slow..
John

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