I want to talk about HAY as in Ruth Stout

[applestar]

Some of the plants are wilting Some worse than others. The big mystery volunteer tom in the back is the only one completely unaffected (It was the only one planted from a 1 gal pot. It's at the lowest point in this sloping bed.)

Too much water? Not enough? Too hot? Cooking in the root zone?

It was cloudy with some threat of rain most of the day yesterday, then overnight temp plummetted to 50's. There was actually dew this morning (haven't had a dewy morning for nearly a week), and some of the plants had recovered some (peppers especially).

I HAD to water today -- we're in the middle of a drought and every thing needed a good soaking. Some of the plants remain better. I think one tom is a goner. Yellow Bell and Bell Star are the worst affected.

[rainbowgardener]

"Too much water? Not enough? Too hot? Cooking in the root zone? "

I don't think we have any way to answer those questions, but you do. If it were me, I would try digging down into the root zone on one of the badly affected ones and see what's going on down there. Is it damp and mushy or dry or hot or ??

[The Helpful Gardener]

In my hay bale gardens only one potato survived out of the ones planted directly in bales; the rest are completely disintegrated, and the temps still there suggest cooking may have been the cause...

In the center where I filled with compost, the crops closest to the bales are head and shoulders ahead of the ones in the middle, furthest from the hay. This suggests two things, that increased heat may have helped root development, or that the increased ciliate population of hay in combination with the high bacterial population, released massive amounts of nitrogen. I am leaning towards the latter as the one plant not showing this differential has been the runner beans, which are the same size throughout the bed... that suggests to me that the ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen maintains the equal sizing...

Watering in your situation accomplishes two things, both moisture and cooling, and it would be hard to overwater that bed, I think. Water more and see if it doesn't help, but it would be hard to say with which issue...

A soil thermometer would be a big help, even a meat thermometer like you use on a turkey would help... there is certainly some composting still going on in this method and the heat can be more than one might think...

I added extra fertiliizer to the middle plants; Bradfield 5-5-5 Tasty Vegetable (yes, organic); we'll see if they catch up...

HG

[applestar]

Interesting about the heat issue. I guess we're both finding out some caveats about this method. Soil thermometer? Oh I have one of those, but it's in the completely DIAGONALLY opposite corner of my garden in the compost pile, and is way too far to go and get.

We had a good soaking rain (FINALLY!) this afternoon, and we're getting a cold spell (overnight air temp went down to 51ºF, 60's during the day today) Most of the plants appear to have recovered. I lost one tomato plant (Valencia which is too bad because I only have one other) and an Alaska Nasturtium. Cubanelle Banana Pepper might not make it. A Bellstar tomato is looking limp but may yet recover, and the rest of the Bellstars and Yellowbells, as well as the other Alaska and a parsley are still looking slightly hangdog.

I don't know if it's actually the cool weather/rain that's helping or that the bed has had the chance to mellow a bit. I think I said earlier or elsewhere that, normally, I would allow at least 2 weeks for a sheet mulched bed to settle in before planting.

I'm wondering if you planted the potatoes WAY ahead of the normal schedule, while it's still really too cold under normal circumstances, they might make it. You would then have EARLY potato harvest out of the haybale raised bed.

[Ozark Lady]

Let's talk hay!
I got several old bales down today, to mulch, the garden soil is already cement. Some one or other is hogging all the rain!
My hubby insists that we got 30 minutes of steady rain this morning before I got up, well, you can't prove it by my soil!

Anyhow, I did get alot of things mulched, but OMG I am itching.
Does everyone itch like crazy from putting out hay?
I did my sneezing and watery eyes thing too!
Allergies and hay don't seem to get along so great!
Once it is down, I do fine with it, but the breaking bales and placing it, just really gets me all itchy! You get the stuff off, but all the tiny scratches still itch! Sheesh.

Mulching is up close and personal, I was eyeball to eyeball with several cutworms today. Bt to the rescue... and now, now that I sprayed, it looks like rain! Going to wash all my Bt off.

[The Helpful Gardener]

A little bit OL, but I used some skunked stuff which seems not to hit me as hard...

Sorry to hear about cutworms but don't worry about BT washing; bacteria stick like glue (actually make their own in the form of polysaccharides).

Pertty darn hard to wash away...

HG

[applestar]

Some details on EH's Synergistic Garden are described here and other pages on the same website.

[rainbowgardener]

great link, AS!

[applestar]

I took the time to reread this whole thread since I just recommended it elsewhere and had a thought about OL's hyper-fungal naturally leaf mulched beds.

You know those chickenwired hoops you use to keep the chickens out, OL? After a bed is done growing stuff and you've cut-- not uprooted -- the plants and laid them on top of the mulch, how about using them to keep some chickens IN for a week or so to scrabble around, eat any bugs and their eggs, larvae, or pupae, and leave their blessings... They would likely shred up the leaves in the process (you don't need a mechanical leaf shredder ) Feed them and water them in there as necessary: Chicken tractor. Then let that bed compost away for a month or two. This way you've added the necessary N and bacteria to offset the high C/fungal.

Just had another thought that if you confine your goats in a smallish paddock full of leaves for however long is appropriate every day, they might eat and trample the leaves as well as leave their "processed" blessings there as well. Not sure if this is a viable idea without goat experience of my own, but I thought I'd toss it in.

You've got most of the animal components/members of a permaculture --What's the right word? ... Homestead? Farm? -- It's just a matter of putting them to work.

[Ozark Lady]

I began the original garden with chicken tractors.

I took horse fencing, and built cages that fit what I wanted for a bed, and it was 4' high. We then used the landscape timbers to secure the bottom of the wire boxes.

I removed all surface rocks, then we placed chickens in there. These were young ones, so I knew the manure wouldn't be wonderful.
You folks do know the age of the animal affects the quality of the manure.
You can't count on baby animal manures to do much more than add humus, since they use up most of the nutrients in their food.

I left them there, food and water offered as usual, and I had to cover half the roof, due to heat issues. The trees were still pretty small back then and not alot of shade. That was 15 years ago, so imagine how much smaller they were.

Instead of moving the tractors, I kept building more, allegedly they were suppose to deposit "gifts" on a thin layer of hay and then I was to lasagna it and on and on. I moved the chicks, not the tractors from one bed to the next.
1. Baby or young chickens don't do alot of scratching.
2. They did do good at eating the weeds.
3. They didn't really place enough manure to amount to anything.
4. I did keep adding hay, but it just never did build up into the lasagna mat that was shown in the book "Chicken Tractors".

It was basically a bust. The chickens were great lawn mowers, weed eaters, and that is about it.

But that is a great reminder, I have alot of something ( I have tried to id it, it is a nettle, a basil, or a mint that family somewhere) and it is out of control. If I pen the young chickens there, they will definitely clear that out for me. Goats won't eat it. And since I have 16 baby chicks and more that I need to go get. I have enough to get a couple tractors up and going. Then I can pen the baby ducks there after weed removal, and let them have a slug-fest.

All of my chicken wire garden cages are up at the bag garden at the moment. The beauty of them is they are sections, so I can re-arrange and make them to fit a 4' bed or a row of bags! Some are 3' widths and some are 2' widths. They aren't overly secure without the timbers of the raised beds, but they encourage animals to stay out of there! I had chickens digging up the plants, and dogs digging in the soft dirt to lie there. And no... I did not let sleeping dogs lie... she is over 100 pounds, not good lying on my bag garden!

Here they are at 2 weeks planted:


The original garden, once the plants are larger, and well mulched, with hay, I simply remove them and let the chickens help with bugs.

The forest garden is doing great, I did add some bone meal, wood ashes, cottonseed meal, and fish emulsion to half of them. But, growth wise, I can't tell any difference. They are doing fine!
Here is the forest plants at 3 weeks:



So far, I am well pleased with both the forest and bag experiments. The bags are filled with topsoil, amended with aged manure. I do plan to mulch both with hay to keep the weeds down, but, I am waiting till the plants are larger to survive the slugs, for now mulch is a bad thing for them.

[applestar]

Ah, I knew ducks should go in that scheme somewhere but I couldn't figure out exactly how.

I still need to make those cages. I have the 24" wide chickenwire, but have to go get the tubing. Remind me again what they are specifically so I can ask for it when I go to the big box store? Do you buy them in lengths or as coiled up tubing?

[Ozark Lady]

That was getting long, so I decided to tackle the goat issue in a new post.

I have discovered that copper is lacking in the soil here. Sheep are very good at processing copper and you must be careful not to overdose them, however, goats are not. So, you must supplement them with copper.

I have been doing some reading on the mineral deficiencies in the local soil, and looking into amending the soil with copper to help the plants as well as the animals. I have discovered a very accurate indicator of copper deficiency is alkaline soil, and sulfur water... we have both here. The only thing keeping my soil at neutral to slightly acid is the leaves.

From a goat health viewpoint: I do not want my animals to eat anything off of the ground! Worms and coccidi are parasites, and once they are passed in feces, they do their life cycle, some in snails, and then they are in the lower 2 inches of weeds, and when an animal eats there, they are ingested.

Therefore, I want to keep my goats eating above the first 6 inches. Leaves that have hit the ground could be contaminated. I can't keep poultry above that 6 inch mark, so I just have to plan on dealing with their parasites, in as organic a way as possible. Diatomaceous earth to the rescue, inside and outside the animal!

Also, my dairy goats are big pets, they are well trained, but they weigh as much as I do, and walking them on a leash just isn't a reasonable option for me. In order to have mobile goats that I can move to one area or another, I need pygmies! But, even pygmies are strong little rascals for their 50 pound weights, and can be a handful to lead, when they want to go elsewhere. It is much less effort to simply cut brush and take it to the goats hay rack and feed them up high, than to try moving the goats to an area.

I am also reading: http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Herbal-H ... 0571161162

I had the old version of this book, but it burned in the fire. But, the hedgerow chapters talk about the good herbs for the goats hedgerow.
And that is in the preview to the book! Yeah!

Makes sense, if I can amend the soil, get the mineral deficiencies worked out, plant a decent hedgerow of herbs, and get the animals health at the top of the ladder... the manure from them, will then have everything that I need in my garden? Well, that is my theory at least.

So, I am researching these areas, if anyone has additional information on these, please share.

I am not attempting the fungal issues until I get the minerals, and the balance of ph, npk, etc worked out with alot of humus to stop this turning to cement thing! One step at a time.

Leaves are buried in the compost bin, under that lousy first load of topsoil, so they are out of harms way, and since I can't get to them, I am using hay for mulch. But, I am planting herbs for hedgerow, with the idea, of harvesting the whole plant come fall, both for goat feed, and to use along with hay and leaves to balance my garden.

So, I need to find the herbs that contain the most copper, naturally and are not dependant on finding it in the soil!

Scott, would herbs, since they are organic, and less woody than leaves still have your amoebas and stuff?

[Ozark Lady]

Apple, I find the flexible 1/2" pvc in the area where they have the parts to make your own drip system at Lowes.

It is a coil of about 50' length? Costs about $20.00. I also get rigid pvc in 3/4" size, and cut it to 12", these I drive into the ground, and then just slide the 1/2" into them, when I want to anchor the bed. I couldn't do that at the bag garden. The rigid is not necessary, but it makes it more stable. The sides of the raised bed keeps the shape, notice the sprawl at the bag garden where there are no legs, and no boards to hold them in place.

I used chicken wire scraps and pvc, to make a trellis for my peas to climb, it worked great! I do have photos of the peas, but they are not reduced in size and loaded on Photo Bucket at this time.

[applestar]

Thanks Ozark Lady!

To return the favor -- as chance would have it, I was flipping through How to Grow More Vegetables and on p.24 Ch. 2. Sustainability, there is an entry [my emphasis in red]:

Sunflowers (sunflower seeds are very high in fat; maximum to avoid copper toxicity = 0.62 pound per day)

For what it's worth.

[Ozark Lady]

I feed the goats Black Oil Sunflower Seeds on a daily basis. Along with oats, corn, alfalfa pellets, and other grains, and pellets.

They are milking just about a gallon per day, per goat, so I needed to keep their nutrition high, and knew the BOSS would do that. I wasn't aware of the copper link to them though.

Thanks, you know, I should grow my own, and quit buying them, they are about 18.00 per 50 pound bag. Another hedgerow plant! Yeah!

I wonder if all sunflowers are created equal? I have some corn that is high protein stalks. Hmmm?

I really need a microscope, to determine what has amoeba's etc growing on them!