Next year's field, ready to go

[unicornduke]

 Re-posted from another site, this post was made Sept 2, 2018

I got it plowed and disked today. I probably could have planted it but I want to wait two weeks and then disk again. Hopefully this will kill a decent amount of weeds in the white thread stage, where any soil disturbance will kill them. I think this will be a semi-permanant field for me. My dad said the east side of the field is pretty rocky so it ends up being 2/3 acre of really good land and 1/3 rocks. 

My plan is to split it into thirds with one third being cover cropped all year in 2019, one third in grains and one third in vegetables. 

Next time I'm here, I'm going to plant in the cover crops for each section and start prepping beds for the fall planted crops like garlic and a few other things that I'm experimenting with. 

Here's my crop plan so far. I designed the field how it appears in google earth, the picture above is taken from the north facing south so it's the opposite. 


 

I'm going to run my rows east/west because I'm going to have a large variety of different types of plants, so some things being trellised, some things needing wider spacing. So I'll have 150 foot rows east west and 280 feet north south to work with. 

In total it is an acre. It's pretty nice soil too. I'm excited!

Also I now have access to the drone so drone pictures are happening so much. 

Comments

[tielan]

Ooh, that is a fairly large amount of land! I guess it is 'farming' since you've got whole fields dedicated to crops. It doesn't have to be commercial farming - I mean, a hundred plus years ago, most non-urban areas had farms that were largely for their own produce (with some exchange).

Would you consider, say, running animals across the rocky section? Chickens or maybe sheep/goats? I mean, it would require fencing, which is no small thing, and also daily management (which may not be something that you want to do). Just a thought for productivity on a section of land that can't necessarily be planted out.

I was tempted to get a drone a few weeks back (luckily for my bank account, I didn't) - they seem like quite a lot of fun, and great for seeing land like that!

[unicornduke]

This field is down at my parents place, which is a 4 hour drive. I get down there every other weekend in the summer with a few weekends in a row around planting time, so no animals. The section that is rockier goes alongside the hay field that's there so I can see if does okay with some cover cropping to build organic matter and all that. If not, it can just go back into hay.

This was taken back in September.

Dad bought the drone and it's super fun! It doesn't have a long battery, maybe 20 mins but it's pretty neat. I'll have to find the link to a video I did with it flying over the field later.

[tielan]

Cover cropping is a good idea for something that you want to 'set and forget' so to speak.

I'd love to see what it looks like now...

[unicornduke]

Most of the field is for next year's spring and summer planting so cover crops all over! It was kinda fun to just get it in the ground and not have to worry.

I'd also love to know what it looks like now haha. I went there for Thanksgiving and there was four inches of snow/ice on the ground so I wasn't able to get any pictures. I've got my fingers crossed that the snow holds off for another week so I can check things out...