The time is here. We just started the winter garden for pig feed. This is a continuation of our new approach of growing vegetables for hog feed directly, giving them the best instead of the leftovers.
The winter garden will be roots (beets, carrots, rutebegas, etc) and some cold hardy plants (kale, cabbage, etc). This way, it will sprout in the heat of summer, grow through fall, and be available for harvest all winter. Two years ago when we tested this we ended up with 10 lb solid fresh heirloom beets around march!
The process is :
1. Water lightly (one day)
2. Till, 3 passes to chop up growth
3. Water again
4. Wait to sprout
5. Till a final time to remove most of the sproutable weed seeds.
The first tilling is deep, the second shallow.
Stay tuned!
The winter garden will be roots (beets, carrots, rutebegas, etc) and some cold hardy plants (kale, cabbage, etc). This way, it will sprout in the heat of summer, grow through fall, and be available for harvest all winter. Two years ago when we tested this we ended up with 10 lb solid fresh heirloom beets around march!
The process is :
1. Water lightly (one day)
2. Till, 3 passes to chop up growth
3. Water again
4. Wait to sprout
5. Till a final time to remove most of the sproutable weed seeds.
The first tilling is deep, the second shallow.
Stay tuned!
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| The left side is the original raw pasture. On the right is after one pass with the magic land pride tiller. |
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| Best Tiller ever! Reverse Tines |
posted from Bloggeroid
Quick update... The entire pasture is now tilled.. adding just enough water to moisten the ground did wonders for workability of the soil. Next we set up the controller for the eventual drip line system (the sae one we use on the summer pig garden) with 6 zones. Each zone has one sprinkler arranged to give farily even coverage over 1/3 of the area. Then we set the timer to run each sprinkler 2 hours at a tie and roate through, twice a day. This sprouts the existing weed seeds, lowering the "seed bank" in the soil. We can then till those sprouted weed under when preparing the seed bed with final tilling.
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