Re: FARMING Katja/tractors/hay/nature/soil

[Guest guest]

> @@@@@@@@ Katja:

> > the part that you're missing in that equation is where you're

> getting the

> > hay.

> @@@@@@@@@@@

>

> okay, let's roll up our sleeves here. WHY do you need a tractor

> (machine or animal)?

<><><>><><><><><>My tractor is iced up(not running) and I sure do

miss it. I wanted to use it to power the buzz saw today. Not mANY

people will live around a campfire pushing the uncut log in every few

minutes so the fire doesn't go out. I use the tractor very litttle

however it does need fuel.I just got a post hole digger a few years

ago so my fencing isn't done either.Dennis

if it's just for hay, WHY do you need hay? why

> do all that work when the animals can just eat it off the ground?

> maybe this sounds naive, but i'm thinking of the millenia before

> agriculture and how well animals survived without hay.

<><><><><><><><>When this ocurred there may been very few animals per

acre, although I don't know.Dennis

maybe

> choosing winter-hardy breeds is part of the equation?

>

> Katja, since your farming venture is a product of idealism, not

> circumstance, why compromise with these modern farming methods

> instead of going all the way with biodynamic, natural farming?

>

> this whole tractor thing sounds icky.

>

> also, as far as the comments about pigs and chickens tilling the

> land, is this good? being fresh from that wonderful article Allan

> posted yesterday, why perpetuate " catastrophic agriculture " ? why

> kill the soil? why not use a no-tillage, no-cultivating, direct-

> seeding methods with ground cover, etc?

<><><><><><<>This is very LABOR intensive(planting seeds yearly or

even weekly) unless you can survive on native annuals and

perennials. Some parts of the world would be best for this I'm

thinking, like maybe nearer the equator where there's lot's of native

fruits and berries..Dennis

i'm very new to these ideas,

> but I get the impression the no-till method is very well

established.

<><<><><><><><><><>>Any place you've seen or read about it? Like

actual no-till has to be tough and has been impossible for me in the

recent 7 years of farming and I was reared on a hilly dryland dirt

farm in the 50's and 60's milking cows by hand(yup sleeves not rolled

up but mostly no sleeves all summer) and operating small farm

equipment(harvesting hay,alfalfa for winter feed and growing milo and

wheat all non irrrigated). I've got a new(to me) scheme for raising

no till row crops next year but I'm still using a tractor and still

afraid the pig weeds will outgrow the crop. But it's interesting

anyway. Dennis

> I believe there's a whole thriving movement based around this

stuff,

> with " permaculture " as an umbrella term of sorts, so I'm wondering

if

> these trains make any stops near your station?

>

> i like Heidi's idea--just make sure the fences ain't broke, and

kick

> back and sing songs, write poetry, post to email groups, slaughter

an

> animal once in a while, harvest veggies and eggs fresh everyday,

milk

> the cows/goats/sheep/elephants/whatever everyday, do kimjang every

> fall...

> sounds like good farming to me...

>

> by the way, the first time i ever saw a cow in person was one year

> ago, so don't get the impression i'm a farming expert (i bet a lot

of

> people got that impression, eh?)

>

<><<><><><>Whether or not I sure enjoyed your posts and info.I had to

pitch in cause I just wanted to point out it's not so simple or easy,

this thing called " farming " . If every one did it, maybe it could be,

however, probably not, as something would complicate it. Dennis in KS

>

Mike

> SE Pennsylvania

[Guest guest]

>also, as far as the comments about pigs and chickens tilling the

>land, is this good? being fresh from that wonderful article Allan

>posted yesterday, why perpetuate " catastrophic agriculture " ? why

>kill the soil?

Mike ...

The article was specifically about grains ... people kept small

plots of sweet potatos and probably herbs way before grain

tillage. Letting chickens till a small plot, then planting some vegies

is hardly " catastrophic " . For one family, it doesn't take a huge

garden, and if you mulch well they don't take a lot of upkeep.

However, I DO like the permaculture approach, which is why

we mostly " do " berries. Berries love our property, so it's

mainly a matter of training them and cutting them back,

and harvesting. They have evidence now that in South America,

the Indians basically encouraged the trees they liked (like cashews)

and came for the harvest. Simple farming!

I don't think that will work for greens though ... except dandelions.

Now you can probably live on dandelions and I get those with

no work at all! I should probably read a book on permaculture

though ... I'm like you say, more theory than practice.

Now some plants, like green onions, seem to lend themselves to

being " permanently planted " in an area -- you just let them take over

the area and weed them (I do it in a big pot on the deck). Mint

is good that way too, and rosemary, and strawberries.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

>They have evidence now that in South America,

>the Indians basically encouraged the trees they liked (like cashews)

>and came for the harvest. Simple farming!

Heidi - Do you have more info or a reference for this? The

information emerging about pre-Columbian Amazonia is so exciting!

Terra Praeta, man! What's THAT about? ;-)

Seriously, are you referring to a recently published study? The one

in Harpers or the Atlantic in the past two years referred to North

and South America as essentially landscaping projects of the

indigenous people.

-Allan

[Guest guest]

@@@@@@@@@@@

> <><><><><><<>This is very LABOR intensive(planting seeds yearly or

> even weekly) unless you can survive on native annuals and

> perennials. Some parts of the world would be best for this I'm

> thinking, like maybe nearer the equator where there's lot's of

native

> fruits and berries..Dennis

@@@@@@@@@@@@

maybe much less labor, because I think most farm labor comes from

cultivating and weeding. or fertilizing, which is also not

necessary. direct-seeding is not so labor intensive.

@@@@@@@@@@@

> <><<><><><><><><><>>Any place you've seen or read about it? Like

> actual no-till has to be tough and has been impossible for me in

the

> recent 7 years of farming and I was reared on a hilly dryland dirt

> farm in the 50's and 60's milking cows by hand(yup sleeves not

rolled

> up but mostly no sleeves all summer) and operating small farm

> equipment(harvesting hay,alfalfa for winter feed and growing milo

and

> wheat all non irrrigated). I've got a new(to me) scheme for raising

> no till row crops next year but I'm still using a tractor and still

> afraid the pig weeds will outgrow the crop. But it's interesting

> anyway. Dennis

@@@@@@@@@@@@@

well, recently i read Fukuoka's classic " one straw revolution " (very

poetic) and " the natural way of farming " (very in-depth), and that

was my first exposure to these ideas, but when i've skimmed books on

permaculture it's discussed very heavily, so that's where i've gotten

the impression it's fairly common in various circles... i have one

more Fukuoka book i haven't started yet, but i'm kind of bored with

his silly and redundant philosophical ramblings, so i've been putting

it off... well anyhow, my understanding is that it takes a few

years to get land into shape for natural farming and it can be a lot

of work at first, but after that it's Fukuoka's " do-nothing " farming,

mainly just seeding and harvesting... apparently it's more about

mental effort in understanding your land, not so much physical

labor... details instead of brute-force...

Mike

SE Pennsylvania

[Guest guest]

>Heidi - Do you have more info or a reference for this? The

>information emerging about pre-Columbian Amazonia is so exciting!

>Terra Praeta, man! What's THAT about? ;-)

>

>Seriously, are you referring to a recently published study? The one

>in Harpers or the Atlantic in the past two years referred to North

>and South America as essentially landscaping projects of the

>indigenous people.

>

>-Allan

It was in a printed mag ... Discover, I think. Yeah, there is a someone who

has serious evidence that the Amazonians terraformed the Amazon.

It's been awhile though and I don't have it handy. The Terra Praeta stuff

is kind of mind-bending.

-- Heidi

[Guest guest]

do google search for " 1491 " (the year before new world discovery..) Talks

about the terra forming, cultured nutrient earth etc.

The

>information emerging about pre-Columbian Amazonia is so exciting!

[Guest guest]

That was an Atlantic Monthly article about a year ago.

> do google search for " 1491 " (the year before new world discovery..)

Talks about the terra forming, cultured nutrient earth etc.

> The

> >information emerging about pre-Columbian Amazonia is so exciting!

[Guest guest]

>

>

>okay, let's roll up our sleeves here. WHY do you need a tractor

>(machine or animal)? if it's just for hay, WHY do you need hay? why

>do all that work when the animals can just eat it off the ground?

>maybe this sounds naive, but i'm thinking of the millenia before

>agriculture and how well animals survived without hay. maybe

>choosing winter-hardy breeds is part of the equation?

well, i've wondered about this. i have a friend who raises highlanders,

which are extremely winter-hardy. and, he's extremely (boastfully) lazy.

but he still gives them roundbales outside. i've watched our animals, and

interestingly, of all of them, only the mule actually forages in the

winter. the rest of them just walk around but they don't try to dig

anything out of the snow. that might be because the others are lazy, i'm

not sure.

here are my thoughts on it though: i'm pretty sure that winter hardy breeds

could make it through the winter with forage, provided that they weren't

kept on pasture through the winter but on scrubby forageble land. (which we

do have some of) i think the reason that we don't do that, though, is

because there's a difference between " making it through the winter " and

raising an animal for meat. hay has higher nutritional content than forage...

it would be an interesting experiment though, when we have more animals, to

see if we can do it...

>Katja, since your farming venture is a product of idealism, not

>circumstance, why compromise with these modern farming methods

>instead of going all the way with biodynamic, natural farming?

>

>this whole tractor thing sounds icky.

heehee. well, partially cause i don't know enough about biodynamics yet.

but we're going to a workshop on feb 21!

>also, as far as the comments about pigs and chickens tilling the

>land, is this good? being fresh from that wonderful article Allan

>posted yesterday, why perpetuate " catastrophic agriculture " ? why

>kill the soil? why not use a no-tillage, no-cultivating, direct-

>seeding methods with ground cover, etc? i'm very new to these ideas,

>but I get the impression the no-till method is very well established.

>I believe there's a whole thriving movement based around this stuff,

>with " permaculture " as an umbrella term of sorts, so I'm wondering if

>these trains make any stops near your station?

well, we believe pretty strongly in these ideas. we're new to them too, but

we are trying them out. we first learned about the concept maybe a year ago

or so, in an article in mother earth news...it's definitely not the sort of

thing farmers do around here, so it's not the obvious examples we have to

learn from, but we're hoping that we'll have some success with it and maybe

even find some people who garden that way (who aren't dairymen).

our pigs are a bit of a conundrum because we're not sure where they're

going to go in the future. this year i put them in the space where the new

garden is going to go -- it was a pasture in disuse that we hadn't yet

" rehabilitated " from the previous (very destructive) owners - hay and

bedweed - so we let them dig that up and then we seeded with clover and

medicinal herbs. in the spring we'll plant veggies with a spoon, just

pushing some of the young clover plants aside. the hay is too choking to do

use as a co-crop (we tried that last year), so i didn't mind them tearing

it up.

what i'm not sure about is what we'll do for the long term. pigs root and

that's the way it is. our current plan (though we're not sure if this will

work - it's still in the experimental phase!) is to put them on super hardy

clover and hay pasture and rotate them very aggressively (like daily) such

that any given paddock only has pigs one day out of 7 - i'm hoping that

this will minimize the damage to the plants from the rooting, but we'll see

how it works!

the chickens, however, aren't a problem at all. our chickens are totally

free-range - we don't have a pen for them at all (though they do have a

house in the barn with a heat light for the winter) - so they don't really

rip stuff up. we're not going to let them in the garden i think, cause

people say they'll eat the garden plants, but other than that, they're not

too distructive.

>i like Heidi's idea--just make sure the fences ain't broke, and kick

>back and sing songs, write poetry, post to email groups, slaughter an

>animal once in a while, harvest veggies and eggs fresh everyday, milk

>the cows/goats/sheep/elephants/whatever everyday, do kimjang every

>fall...

>sounds like good farming to me...

heeheehee.

mostly that's what we do. or, at least, it's what we plan to do once we're

better equipped. this property needed serious rehabilitation from the

previous owners, and it was all hay fields before us, so we've had to do

all the fencing from scratch and stuff. we're not quite done yet, but ya

know. i'm pretty glad though - it's been a great way to learn (as

opposed to just walking onto a farm that was already working).

>by the way, the first time i ever saw a cow in person was one year

>ago, so don't get the impression i'm a farming expert (i bet a lot of

>people got that impression, eh?)

HAHAHHAAHAHA!

>Mike

>SE Pennsylvania

>

>

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

We've got a Highlander raiser in town that winters some around the corner

from here. Love those hippie cows! Nice sign of life in winter. They can eat

brush and branches but need a lot of roundbale hay to make them beef.

> well, i've wondered about this. i have a friend who raises highlanders,

> which are extremely winter-hardy. and, he's extremely (boastfully) lazy.

> but he still gives them roundbales outside. i've watched our animals, and

> interestingly, of all of them, only the mule actually forages in the

> winter. the rest of them just walk around but they don't try to dig

> anything out of the snow. that might be because the others are lazy, i'm

> not sure.

> here are my thoughts on it though: i'm pretty sure that winter hardy

breeds

> could make it through the winter with forage, provided that they weren't

> kept on pasture through the winter but on scrubby forageble land. (which

we

> do have some of) i think the reason that we don't do that, though, is

> because there's a difference between " making it through the winter " and

> raising an animal for meat. hay has higher nutritional content than

forage...

> it would be an interesting experiment though, when we have more animals,

to

> see if we can do it...

Wanita

[Guest guest]

There's an old but fascinating book called " Tree Crops, a Permanent

Agriculture " by J. that tells about all the different ways

trees can be used. I bought the book years ago and forgot about it, then

re-discovered it a couple years ago. Did you know that pigs can get a lot of

their nourishment gathering the nuts under trees?

Peace,

Kris , gardening in harmony with nature in northwest Ohio

http://home.woh.rr.com/billkrisjohnson/

On the Fallacy of our Cheap Food policies:

http://home.woh.rr.com/billkrisjohnson/Kris/Justice.htm

Re: FARMING Katja/tractors/hay/nature/soil

> >They have evidence now that in South America,

> >the Indians basically encouraged the trees they liked (like cashews)

> >and came for the harvest. Simple farming!

>

[Guest guest]

i didn't know that about nuts, but i do know that they can eat orchard

droppings.

so we're planning two new orchards

thanks, i'll get that book!

At 12:26 AM 1/31/2004, you wrote:

>There's an old but fascinating book called " Tree Crops, a Permanent

>Agriculture " by J. that tells about all the different ways

>trees can be used. I bought the book years ago and forgot about it, then

>re-discovered it a couple years ago. Did you know that pigs can get a lot of

>their nourishment gathering the nuts under trees?

>

>Peace,

>Kris , gardening in harmony with nature in northwest Ohio

>http://home.woh.rr.com/billkrisjohnson/

>

>On the Fallacy of our Cheap Food policies:

>http://home.woh.rr.com/billkrisjohnson/Kris/Justice.htm

>

>-