some snapshots from around the farm yesterday and today….no sequence and no continuity but I will try to explain what is up. I have been grazing the bulls in strips through a small field in front of the house. this is a field where I had planted some multispecies cover crop seed along with some oats that I had last fall…..I only had a smattering of MSCC cover crops seed when I did this field so it was just poured in with the oats. The oats and the tillage radishes all winter killed but I had a good stand of clover and turnips and rape along with some wheat and tritcale. I decided to graze it this week and the bulls were in there in four strips for about five days total.
There are some other shots scattered about as well….for example the first shot is of my strawberries planted in gravel….this is part of my aquaponics experiment….I have 200 gallons of roof run off rainwater so I put some catfish in the barrels and I am circulating the water through some tubs with gravel and plants.
below is a shot of the mix I broadcast today in the field recently grazed by the bulls…..this is a mix I made up buying seeds from Walmart and the local feed store.
how many species can you identify? here is a closeup
a cover crop field that has not been grazed has a beautiful blooming crop of rape. There is a lot of clover….some winter peas..some wheat and triticale and some grass out there but all that is apparent now is the blooming rape….I don’t know when I will graze this or with what stock….
The bulls in grazing the cover crops did not like the rape apparently but they were eating more of it as they went thru the strips….it was interesting to watch thm eat turnip forage and end up pulling up the turnips…they never did catch on to eating them….cows normally love turnips….
Marie finally saw the big black sanke that has been around for a couple of years….Marie hates a snake worse than I do if that is possible…expecially since she was bit by a copperhead once….her theory is the only good snake is a dead snake and there was to be no happiness until he was a good snake….Judge works admirably for such work.
Up in the top left is the corner lot that I grazed the horses on for 14 days in 14 strips…George and Veronica Getchell came by last weekend to observe how I did this first hand. The horses where in these strips then. the first strips grazed are probably eight to ten inches tall again all ready. The light color is the last couple grazed.
this is just a shot of the polywire in the rape dividing the lot into grazing strips for the bulls….one polywire about three feet off the ground is what I use for all stock.
below is a photo of the bull strip grazed today….
below is a shot of the tomatoes I planted today. They are better boys planted in global buckets with a siphon watering system….we will see how it goes. I am still learning how to manage the global buckets.
this is the best shot of the summer cover crop seed ploanted today….have you guessed all the species yet?
I broadcast a total of about 19 lbs of seed on the lot today and we just now had a nice thunderstorm to wet it all down real well….I simply broadcast it over the standing stuble and existing rape….the grass and clover in the early grazed strips was already regrowing nicely so I don’t think I will have a lot fo bird feeding loss.
Just another shot of the seed in the bucket…..I have about that much more to put in another lot….I have not yet decided where it will go…but it may go to the lot the bulls are in now which is the lot that laid fallow all last year…
recipe for todays broadcast mix
lentils 1 lb
black eye peas 1 lb
pearl millet 6 lbs
buckwheat 2.5 lbs
sweet yellow clover .5 lb
grain sorghum 1 lb
safflower 1 lb
sunflower 1 lb
corn 5 lb
pdfangus 