Curiousfarmer

If a city person asks you if it will rain tomorrow, you couch your answer based on the likelihood of their plans being ruined. If a country person asks, you answer based on how dry or wet it is, and if we need rain or a break in the rain to get some field-work done.

We were getting dry, but it was moist enough for my sweet corn to germinate.  It was coming out of the ground about a week after I planted.  I rotovated a second time, then planted.

The second rotovating pretty much took care of the rye.  Unfortunately, whatever alleopathic properties the rye had also seemed to dissipate.  About a week after planting I could see small button weeds shooting up.

So I took the rotary hoe, pictured, and ran it over the field.  It took some of the weeds out, but not all.  Then we had some rain.

Yesterday I could see more weeds, (pigweed, lambsquarters, and foxtail), poking out of the ground.  I read online that you can rotary hoe until the corn is six inches high without much damage.  So I rotary hoed a second time.  It took out more weeds and didn’t damage the corn.  I’ll probably have to switch to cultivation between rows for weed control next.

My sweet corn is coming up uneven.  I dug and found some of the plants struggling to come out of the ground.  I think the ground was so mallow after two rotovatings I ended up planting too deep.  I had reduced the depth from my Dad’s field corn, but apparently not enough.  Sweet corn has a shrunken kernel when compared to field corn and it doesn’t appear to be as strong pushing itself out of the ground.  Learning.

I rotovated the rye cover crop last week.  The rye was about twelve inches tall and growing fast.  I used a Howard rotovator I borrowed from my partner.  Its a fifty- inch wide model.  I rotovated to a depth of about five inches.

The rotovator has blades which travel downward, pictured below, cutting through the plant and soil, mixing and tossing it backwards.  The gate at the back of the rotovator can be raised or lowered with a chain, which will leave the field very rough or fairly smooth.  I thought I may plant after this, so I tried to keep it smooth.

I wasn’t sure if I should plant sweet corn right away, so I did a google search.  When Curiousfarmer came up on the first page, I realized that unless I’m suffering from dementia, I’m unlikely to learn anything from myself.

So I called my old organic farmer friend and he told me to wait a week, then rotovate it again, then plant immediately.  He thought I could kill any weeds which may have germinated, and hurt the rye again.

A week later and I’m glad I’ve waited because although I don’t see any weeds, owing to the alleopathic nature of rye, I do see some of the rye greening up.  The rye is very tough.  Any larger root-clumps of rye look like they will recover and grow and compete with the sweet corn.

I have mixed feelings about tillage.  When I garden, I like to keep the soil mulched.  But in a larger planting, mulching is impractical, and tillage seems to be the best way to make a good seedbed and set the weeds back.

I’m not an expert, but the way I understand it is that one drawback of tillage is that it burns up some of the organic matter in the soil.  Another thing I don’t like is the potential for compaction, which can happen anytime you drive on a field, but especially in the spring when the soil is moist.

When the rotovator cuts through the soil, it ends up smearing the soil and creating a compacted layer at its bottom depth.  It leaves the soil above this very fluffy, but I wonder if the corn will have trouble growing its roots though this compacted layer.  Remind me to dig this summer and see what is happening with the roots.

Rotovators are very popular with the organic and sustainable crowd, so I am glad to be able to borrow this one from my partner.  I also don’t think I would try to kill the rye without herbicide with any less aggressive tillage.  So all in all I’m happy with the way this experiment is going, but I am still working well outside of my comfort zone.  Stay tuned.

The snow all melted and ran off and we found out we are in a drought!  We’re dry.  The ditches which always run with water in the spring are empty.  Still, there is no cure for a drought like a good rain, and they are calling for rain this weekend.

I’m happy because I planted my oats/hay seeding the last two days.  I saw John and his Dad  in town on Tuesday pulling their purchased oat seed on a flat rack trailer.  I told my Dad we’d better get our oat seed picked up.

So we picked up the oat seed Wednesday morning, and started discing Wednesday afternoon.  We were worried about it being too wet, but it worked up nice, didn’t ball or stick to the disc blades.  I let the soil dry for a day, then hit it with the disc again, then planted.

I thought it would be good to report on my planting this year, as I’ve tried many different recipes in the past, but have kind of settled on a favorite.  All of the following figures are per acre.

2.5 bushels Jerry oats as cover crop.  Plan to cut and bale sometime in boot/dough stage in June.

13 lbs FSG 408DP alfalfa.  I paid a little more for this variety because they say it’s for hay or grazing, with lowerset crowns than the typical alfalfa.  The crowns are where new growth comes from and they can be damaged by wheel or hoof traffic.

4 lbs Extend Orchardgrass.

2.5 lbs Gain Festulolium.

This is my cereal rye cover crop, 2 weeks after planting.  It’s an impressive plant, already 5 inches tall, with most of that growth coming in the last week.  Temperatures have been in the 70’s for highs and 40’s to 50’s for lows.

Cut hay is in the foreground.  The light green strip middle left is oats.  The dark green strips above it are corn.  The light green at the top is a hay strip I baled a couple of weeks ago.