Sing a new song to the Lord

What's wrong with the old songs?
{Innovation, tradition, God, zeal, religious life, (and yet another attempt at justifying/explaining projects like E')}

Chickens: Farm CPR

There's a learning curve with everything, garden-steading and chickens included.
One of the things that makes chickens the easiest, most bang-for-buck project to start your microfarm with (and there are many) are a result of the steep part of that learning curve..
You see, nearly everyone starts their chickens with a vision of them scratching a living in their backyard - happy, maintenance free, carefree, and healthy.  But no one has a backyard that can do this. At first..

Niches pt II: Devotion, the little openness which makes room for infinitely more

Something Divine can only be found in little places..

In making room for anything, you usually must sacrifice something else.  What you're left with is greater still..

An etherchapel sparked musing

"Complete Organic Fertilizer" Cof recipe

(by volume)
The core

Seedmeal 4 pts

 Lime .75 pts 

(NPK C,Ca)

 ...

...better  

Agricultural lime .25 pts

Dolomite lime .25

Gypsum  .25

(mix lime up from these three kinds) 

(adds Mg,S, and better ratio to Ca)

...

... even better

Kelp meal ~1 pt

Rock phosphate 1 pt

(adds Trace minerals and other catalysts, and better P ratio)  

*From Steve's book Gardening when it counts, starting pg21

There are some notes/alternates:

• Something called coprameal [from coconut oil] for  a low potency mix [less NPK, presumably]
• Blood and bone [tankage] for 1pt of the seedmeal [high NPK]
• Dolomite is usually the better lime if you can only afford one
• Ag' lime if you can afford two
• Gypsum least necessary
• rock dust {azomite?} for kelpmeal
• bone meal or bat guano for rock phosphate
• Finely ground as possible

........................

Usage

Low demand crops/ whole garden

Broadcast yearly over beds before crop

4-6 qts over 100 ft. sq. of bed or 50 ft of row

Medium demand crops

side dress in bands roughly at or just beyond leaf canopy every 3-4 weeks

an additional 4-6 qts per 100 sq. ft.

Fall, garden cleanup- crabgrass and other weeds, and cover crop possibilities

It's fall and the off-duty gardens are infested with crabgrass and other weeds gone to seed.  Here's the goals..

• Prevent the annual weeds from continuing to dominate (don't just mow and till in)
• Keep the nutrients somewhat in play (don't burn off)

meanwhile

• The chickens need food and bedding/litter
• I need to get to planting fall cleanup mix for garden rotations
• I don't have time for anything elaborate

soo..

• Pretend I'm a farmer stockpiling hay for the winter..
• Capture the nutrients that the weeds have made
• Sickle bar down the plots and let cure
• Rake to some kind of storage/composting area*
• Mark rows
• Scalp swaths with weedwacker
• Make furrows/ loosened soil drills
• Drizzle seed in mixes or in pure rows
• Do only a 5-10x30' area at a time and in different ways for variety spacing trials