Explicit Instructions

Below is an excerpt from a consultation report Jeff wrote up for someone after visiting their farm.

With your 7500 square feet of bed space in mind, here are my suggestions.

I would ensure a good crop by incorporating:

– 50 lbs green sand

– 50 lbs granite dust

– 50 lbs kelp

– 50 lbs rock phosphate

– 200 lbs lime

– 50 lbs wood ashes

Spread on the well mown grass and plowed in by the 9 point chisel plow that has the 3 center tines removed, which is where the grass path will be. When I got to the end the first time, I would turn around and rebreak one bed while creating a new one. This would keep it all well laid out.

One week later I would spread 1/2″ of biodynamic compost on each bed and work it in the same way. The waiting period is valuable to let the microbes do their thing undisturbed. We may want to go over it again in another week, depending on how it works up.

If the minerals aren’t there, we can ad them later. All of this needs to be done pronto, before heavy rains set in.

We will need a small cultivating tractor, if that’s how we want to tent it. An out turned disc hiller could be put on it that would act as an edger. White clover is particularly invasive in such situations, as is Bermuda grass, of course. I don’t know what is there right now.

For all spring crops (planted before last frost date), I would leave the beds rough plowed and unplanted over winter. For summer crops I would harrow in wheat and vetch for winter cover crops. We would want these next to themselves so we could work them up at different times of the year, keeping in mind the chisel will be set to do two beds at a time. The harrow can be offset to do just one bed at a time.