All last week I was hoping for a little rain to moisten the ground before tilling. No such luck! I spread lime and fertilizer and started tilling Friday night. What a dust bowl! My tractor and I were a mess. At times I would have to wait for a cloud of dust to dissipate before backing up so I could see where I was going. Got 3 plots tilled that night. Saturday morning it starts raining............ wait! Wait until I plant my seeds! It didn't. We really needed the rain and since it was light, I finished tilling the other 2 plots. I waited until Sunday morning to plant and things dried out a bit. Got 4 plots planted. I wish I had a cultipacker and I will some day but after the seeding, I just lightly back dragged the soil with my bucket. It worked for me last year also. I'm trying the Frigid Forage products this year. 2 plots of their Big n' Beasty Brassicas and 2 plots of their Wildlife Buffet (blend of clovers with a brassica cover crop). I'm going to plant oats in the last plot next month. We already got more rain the last 2 days. Hoping for the best.
I can imagine the dust bowl haha. Keep us updated. Hoping on rain also I would mix in some peas/winter rye with the oats. Oats are good, but a few frosts they are done. Winter rye will stay green and be the first thing that is green when the snow is gone.
We planted 3 plots on the 14th and it was dusty as hell too. Unbelievably, I checked on two of the plots 5 days later and they were starting to germinate. We've gotten a little rain since and hopefully get more tonight and tomorrow. Would love to see some pics of those plots man.
After 6 days the plots have started to germinate. Here are some pics of the plots. Clover w/ brassica cover. Brassica plot Clover w/ brassica cover Brassica plot
That is a crazy crooked tree in that second picture, haha. Looks good. Only issue I see is the filtered sunlight the plot gets. Please keep us updated with pictures. AND ideally timely rains in August will really be nice, we will see. Thanks for sharing.
Hope that works out well, we have not even started on our plots as we have not had enough rain here to get the weeds to grow. It will likely be the middle of September before we get things going. Keep us updated on yours and the progress.
I just received my new cultipacker Thursday, I found a good deal on one that you can pull behind an atv or utv. It was from AbbyUSA. Not sure what you are looking to spend but when I priced it out it was not too much above what it would cost me to build it myself. Will try to post some pics tomorrow when I unpack it.
Those look like they have great potential. Good job. I worked up one plot about 3 weeks ago and planted some seed. Weather was calling for rain. We got about 2 tenths on 2 different occasions since then but it hasn't been enough to get anything going. I'm afraid our plots around here are gonna be worthless this year. Glad to see that somebody is having some luck and getting some rain
