We have picked the spot where we will be planting hardneck garlic starting this early autumn. A one acre plot out in one of many fields of mine, using measuring tapes we staked out a rectangular one acre spot. My soil testing showed this area was lacking in nitrogen, phosphorous but was good on potash naturally. Also the PH was quite acidic, we have plans on making it more alkaline for the garlic crops as they can handle near an 8 PH and we are at around 6 right now. We hope having a high PH soil the garlic will be happy, but will suppress everything else from growing there.
My plan is to add wood ash to the soil, and to add wood chips now and our previous years harvest of hay into the soil last minute. This will give us a long term release nitrogen source from the wood chips, but also with the hay we should get a more instant nitrogen source but more short term lasting than the wood chips. If I was just to add fresh wood chips, and fresh hay the bacteria inside would draw out the nitrogen feeding on it. But waiting for the heat to stop being produced from the hay it will then release the nitrogen instead of consume it. The wood chips have all spring and summer to break down so hopefully they will be good source of nitrogen by then.
Driving over to the fields we can see how they are starting to wake up, the grass has started to get more lush. Soon the clover, rye, orchard grass and oats should be coming up. And just a few months from now we should get our first cutting and bailing of hay from our new seedlings.
My property is connected to some power line cuts, so we drive down the easement and look for any fallen tree branches and collect them. There are many just laying on the road.
I drive the truck and my foreman drives the UTV. We load up a bunch of lumber and head back to the spot where we plan on using the wood chipper to grind it all up into mulch.
Wood ash has already been added to this area from my furnace, I took another soil sample and will find out soon if I raised the PH at all by adding a few hundred pounds of wood ash to the fields. Upon seeing the area it appears to be more green than the rest of the fields that were lacking the wood ash. So I think it is indeed helping. My markers are set for where we will lay the mulch, wood ash and then till it all into the ground.
The first haul of branches and logs. Hopefully none of these are too big for it.
Recently some tree trimmers came through the power line easement and trimmed back tree branches. Many just lay by the road. I filled my truck up with those, perfect for the wood chipper.
I have around 100 hay bales from the previous years harvest, it is no longer green and ready for use in the fields for a nitrogen source. Its all fescue, before we seeded the fields. That is what mostly grows native here. So they are not worth much, so glad we have a plan to use them up.
We pull out tree branches from a tree clearing project I did last year. Lol half it is buried in dirt. I need to come back and break it up better with the skid steer.
Still we formed a mighty pile of branches and we will bring them over to the wood chipper for use in the fields.
I head back down the easement to look for more wood, my foreman cuts up some logs in my woods up ahead.
We got a nice pile going, though I do not think it will be enough. But its a start, maybe another day or two of wood collection we will have enough.
Really glad I put my pickup truck to work, though I think this is quite light duty to what it can handle. Its great though, never gets stuck and quite reliable.
We head back home from a long day of wood collection.
I bring back a load for the wood furnace, and will cut it all up for keeping our homes and workshop warm.
A few days from now the wood chipper will be on site, then I can start making mulch. The sooner I do this the better, as it needs time to break down. But we have until fall for garlic planting, but that will be here before we even know it.