Tiny Farm Blog Organic micro-farming with two acres and some tools ~ a daily photo journal...

Hi Mike and Tiny farm people,

We've used alfalfa for a few years now at the rate of 1 ton per acre. On the long gardens(the ones were going to plant all at once) we spread it with the manure spreader and till it in. Here's a movie of what it looks like in the spreader. There's a bunch of goodies in there, get your recipe cards!

Boreal Edge Farm Amendment Mix (per 330 foot row, 6 feet wide)

4 loader buckets well rotted cattle manure

2 50 pound bags organic Alfalfa pellets

3 pounds kelp meal

10 pounds pure wood ash

Once the field is covered, we rototill it in. I have never tried topdressing the pellets, mostly because the deer are attracted to the smell. However, last year we tried using only alfalfa on our potatoes, to see if it would help control scab. I can't say it made things any better in the scab department(because we didn't have a control row) but it did serve as an excellent all round fertilizer on its own, and the potatoes were happy with it.

Because its a slow release of both nitrogen and potassium (not much phosphorus)high organic matter content (42%) host of trace nutrients and ph of 6.5, alfalfa pellets work quadruple duty on our farm. Raising the low ph or our boreal soils, while feeding the crops and increasing the biological activity in the earth, increasing fertility overall.

The pellets do break down over time, but they can still be found (if incorporated in the soil) even a year later. This spring when we pulled some plastic mulch we found all kinds of totally undisturbed pellets in the bed. Also some spilt pellets lasted all fall/winter/spring on a rock pile at the edge of the field. completely exposed to the elements.

We also use the pellets when we go to incorporate a cover crop, just broad casting a few hundred pounds over the area to be tilled after the cover crop has been mulched down with the riding mower. This really speeds decomposition of the carbon in the cover crop up, which is super important with our very short window of soil life activity here (3 months)

The last location on the farm we've found them useful is in the compost pile, for the same reason as the cover crop, to help break down the carbon in the "compostibles". It also helps the bacteria in the pile to thrive, and jump starts them in the spring.

Whew!

Hope this helps,

Matthias,

Adding organic matter as a source of nitrogen mid-season is the worst idea you could possibly have. The bacteria that break down proteins in the plant matter to produce plant usable nitrogen actually require nitrogen to make this process happen; so they soak up available nitrogen that was already in the soil to slowly break down the plant matter. Organic farming is a bad idea and I can prove it.

Adding organic matter as a source of nitrogen mid-season is the worst idea you could possibly have. The bacteria that break down proteins in the plant matter to produce plant usable nitrogen actually require nitrogen to make this process happen; so they soak up available nitrogen that was already in the soil to slowly break down the plant matter. Organic farming is a bad idea and I can prove it.

Forgot to mention that I am also a little disappointed in the Boreal Edge Farm Amendment Mix. It seems to be overapplying phosphorous and underapplying nitrogen, which hurts the environment by running off into streams and killing fish. Also, "well decomposed manure" loses much of its nutrients when it decomposes. Volatilization turns the available nitrogen into a gas lost to the wind, and leaching sucks nitrate out of the manure and into the groundwater

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