Thursday, May 15, 2014

no-till minimal-till experiment

I've been interning at Bayside Park Farm here in wonderous Arcata, CA.  Learning about no-till farming on youtube (mostly) we are starting an experiment in leaving cover crop residue on top of the soil.  I'm glad we didn't get cable, because i probably wouldn't have learned that there is a LOT of cool, quality content for free on youtube!
This cover crop is mostly cereal rye with a little bit of hairy vetch (purple flowers) and possibly some weeds, raked into a row to terminate the plants in the row. Termination of plants in the row was not necessarily confirmed.  The weed cloth is to shade out weeds, or at least weaken them to the point of easy heavy hoeing
Here is a strip of "terminated" cover crop via rake and hoe and scratched with a four pronged cultivator/rake thing.  Buckwheat was broadcast and scratched/raked again while stepping in the row.
stay tuned for more updates