New to farming or as I say, what I know about farming I learned from watching Green Acres.
I live in the north Georgia mountains. I have 18 acres on the top of a hill. Much of the hill looks scalped, possibly from wind but we do get a lot of rain up here. We are the wettest county east of the Cascades and I have been told that some years, this county meets the requirements to be a rain forest.
Had a local farmer up here helping me install a 3rd function valve. He is a real farmer. He mentioned that a good way to restore my field is to plant winter rye and plow it under in the spring.
I made the mistake by not asking him any follow-up questions. Actually, I was trying to not sound stupid which does not come easy to me. But I do have some questions.
1. We sampled the soil. It came up as "depleted" for essentially everything. There is grass and weeds growing there now with a lot of thistle. Can I just plow that under and spread winter rye seed?
2. When should I plant the rye?
3. When should I plow it back in?
I say farming but we are really gardening. Say about 4 acres. This is all new to us and would like to grow food crops for ourselves and to give/trade to friends. We have a small (300 sq. ft.) garden going now. I plowed in 20 bags of Black Kow and magnesium along with some other garden nutrients. Cabbage, spinach, onions, carrots all doing well.
But that is a garden and not a field. We are somewhat "prepper" which is why we moved up here. We are about 80% off the grid so having some arable land would be the direction we want to go.
I live in the north Georgia mountains. I have 18 acres on the top of a hill. Much of the hill looks scalped, possibly from wind but we do get a lot of rain up here. We are the wettest county east of the Cascades and I have been told that some years, this county meets the requirements to be a rain forest.
Had a local farmer up here helping me install a 3rd function valve. He is a real farmer. He mentioned that a good way to restore my field is to plant winter rye and plow it under in the spring.
I made the mistake by not asking him any follow-up questions. Actually, I was trying to not sound stupid which does not come easy to me. But I do have some questions.
1. We sampled the soil. It came up as "depleted" for essentially everything. There is grass and weeds growing there now with a lot of thistle. Can I just plow that under and spread winter rye seed?
2. When should I plant the rye?
3. When should I plow it back in?
I say farming but we are really gardening. Say about 4 acres. This is all new to us and would like to grow food crops for ourselves and to give/trade to friends. We have a small (300 sq. ft.) garden going now. I plowed in 20 bags of Black Kow and magnesium along with some other garden nutrients. Cabbage, spinach, onions, carrots all doing well.
But that is a garden and not a field. We are somewhat "prepper" which is why we moved up here. We are about 80% off the grid so having some arable land would be the direction we want to go.