This past Thursday, I got an email that told me that part of my soil tests was ready to be reviewed. Now, this may sound funny to you but I was a little excited. I mean science really was not my favorite or my best subject but I think this is kind of interesting. As I said in an earlier post anyone you ask for recommendations or advice on how to increase your hay fields or what your soil needs to produce more vegetables, flowers or fruits I always got the same answer. Take a soil test first and that is what I did. I wanted to find out what my soil was lacking and what I needed to add to it to help it become optimal for the type of crop that was being planted. It did just that. So now I am going to go by what the soil test showed and try to follow the recommendations it listed for my blueberries, pasture, and even lawn. I am using organic fertilizer in my yard and pasture.
Just the subject of Pasture Management is so broad and has so many different opinions as to how to maintain your pasture it is amazing. I’ve decided to go organic or as close to organic as I can get with the amendments to the soil in the pasture. One of the main reasons is the sheep and donkeys will be eating the grass that is there and the type of amendments that I am adding are natural, so they will not be getting any synthetics to their diet in the pasture. Because this is becoming more and more popular there are more places that are now carrying organic supplies for the farmers. One of my favorite suppliers is Seven Springs Farm in Floyd, Va. They carry a lot of organic materials and other farm supplies.
This is a stack of logs that I have had for about 16 years. They are being used for a barn that we are putting up in front of the house in the pasture that I have pictured above. Because the number of sheep that we have is multiplying, we need more pasture. Therefore, when you have more pasture in different places you need more shelters. So the work began on Saturday for the barn. My husband dug the footings and then poured concrete into the holes. After the concrete dries we will lay block for the first course of logs to go up. It’s time to use these logs anyway. When my mom and dad and I uncovered these logs there were more that had damage than I had expected. Even though they had been covered, apparently they won’t last forever stacked so they need to be used. The barn project will probably take awhile as there just are not enough hours in the day to accomplish everything that we would like to do. I think I have about 50 things on the to do list now, not to mention what is on my husbands. At the end of the day, it’ll be one step closer to being done.
