0:00Hi guys, Jonathan here with Farmers Friend. Today I'm at Bountiful Blessings Farm with my dad, John Dyinger, and we're going to be going over a question

0:08we got from one of our customers when we posed the the question, "How are you feeling about this upcoming growing season?" So, Carol Anne responded and

0:17shared some about her little operation and she's a retired educator with lots of land, most of it natural, unused. She has a small orchard and a garden area.

0:30They've had cattle in the past up to 100 head down to 12 animals with some chickens and horses. She says, "Our soil is garbage, sand, low pH, 5.8 to 6.1ish.

0:42We have weeds galore. I struggle with soil health and have a hard time with even the easiest to grow veggies. But I

0:49refuse to give up. If you could help with anything, it would be soil building. We have a small pasture approximately 4 acres where we are

0:57trying to be very deliberate with cover crops and no till but it's a struggle again weeds are such a big problem.

1:03Target crops are aren't vigorous and weeds are so adaptable. So that's uh

1:10some some struggles that probably most growers have faced. So we're going to talk a little bit about soil health and uh techniques for controlling weeds. So,

1:21what what input would you have for Carol?

1:25Well, you know, soil health is obviously a huge topic and and extremely important one. Without soil health, you're not

1:33going to be much of a gardener or farmer. And I do sense that she's Carol is not trying to do this for a living,

1:41at least at this point. She's just more of a homesteader.

1:46Um, you know, I guess my first thought is you're you've got your hands in a lot of things with cattle and chickens and

1:54horses and um, so you may at some point have to kind of decide what you really

2:00want to focus on. But when it comes to soil health, obviously sand doesn't hold nutrients very well. So

2:08ideally you've got to to build that soil either through adding organic matter or

2:16some people on a small scale um add clay to sand. So that is a possibility. Um but you got to do

2:24something to give the nutrient something to hold on to and the water. So, you

2:31know, I I can't really say too much more than that, but just get a good soil test. Know where you're at. Um, you

2:40know, I know with sandy soil, we do not have sandy soil, so I haven't dealt with that personally, but I know you kind of have to spoon feed the plants a little

2:49more. You know, one thing I would encourage Aea, Advancing Ecological Agriculture, John Kemp's organization

2:58has some great fertilizer and uh biological things you can you can spray

3:06and we've had really good success with that. So, more focused on feeding the

3:14plant than just generally balancing soil. Is that kind of the approach?

3:20Well, I would say you probably are going to have to do some of that um in the short term at least until you can build

3:28that soil up some. You know, once you get some organic matter in there and you know, potentially possibly some clay

3:37that's going to hold the nutrients, then you know, you can really start building the soil. So, when you say organic

3:46matter, talking about things like um putting in compost, what about like compost, Pete Moss? Pete moss. Again,

3:54that's somewhat controversial, but we definitely, you know, especially in hoop houses, we use Pete Moss because it doesn't throw your fertility off. Yeah.

4:06And that that's I mean, I know I've had personal success using Pete Moss just to try to loosen up. I mean, around here we have a lot of like clay soil. It really

4:15can can make the soil much more workable. It's the quickest way to turn soil into something

4:23that has what, you know, they call tilt a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it it gives it really good structure. Yeah. She

4:31mentioned using cover crop. So, what value do you think that has in this scenario? Well, cover cropping is great

4:38on many levels. Uh, you know, it's not a quick fix. I would say that for sure.

4:44You know, it would take a number of years to really, but I mean, it's it's a great place to start. She talks about a

4:51small pasture approximately 4 acres, you know, from a market gardening perspective. 4 acres is a lot. I mean, I

5:00think we only what a couple years did over four acres maybe. Yeah. At the peak, back when we were just doing

5:06winter growing. Yeah. Yeah. it. That's a lot to to be working. Um, so yeah, cover

5:14crops are great, but again, it's it's going to take you some years to build that soil up through just cover

5:22cropping. Yeah. Um, okay. So, weed control. The she's struggling with copious amounts of weeds um that are

5:30choking out veggies that she's trying to grow. So, what's the the recommendation for that? I mean, there's a lot of ways

5:38you can go with weed control. None of them are easy. There's no simple solutions. I mean, probably the easiest

5:45is silage tarps. Just, you know, laying down a silage tarp, cutting whatever's there, wetting it down, and then

5:54covering it with a silage tarp with lots of sandbags because they like to blow around. Yeah. But, um, that can do a

6:04great job. In fact, one thing we've done with a lot of success is if you're trying to really eradicate weeds, cover

6:12it long enough to kill whatever weeds are there initially and then take it off for a few days or up to

6:21a week and let new weeds sprout and then cover it back up again. And you do that

6:28two or three times and that can do a great job of eliminating the weeds in the top couple surface level. Yeah.

6:38Yeah. And then um I think she also mentioned uh trying to do some no till.

6:44Um, you guys have had some some good success the last couple years with doing cover crops, uh, terminating the cover

6:52crop and then laying down landscape fabric, uh, quick plant fabric, planting directly through that. So, that might be an option for her as well. Yeah, that's

7:01that's definitely a a good way to go, at least from our experience. you know, you got to knock the cover crop down or if

7:09you have a flail mower or something like that, you can can mow it down. Um, tarp

7:16it to kill it because depending on what stage it's at, it's not always easy to kill. Yeah. And then, um, once it's

7:24dead, then you put down the the landscape fabric, the quick plant, and plant through the holes. And with your

7:32sandy soil, it's not going to be hard at all to Yeah. plant into residue. And you you'll get a few weeds, stray weeds in

7:40the hole, but it's a whole lot better than, you know, having to weed everywhere. Yeah. Walking down a bed and

7:48pulling a a handful of weeds out of the the hole in the fabric is a lot easier.

7:55Um, for sure. So, I mean, I think when it comes to weeds, it's all about preventing them. um you know, unless you

8:02just want to spend a ton of time out there cultivating or, you know, on your hands and knees pulling weeds, you have to just prevent it from being a problem

8:11in the first place. So, knocking down that seed bankank uh that weed pressure with silage tarps, and then when you

8:19actually get to planting crops, using fabric to to eliminate the ability of weeds

8:27growing up around your plants, not only will you get, you know, not have to spend a bunch of time weeding, but you get uh better crop yields because your plants aren't vying for the nutrients,

8:37you know, the little bit of nutrients that you have. You want your plants to be able to get it, not not all your weeds. So, um, yeah, I think those are great suggestions.

8:47Yeah. Anything else?

8:49Um, as far as weeds, yeah, I mean, it's all about getting them when they're young, not letting them go to seed. And yeah, and

8:58no till is great because you're not bringing up more seeds. So if if you can keep from disturbing that soil deeply,

9:07you can fairly quickly eradicate the large majority of the weeds in the top inch or two. Yep. I don't remember, you

9:16know, I don't know where the saying originally came from, but I remember you just drilling into us as kids, one year's seeding is seven years weeding.

9:25So, you know, we always had to keep all the perimeter around all the fields mowed. uh you know, it always kills me when I go visit farms and they've got just tall grass going to seed, you know,

9:35just a few feet away from their field.

9:38Um and all that's just going to be blowing in. So, yeah, keeping that perimeter around your gardens um mowed and and cut back is important so the

9:46weed seeds don't just blow right in. As the saying goes, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Yep. Yep. So,

9:55so yeah, those are some suggestions.

9:58Uh, oh yeah, back to fertility for just a second. I the one thing I would say you are definitely going to need to add

10:07is nitrogen and some some organic form of nitrogen, whether it's feathermeal or or

10:16um alalfa meal or there's a number of other choices depending on what your

10:22soil what else your soil needs. But um I would guess the reason why your plants

10:29aren't growing very well, the main reason would be a lack of nitrogen. So that's where you can start. What else

10:36you need, it's hard for me to say for sure. Yeah. But organic matter and nitrogen.

10:44Well, we hope this information has been helpful to you and and everybody else who's watching. And if you have some burning questions that you've been thinking about as you've been watching,

10:53feel free to click the link below and submit a question. Maybe we'll discuss it in a further convers in a in a future conversation. But until next time, happy growing.