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Jim Kovaleski's grass fed veggie method

 
pollinator
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Location: Kitsap Penninsula, WA
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I stumbled across these videos on YouTube and have some questions for anyone who has done this.

1) Is there a certain kind of soil that is more appropriate for this method (say - clay soil vs sandy soil)
2) IF you use this method and do some watering, are you running irrigation under the dried grass as mulch or overhead? I'm thinking under...
3) I know his method doesn't use water at all - have any of you tried it successfully and in what climate do you live in.

Here are my specs for our land:
Pasture of mixed clover, grasses, dandelion.
Sandy loam - built up over the last 3 years but still quite sandy.
Ranging from neutral to acidic.

My misgiving is that with our sandy soil, some watering would be necessary at some time, but overhead watering would just sprout any seed heads from the grasses, even with 3x year hay harvesting by hand scythe (aka - trying to harvest grasses before they pop seed heads.)

I love to learn his methods, but it costs money to take his class and I don't want to invest in it only to find out our soil is not right for it.

Thanks everyone! (And besides, I think I can piece together his strategy just using common sense, but if the soil is off, it's all for nothing).
 
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I don't much about Jim Kovaleski's methods, but from a brief look at his site Grass Fed Market Garden, it looks like he's a permaculture artisan of sorts.

As with much of permaculture, the answer is some flavor or another of "it depends." As in Bryant Redhawk's Epic Soil Series, the soil is more complicated and wonderful than imagineable! And there is so much that can be done to develop and grow better soil. Some soils are more difficult to start with than others, but I think where your land is right now does not necessarily predetermine its future or potential.

From another discussion on too much drainage, it looks like Ken Peavey had success with mulching a lot:

Ken Peavey wrote:I have added volumes of compost several times per year for several years with no change in the soil quality. Mulch has proven to be the best thing. It cuts down the weeds and helps to preserve the moisture and amendments. Right now I have 2 trials going on, 1 with hugelkulture, the other with leaf mold. It is too early to make a call on effectiveness, but I am hopeful.



From a discussion on makign sand into soil, it appears that some amount of clay may be necessary to get things moving forward to awesome longer lasting soil.

Bryant RedHawk wrote:Clay is going to be your Need it first item on the soil building front, without some clay everything you add will go away fast, leading to more inputs of organic matter.



I have not tried Jim's methods, so I do not know.
 
I agree. Here's the link: http://stoves2.com
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