Deep mulch during historic drought...

I put together a video of about 8 minutes that documents about a half acre of organic production space where my friends and I have applied about 30 round bales of rotting silage alfalfa hay.  The farm is in Trumansburg, NY which this 2016 season has been the driest since records were started in the 1890's...  With this deeply deeply mulched space we have been able to grow a huge amount of food this first season with NO IRRIGATION!  Here's to deep mulch!

Lovely!   I must have missed it - how many inches of rain fell during the drought?

Tyler, thanks for asking... I'm not quite sure but June and July were sub 1" in total I'd guess...  Pretty significant lack for sure.  We're coming out of it now, feels like August will get us moving more towards normalcy but this video was done at the tail end of the intense lack time.

Very nice. We go through a drought like that every summer so it's good to hear of such success.

Well done Sean! Here in Northern California we have a similar seasonal drought (1" is average for July-August), and yet in the redwoods the soil and moss are still soft, moist and spongy right now with the worlds greatest self-mulching system. Despite this example just down the road, my neighbors still burn every piece of wood they can for fire prevention when it could become great soil in hugels or mulch, and in doing so retain soil moisture that greatly reduces fire risk. Let the great mulching begin!

That's fantastic!

Carbon is pretty much the answer to any question, isn't it.  I can't even begin to imagine how beautiful that soil will be next spring.  What is cool to see is the almost total absence of insect damage.  Your potatoes look absolutely fantastic.  

Great work and very informative video.  I think that that deserves a piece of pie!

Amazing work there!!! I am new to farming and mulching that soil looks beautiful keep it up. Thanks for sharing, Zimbabwe has had dry spell for a while we definitely need to take mulching seriously.