Carole York

Kris schulenburg wrote:I do and it works well for many things. The oldest and most broken down beds grow broccoli, cabbage, wheat, barley, oats, beens and hardier greens. The newer corn, sorghum, millet, amaranth, squashes, beans and cow peas. The next year potatoes, onions, carrots and greens do better so you might not want to put un-composted manure every were. I'm not saying composting first is not better, just too much work. It also works well to smother grass if you want to make new garden areas with no tilling. It also makes cleaning the barn more satisfying when your cleaning and fertilizing.

Totally agree about the composting. I have enough to do.....and the bloody dog goes out and raids the heap whenever I put fresh stuff into it. I'll follow your guidelins re crops. Have to say that it doesn't smother my grass, quite the contrary in fact, i get really lush growth. Fortunately I don't have a barn to clean as my Shetlands live out all year and rarely go into their stable. They have plenty of natural cover in the paddocks.

Autumn is approaching and my vegetable beds will soon be empty. I have 4 shetland ponies and huge amounts of manure available all year round. Can I gather it up and just throw it on top of the beds over winter?

yep...............i have a good number of willows already and plan to plant 500 more this winter.

and that link was really useful. Fortunately these 4 ponies are very small...from 32 inches to 44 inches in height.....all rescues who were abused and abandoned....so they don't do too much damage with their feet because they are so light. Hopefully in time the damage done by the big horse that were here before will be rectified by nature.

Hey hey, Dave Lodge, I didn't know that.....thanks. But surely it helps with the waterlogging merely by the fact that it soaks up so much? If its in the grass it can't be lying on the surface?

Hey thanks. Those videos are really interesting and even though cattle are different I can see I'm on the right track. Thd difference with horses is really just that they do better on poor quality grass, which mine is because it's been badly managed before I came here and the ground is really cut up by the previous horses. I have alot of surface water in winter and very poor drainage which I am trying to address. But I think in the first instance that keeping the ponies off the pasture all summr will allow a good "thatch" of grass to develop and hopefully help with the surface water. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens.. Thanks for your very helpful input.

I don't know, I've only been here since January but I think it stays pretty green....this is Ireland.....everything is green and wet... These ponies are best on poor quality grass anyway, or they ar at risk of laminitis.

I live in Ireland. I keep 4 shetland ponies on a track running around 3 acres of pasture, allowing the grass in the middle to grow long. What is the life cycle of grass? If I leave the middles ungrazed all summer and let the ponies into the middle in the winter will this be OK? Or does the long grass die back at the end of summer?

Thankyou William, yes, that was very helpful.

R Scott wrote:Swales?

Make them deep ponds for watering the livestock?

Where does the water go after it comes down by the house? Does it keep going off property or is that the low spot?

The house is in the middle of the propertythe water comes down off the top paddock onto the lawn and through the orchard to the bottom corner where it stays until spring when it drains away onto the next property. It also flows off the top paddock across the driveway into the second paddock opposite which gets really boggy. Some of that water flows into a drain running alongside the boundary. The water in the bottom paddock behind the house flows straight into the stable (!) and also to the bottom corner