Matthew Rogers

Hello, last fall I seeded rye,vetch, and some clover. I'm trying to eradicate grass piece by pice in about 1/4 acre sections at a time. The overall goal is to convert 1.5 acres to either orchard or garden space/food forest. I'm wondering if I can let the current cover crop go to seed so that it continues to keep grasses and non desirables from germinating. Will it continue to inhabit the soil or will the non desirables come back easily? I will be planting large sections of blueberries and raspberries amongs other things and would appreciate ideas to cover crop between rows to further benefit the area and reduce the need mow/care for in between. Thanks in advance for your ideas and help.

Hello everyone, I am hoping for incite on how to replace my current lawn of grass, plantain and dandelions with leguminous soil building plants. The goal here is to rotationally graze our American guinea Hogs throughout the property. We are on 2.4 acres in zone 8B western Washington. I recently was given a 1947 Ford 8N tractor and though I know it's a bit excessive for such small land, I hope to put it to good use. We currently have four pigs and plan on having one litter at a time on an acre paddocked. In other words split rotate the pigs on the land to give it time to rejuvenate after the pigs. We have about 40-80 pounds of produce to supplement feed but would like to get them back to pasturing them along with this food. I have already noticed the beginnings of desertification in the area our pigs are currently in, it's about half an acre but we haven't been moving them off it for about 4 months. Recently I visited Brandon of the farmstead meatsmith's house and he explained the rotational grazing a bit to me. Sorry for the long winded intro, the question I have is how can I best go about converting the lawn with our resources to achieve goals? I am inclined to use the tractor with it's 7 shank cultivator to pull up the grass and re-seed it with something like clover/vetch/peas... Would this be effective to build the soil and introduce better pasture for the pigs,or would I be depleting it by disturbing the sub-soil life? Oh and I also have rabbit and chicken tractors that are about to be put to use for the first time.

Any response would be most appreciated Thanks for being a truly awe inspiring community!

Thanks for the input. I should be clear I didn't mean to have one end lower but now that it is I'm curious if it needs to be fixed and if so how? Also my soil is very sandy and drains well, maybe too well. It has rained a couple times recently and there has never been standing water.once the fruit trees are established will enough water be in the landscape for them to access it? There will be another row of trees 15 and 30 feet below the Swales.

Hello everyone, I recently dug two Swales on our 4% slope as we are planting three rows of fruit trees in a couple days. They are about five feet wide and 16-20 inches deep.The first swale is about 96 feet and the second is about 72'. We raked them all out and the upper swale is very close to level the first half of the ditch but then the swale drops about 3 inches in 25 feet and then another 3-4 inches the last 15-20 feet. I am wondering if this six inches over that distance will become a problem or if I am being to nit picky. Will this all be fine once I mulch over the bare soil? If so would straw and wood chips be appropriate fill for the Swales. I would also love to hear anyone's favorite plants to stabilize the berm between the fruit trees and their guilds. Thanks so much to all who read this.

thanks for your replies so far. I am wondering about the upside down approach, would the wood chips on the bottom help not tie up nitrogen and still be reached by annuals roots searching for water? I am also curious as to all the different opinions of conifer wood and the worry of acidity levels. If it does acidify the soil can this be easily remedied by adding something that trends towards alkaline? if so what? Thanks again for the responses, Matt

Helo I am hoping for some specific help on designing garden space using sheet mulch and the resources I have on hand. For starters we live in the Puget sound region Zone 8B on a southwest facing 4% grade lot of 2.4 acres. I'm a manager of a TJ's grocery store and daily I bring home anywhere between 50-120 pounds of food bank rejected produce. This is fruits and veggies not consisting of citrus and alliums as it almost all goes to our Animals. on that note we have three pigs (two AGH gilts, and an intact Kune Kune); four goats 9two two mate and two wethers; 14 hens for laying and scratching compost; and lastly three rabbits for meat and just as improtant fertilizer. All of this is new to both my wife and I as we did not grow up in a farming community though we did grow up with connections to food being of high importance. More of my resources are as follows:

-Endless cardboard from work as long as I feel like removing tape and stickers.
-2-5 Gallons of coffee grounds Daily
-As we live in the PNW there is an abundance of pine (Douglas Fir) trees and by that wood chips. Chunky not fine or sawdust.
-As stated above our animals provide us with manure but it's the rabbits that provide the most valuable as I understand.
-We have to buy straw at $9-$10 a bale for the animals bedding and then that all gets composted in a pile for our chickens to scratch or composted in place.

My current process is I use a 165' mobile electric fence to have the pigs root up the ground and remove much of the grass in just a few days. Then I plan to cover the area in carboard, followed by coffee grounds/rabbit manure,whatever straw I have partially composted (Some a few months of composting) and to top it all off wood chips a few inches thick.
My worries with this is one is this in good order? two will the pine tree wood chips tie up too much Nitrogen?
Also can I use Wood chips as bedding as it is much cheaper for 20 cubic yards for $50 to $75 delivered?

The space I am working on is three garden plots ranging from 1400 sq ft to 2400 sq ft, where I plan to create polycultures of annuals along with perrenials.

Seperately I am looking forward to planting many fruit and nut trees (food Forest) in about 28,000 square feet and then later much more.

I am sorry if this is far too broad/vague I am excited as I have been absorbing info to the point of paralysis. Thank you so much for reading!