So confused about pasture

I like "victorious cycle" as an expression.

you are totally wrong....PP asks for advice that fall inside her parameters of acceptance for her and her family and her homestead......thats what most people do....they look at options that suit their personal guidelines and go forward.....she is known by most posters that regularly offer advice from a commercial agriculture perspective.... she doesnt go for commercial fertilizers and sprays and GMO products....she is looking for alternative solutions in a commercial/consumerist/industrial world/modern agriculture world......she has the right..its her family,land,animals and therefore its for her and her husband to mull over possible solution that fit their homestead and family.


keep planting....growing....slingin all ya poop on pasture..milking...and raising kids.....brains that escape the box think better.....

keep asking and doing.....you are learning......your results show it.

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

PP..dont over look rock dust either.....(lime is a rock dust) theres all kinds of rock dusts.....basically its minerals....manytest of foods back in 60's that recently have been redone show that food today lacks the same content as the food that was tested in 60's...the reason they give is lack of complete fertility in our soils.

look up Elliot Coleman...he is a world famous gardener...he never sprays...his soils are so complete that bugs cant digest the plant matter and die.he went through a divorce years ago and left his land in maine.when he returned he found the fields he had worked on had remained in grass....the neighbors fields and other fields he owns had cedar invading them.the good soil made his grass able to out compete the cedars.

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

Rock dust is mostly minerals, minerals are compounds, compounds are chemicals, chemicals are bad. Just trying to play along......

Seriously, and yes I will google him, but I have never used anything on my gardens/pasture but goat/cow flops and still the squash beetles and the Japanese Beetles will eat them up in a day if I am not careful!!

I find chickens to be extremely effective for controlling both Japanese Beetles and the squash beetles as well as just about any other pests. The trick is having enough chickens in an area to do the job but not so many that they over do the job. They have a strong tendency to eat the insects first. But when those are gone they go for the veggies you want to keep such as squashes, tomatoes, etc. What I do is fence our gardens well - chicken proof - and then move in a few chickens to do the job and move them out when they're done. This works for us.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

heres a recorded seminar he done here in charlottville,va. for the vabf in 2011....be warned the audio is awful until about 11minute mark.his farm in maine was purchased from helen and scott nearing way back in the day when they wanted to share their landholdings with other like minded people.elliots wife now is barbara damrosch and they both are very famous across the globe and at one time had a tv gardening show.

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

I have 60 some chickens, and I do put some of them in the gardens, as I have two large gardens, but the Japanese Beetles took all my Green Beans out in almost two hours last year, it was horrible!!

Yes, we're all chemicals as is everything but when someone says that they don't want to use chemical fertilizer we all understand what they mean is they don't want to use the artificial manufactured fertilizers such as those made from petroleum products, natural gas, etc and that they would prefer to use compost, manure, etc. Likewise they probably don't want to use fertilizer made from city sludge or factory farm sludge because they're trying to avoid heavy metals, antibiotics, pesticides, etc.

It's okay to do which ever you want on your land. Don't diss other people's choice to avoid chemicals they don't want on their land or in their food.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

Fertilizers made from petroleum products? What are they? I don't know of any. Natural gas is used to fix nitrogen from the air, and phosphorus and potassium are usually mined minerals.

The closest thing to a fertilizer made from petroleum that I can think of would be some of the humate products. Ironically, those are considered "organic."

So, no, it is not easy to understand what people mean when they (mis)use generalities. PP does not want to use chicken manure because it might contain certain things even though those things are probably not in there.
You cannot avoid chemicals on your land or in your food or body. Urine contains large amounts of urea, a widely used conventional "chemical" fertilizer. As well as salts and various other substances that are damaging to soil life. Goat's milk is also a complex chemical brew, one that is not particularly suited to healthy soil biology. (edited to add: Goat's does also contain calcium phosphate, also known as Triple Superphosphate. There is no difference between the calcium phosphate in goat's milk and the calcium phosphate in triple superphosphate, except that the one comes with a lot of fats that aren't readily used by soil organisms.)

You can do whatever you want on your land. But you cannot refuse to use all "conventional" or "commercial" methods and still expect reasonably effective and economical results. Conventional plant fertility methods are used because they are effective and economical. There are no economical and effective "alternative" methods because if the method in question is both economical and effective then conventional agriculture is going to be using it somewhere.

So sometimes it's hard to know what kind of advice people are looking for. Dropping one banana per square foot on your soils and then tilling them into the soil will correct low potassium, but it's not a particularly economical way to do it. Is that the kind of alternative methods people are looking for?

read it....start at page one...foreruuner not only talks it..he shows it with pictures as do others following the same path.everybody says dont put meat in ya compost piles...i guess they never seen a forerunner pile that digests entire cows....lol

Extreme Composting

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i went to the woods because i wished to live deliberately to front only the essential facts of life,.......,and not,when i came to die,discover that i had not lived...Henry David Thoreau

You're getting some great information here. I might add something I've learned from experience regarding the adding of agricultural lime.

If you have an extra amount of ag lime put down, it can cause the top of the soil to harden. It is better to put smaller amounts down and simply do it more often. (I actually hardened a muddy spot in front of my barn with ag lime. I also harden my chicken pens with it. The chickens love to fluff their feathers in it during hot summers as it remains cool and it helps deter insects as well. It also keeps maggots that might accummulate under watering pans away; and ag lime will not run off like soil does.)

As for the fescue, my experience has taught me that much of the fescue is NOT endophyte free; and when raising "dairy" goats as I do, it will put knots into their udders. Taking them off that type of grass will let the knots disappear; however, it takes a good year for that change to occur. Now if you cut your fescue BEFORE it matures, you won't need to worry about endophytes because it only shows up in the mature stage.

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I am what I am! Acknowledging this is the beginning; and my growth is yet to end. http://motdaugrnds.com/farmsales ~~~~~ http://motdaugrnds.com

I specifically said Natural Gas as an example of a petroleum product. Go back and reread what I wrote.

For those who are not aware of it, Natural Gas comes from petroleum products. Wiki has some more info on that which is a good start to reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_gas

There is a good episode in the Modern Marvels Season 3 videos about how synthetic fertilizers are manufactured. Some people want to use them. Some don't. Don't diss people just because they don't want to use them. When they say chemical fertilizers we all know what they mean. That was the point.


Well, now that is where you are wrong. I farm. I farm quite successfully with "alternative" methods and have been doing it for long enough that it is obviously no accident. That is how our family makes our entire living. We don't use any "conventional" or "commercial" methods as you like to call them. We do not use any synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, insecticides, etc yet we make a living and are profitable. Farming is what we do. We are successful enough at our naturally raised pastured pig farming without any conventional or commercial hog feed and such that we deliver weekly to area stores, restaurants and individuals year round. In fact, we're successful enough that we're just finishing building our own on-farm USDA/State inspected meat processing facility (e.g., slaughter, butcher, smoke, etc).

Convention and commercial current methods dependent on petroleum products and synthetic fertilizers are not the only way to do things. One can be very successful without using "conventional" or "commercial" methods. The methods we use are more akin to the way pigs were raised back before the industrial revolution. We raise our pigs on pasture which is where they get the majority of their food. Alternative methods works.

Open your mind to the possibility of alternative ways of success.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

I agree about different opinions being good. But I don’t see where any of the non CF people said ‘best, just 'how we prefer to do thing on our land'. The only ‘best’ I see is on the posts insisting that the only way to have productive land is to use CF. Some of us even used science to reach our conclusions and shared some of that here. We even use science on the farm - not using CF does not mean not using science.

Part of the problem, IMO, is we are all from different areas and we are farming different things. I would just like to see the condescension towards non-conventional ease off.

Two things, we don’t import fertilizer and manure, we create it And what I meant by ‘sustainable' was they are renewable resources. Someday the petroleum products will run out. Probably not in our lifetime, but someday, and when that happens we’d better have a system in place for growing food without it. Prices of natural gas have already pushed huge amounts of CF production offshore. I don’t think of our farm as as island, but part of a community.

There you go again putting 'good' and 'better' in posts where it wasn't. 'They way we prefer for us' would be more accurate. See above for sustainable.

And then you go on to assume that because one isn’t using CF they have poor yields and poor soil, that it takes decades to build up - and you could not be more wrong. It certainly isn't the case here.

What Walter did was take soils that could not have been farmed conventionally due to slope and stone, and made it into something that he could farm his way.

Since the animals spread the manure, it doesn’t take any fuel but even if it were done mechanically, the production of the CF takes more than spreading it (and then add in shipping it from overseas, trucking it to your dealer, and then spreading it). Nobody said it was spreading oil on the land, I said it was the process I object to (mostly).

I agree with this and have said it. Yea, we agree!

And then you blow it. Because you are wrong, lots of people do produce food for others’ tables - crops, eggs, milks, meat - not just hobby gardens, and do so efficiently without CF. I happen to know two of them very well… And the conventional farmers that laughed when they started out and told them they could not milk cows without commercial feed, or get enough eggs, or raise pork, are now literally eating their words - they are very good customers who say things like “This is what food tasted like when I was young”.

And the big farms growing corn, wheat and soy are not feeding the nation, they are feeding the world - often at the expense of the poorer country's agricultural development (how’s THAT for poking a hornets nest??) I won’t even go into mono crops...


I agree!


I guess it depends of what you mean by "conventional" or "commercial". We use a machine to help candle, wash, and sort (in theory) the eggs, Does that count?

You meant Natural Gas is the petroleum product used to make CF. I thought you meant two separate categories of CF, thanks for clarifying.


But, no, I still don't fully know what you mean by chemical fertilizers. Anything made with natural gas is included, I get that loud and clear. But is anything else included?

What about a mined product like rock phosphate? It gets treated with acid (to make the phosphorus plant-available) to make certain commercial fertilizers. But you can used soft rock phosphate without treatment on lower pH soils because the soil already contains enough acid to dissolve the phosphorus. So does it count as a chemical fertilizer?

What about gypsum, muriate of potassium, potassium sulfate, K-mag, sodium nitrate, or borax? Those are all available as mined materials, some of which are considered organic. Are they chemical fertilizers? I really don't know which ones you consider CF (if any) or which ones PP considers acceptable(more important to this thread).



You are successful using alternative methods. Very successful, I would say after looking over your website. That means your methods were effective in accomplishing your goals. But haven't you said it took a long time, a decade or so, to get your soils up to current productivity? It doesn't sound like your methods were very economical with time and labor. Time is money, labor is money, after all, and it sounds like you spent time and labor quite freely with your alternative methods. I guess it just depends on the definition of "economical" and maybe I've misunderstood how much time and labor was involved.


I never meant to say that only certain methods work to build productive land. Some methods certainly do require more work or time than others, but there are many different ways to accomplish things. It all depends on your goals, what you start with and what you're trying to accomplish. What works for Highlands in the mountains of Vermont may or may not work for PP in North Carolina.

I work with both organic and conventional farms, large-scale commercial farms and small-scale subsistence farms. Sometimes we have to go down the list item by item to get on the same page. I really am trying to understand where people are at, but non-specific generalities don't tell me much.

Well, is that machine on the grid, using electricity produced from petroleum? For some people that might count! I don't know what counts. Which was the point I started out to make. Generic terms like CF really aren't specific enough to mean much.

No, you're not understanding time and labor very well here. I spent virtually no labor and virtually none of my time on this. I did other things. I set actions going such as fenced and then animals grazing. I harvested meat from those animals but it took very little of my time or labor. The animals were the ones doing the work. I just had to wait patiently. Meanwhile, I had other things I was doing. So it was extremely efficient of both my time and labor. This is a fundamental difference in thinking. Just because something took ten years does not mean __I__ spent ten years. That's the beauty of grazing, of growing a forest, etc. Very low labor. I setup systems and then I harvest. I need to be around for events but I have time to work on other things in parallel.

Oh, great. It certainly sounded like that was what you were saying but I'm glad to know you weren't saying that.

No kidding. That's true of just about everything everywhere. There are many variables. Everything must be adapted to local situations, local climate, local skills, local genetics, etc. Perhaps you've hit on the fundamental difference in thinking on that issue:

Big Corp / Big Ag wants methods they can do anywhere which requires, for the most part, putting everything in a box so as to control all the variables and then feeding in controlled chemicals.

Alternative Ag works with the land, the soils, the genetics, the people to adapt systems that will work in local situations. This is what I prefer so this is how I do things.

Organic vs conventional vs large vs small is not even a dichotomy.

I have a cousin that raises large numbers of "USDA Organic" chickens. He does it indoors. The only reason they're organic is because of the feed he buys being USDA Organic. People buy them thinking "Happy Chickens" but his chickens never see pasture. They're not "Happy". They live their lives out indoors in huge confinement feeding buildings.

We've been real organic, the way consumers think of it, out on pasture, etc, for decades but we're not "USDA Organic" and can't use that term on our label.


This is a prime example of how the government stole Organic. Those of us who've been organic for decades are no longer allowed to use the term but confinement feeding operations which are the antithesis of organic can use the term. I detest that. Big Ag used the government to take over something. They've done it with other things.

Back to the Original Poster's topic: she doesn't want to use synthetic fertilizers and people should respect that. It is her choice and no matter to you how long it will take her to improve her soil without synthetics and cides.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

The government did not "steal" organic. For a long while, anyone could claim organic. There was no standard at all. Gradually different groups adopted their version of what organic meant to them. Several different standards for organic just didn't work. USDA got the leaders of each group to combine their standards into a single standard that the USDA could apply to products everywhere.
Your friend with the organic chickens is complying with the rules by feeding only organic feed. Pastured chickens is a new selling point, without regulation. So, providing outside areas fits the pastured requirement, even if it is 24 by 24 and 10,000 chickens.
Generally, the folks that object to current organic standards do so out of their small versus large farming mindset. That big Ag has adapted to meet the standards, no matter what they are, makes their down-home practices seem less novel.
But to pretend the government "stole" organic is to ignore the historic facts of organic certification.

That is your opinion. Other people's opinion is that the government did "Steal" the term "Organic". I am well aware of the history of the theft.

Those of us who have been organic for decades were all of a sudden told that we could no longer use the term we have long used to describe how we farm. Government stole the term "Organic" and handed it over to Big Ag like my cousin who is only "Organic" by the government definition but not by what customers think of "Organic". His chickens are locked up in confinement barns. When customers think of "Organic" chickens they include outside on pasture in their definition.

You're a big defender of government but that does not change the fact that we used to be able to label as Organic and were then told we couldn't. We didn't change. The government came along and set new rules that if we don't pay them their fees and let their bioinsecure inspectors traipse all over our farm then we can't use the term we have used all along. Government stole the term Organic.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

I've been avoiding adding my $.02 to this discussion mainly because I think both extremes in this discussion are wrong in some or more of their conclusions, simplistic in their characterizations (or maybe caricaturizations) of the other side, and largely inept in seeing the common ground, chasms in belief and being persuasive in their arguments as opposed to just being snarky and judgmental.

Maybe it's because I run several profitable companies outside of agriculture that forces my understanding that profit comes both from maximizing outputs AND minimizing inputs. I understand that MOST of the time at the scale in which most homesteaders are going to be farming, controlling inputs is going to much more manageable than maximizing and projecting outputs. Large scale operations are more able to absorb high input costs.

Commercial fertilizer is useful to me to jump start my forage, increasing biomass, both beneath and above ground, which in turn increase organic material in the soil as forage above the ground is grazed or cut. I have no desire to apply it yearly or in great quantities...not because I think it is raping the ground, but because it would dramatically increase my inputs by doing so. I'll leave most of the fertilization to my animals, my legumes and my lime dealer. If my soil testing show a major deficiency in a critical compound AND my forage is suffering, I'll supplement.

My ground is too acidic. I need lime. I apply 2 tons/acre every year. However, my yearly soil test show that my soil pH is rising much faster than what Penn State says it should be based on my lime application. My legumes are getting stronger every year. I can't scientifically claim that the way I am grazing is the reason for this, however I suspect it is.

I didn't spray glyphosate on my goldenrod infested pastures when I started in order to get a pristine seedbed for my desired forages. Again, this was not because I think glyphosate is going to give me 3 headed calves. I use it under my fences to keep my weed load down on my Hi-T electric fence. I don't use it in great quantities because I don't need to. After my first year my pastures looked good without it, and after a couple of years are doing great. Low input. My cows and pigs move TO the food. My cows and pigs spread their own manure, and I'll help sometimes with breaking it up.

Maybe it's because I have a background in bioorganic chemistry that I understand there are wonderfully natural chemicals that are perfectly deadly. Mercury, arsenic, lead, clostridium botulinum, salmonella serotypes and many others are organic, natural elements or compounds or organisms that are everywhere in our soil, our air and homes. There are many commercially manufactured or modified compounds or aggregates that are "proven" to be safe. I understand the reluctance to trust any company or government agency to tell you what is safe. I certainly don't trust them either. However, I do know is that natural or organic doesn't necessarily mean healthy, nor does commercially produced necessarily mean poisonous or deleterious to the environment.

While I don't think commercial fertilizer and other amendments are the bane to humanity that some make them out to be, I do think they can be and are overused and abused. I try to plant open pollinated, heirloom plants for my own family's consumption. I think in many cases the flavor is better, although their lack of disease resistance can be frustrating. I also can't resist some of the supersweet corn varieties, but I do limit my family's consumption.

I also agree with Walter that "organic" as defined by the USDA is a joke. I've been to enough certified "organic" farms to know that I'll stay clear of anything labeled organic that I cannot personally verify. Sickly animals, lice, ringworm, lungworm, roundworm, lousy living conditions seem to be common themes at nearly every "organic" farm that I've ever been to. My vet tells me the same thing of the organic farms he's worked at. I'm sure there are decent organic farms out there, however, working on the law of averages....I think I'll pass.

I'll just continue to raise my animals as naturally as I see fit, and grow my own vegetable and fruit and eggs for my own consumption. My meat customers like my pork and beef and are willing to wait 6-12 month for it and are willing to pay a premium price for it.

When people (on here and otherwise) tell me it's not economically feasible to rotationally graze hogs and cattle without commercial feed, I'll just laugh and shake my head and continue to sell my rotationally grazed hogs and cattle for a profit to very happy customers. I gain nothing by convincing those naysayers otherwise.

When someone tells me they choose to raise animals or crops in a different manner, I'll chalk that up to freedom of choice rather than assume that person is a blithering idiot. Get your food from farmers that share your values or grow your own rather than trying to bludgeon opposing views. It doesn't have to be one extreme or the other...there is a LOT of real estate in the middle of the argument.

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'Emergencies' have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.

Friedrich August von Hayek

Organic was not stolen by the govt it was codified by a certain number of your organic brothers.
The govt was browbeaten by organic farmers to make a set of certain rules the be all and end all for organic.
And most inspectors aren't really from the govt. Although accredited by the govt they are private and independent.

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Deja Moo; The feeling I've heard this bull before.