How to plant grass if you can't till?

Always puzzles me why everyone doesn't... Farming's a lot easier and more pleasant than just about anything else.

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

I think we all have been where you are a time or three. Need to do something and I don't have the money or equipment to do it correctly and just have to make a good attempt.
We see it in posts on here all the time, how can I keep my pigs in their pasture without good fencing, how can I get the weeds out of my garden when I don't have time to pull weeds, how can I turn my wooded land into pasture without heavy equipment, how can I build an energy efficient house cheaply.
Sort of like the Carpenter that posted the sign, " Done right, Done fast, Done at low cost. Pick two." You can have it done fast and right, but it'll cost. You can have it cheap and fast, but it won't be right.
You can sort out the best way to get grass seed 1/4 inch under the soil, keep the soil wet for a few weeks and have enough NPK to support growth and you'll have grass. Miss any of these important requirements and your $2.00 a pound seeds is just more dust.
I have $50,000 invested in near vintage tillage and planting equipment and own land that has high natural fertility, in a climate that provides plenty of moisture, I soil test and alter the ph and nutrient levels to sustain heavy yields, plant seeds at nearly double the recommended rate just to improve my odds at getting a pasture or hay field started. Better equipment, better land, better climate would increase my chances. Less of everything diminishes my chances.
Doing something is often better than doing nothing.
I have an Aunt that lives in north central Arizona. For forty years she's hauled in bags of top soil and pulled a watering hose around three times a day all summer long, just to keep her flowers growing. Seems that if she wanted to grow flowers so bad, she'd locate somewhere that it could be done with less effort and greater success.

Rent a sod drill. Seth

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If you need anything, just let me know... I'll tell you how to do without it.

Alright . . . I tried. I even tried to hide it in some really yummy tree leaves they usually eat in wild abandon!
No JOY.
Sorry.

Heck ya!
Hauling water, moving fencing, digging drainage ditches even in heat, humidity and biting flies beats WBS meetings, documentation reviews, dial-ins, or briefings.

Ever read Gene Logsdon?
https://thecontraryfarmer.wordpress....farmer-lately/

I don't understand why people are so afraid of burning a field. Times gone past they used to do it all the time. It's really a good way to get rid of weed seeds. Check with your FD. We can burn early if we notify them first. And yeah, I know I'm in a minority on HT about this.

When it's very cold, build a small fire then hold some dry grass near. It'll be very hard to get it to catch. Do it early in the AM when there's no or little wind.

Do an area, then back burn. The forest service does control burns here all the time. Have someone with you, practice until you understand what you are doing.

Do you want grass or pasture grass? I'd do what was said about snow seeding. Here if you really disturb the earth you end up with a field full of tumbleweeds and another vine that, like tumbleweeds, grows when the earth is disturbed.

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Only she who attempts the absurd can achieve the impossible

Well there's the problem right there, I'm in Wyoming. I've never experienced "no or little wind". In fact, the first time I was away from home and it rained I was so mystified I had to call my family and tell them that indeed, rain CAN come straight down. I had no idea!

Bugger!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh it's totally possible to have grazing pasture here. We do raise an awful lot of cows in my state. Pasture is about all we are good for. I was just looking for tips since my plan didn't work. I mean, who would have thought the box scraper wasn't good enough to actually scrape anything? Coulda fooled me!

In my area, wet weather often prevents a second cutting of hay. We have an extra long Autumn. So, by the time winter hits, there is a lot of growth.
It is common in the spring to mow and rake an edge around a field and burn the dead grass and weeds. In much of the agricultural areas, if the fire gets out of control, it just burns the neighbor's dead crass, nothing to worry about. My hay fields are bordered by hundreds of acres of hardwood and pine forests or brushy fields with a thick mat of dead swamp grass.
I had properly clipped and mowed the dead grass and started a burn, with no breeze at all. Once I had the north side of the field burning, I would start a fire on the south side and relax. But a light southerly breeze came up. The fire drifted across the short tips of dead grass, much like you might lightly pet a cat. Long sweeping lines of fire, short blue flames, softly marching across the mowed area towards the property line. Beyond the property line was a mat of swamp grass and brush. Beyond that, uncut by roads or trail, 5000 acres of mature forest.
Before I lit the first match, I had two helpers and we each had pitchforks, with the tines covered in an old water-soaked blanket or rug and a plastic pail of water. These served as fire extinguishers and we managed to put the fire out as it flamed up into the swamp.

I would bet that where there are pastures for cows, there are also ranchers who do some spreading of nitrogen annually to keep them going. You can't take away nutrients in the form of cow bodies for very long without depleting your soil. I would bet that this is your case, too, only you are are at the front end of that process--just getting started. You will need to somehow clear the weeds, bare the soil and get a seedbed, and provide at least a minimum of nutrients if you want success. A box blade is good for scraping driveways.......And water would really help, too.

geo

Not really. Mix legumes into the pasture and the suck down plenty of nitrogen. I've never spread any fertilizer on our fields but they have improved every year. A little of that is because I buy in winter hay (our land is kind of steep and rocky to hay) and the animals poop that out. But most of the nutrients added to our land comes from the air in the form of nitrogen from the clovers and such as well as carbon from all the plants. Organic matter builds up over time when done right. I find that managed rotational grazing is part of the key to this.

-Walter

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Burnt the hill across the road from the house this spring and watched it smolder for a week after wards. I just flat didn't realize how dry it really was. We had moisture but the old needles and build up under the cedar trees had dried out from the winters drought. I was fairly safe but worrying about a cedar blowing up at the wrong time makes for sleepless nights.

Caution even when you think you know what your doing is always best.

And yes I understand about the wind never stopping.

Up in our neck of the woods, you just mow and mow and mow. Then it becomes "lawn". At least it becomes shorter and greener anyway. The shorter plants will take over.

You can try frost seeding in the spring as well. Perhaps if you can get at least some grass going it will dominate the taller weeds eventually if you keep it short.

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I understand what you're saying, and I agree that legumes should be an important part of pasturing--and in crop rotation, as well. I haven't been to Wyoming, but I'm taking the OP's original statement that grass is what is wanted in that part of the country, and that managed rotational grazing isn't necessarily the practice there.. Your practice might work there as well, but it may or may not be under consideration.

geo

Nonsense. Every thread is not an opportunity for you to break in with a Monsanto promotion. Take a break once in a while. I have much more than 5 acres and never have sprayed a single drop of any of the chemicals you're listing. EVER.

Oh I never said rotational grazing wasn't practiced here. I'm not going to be doing it immediately because of the cost of fencing 1 acre plots. Eventually! I am only keeping animals on 5 acres. The other 35 acres I'm converting into a permaculture U-pick orchard.

For my area though it's wheat fields and cows. So pasture should be the easiest thing I'm doing. lol

CrazyFarm, the cost and setup work doesn't have to be overwhelming. It can be as simple as starting out by setting up a perimeter and then subdividing it as you have time and money. Five acres is a fairly easy fencing project. Get a perimeter around that with a 2.5 joule or larger energizer. Could simply be polywire which is inexpensive. Train the animals to it. Start by just letting them have the whole thing. Not ideal but it's a start. Then setup an interior fence line that makes the first paddock. Presto, you're on your way to managed rotational grazing.

As to changing the forage mix, just start seeding behind the animals. If they mob graze to knock things down well so much the better. Seed a day to two before you move them out of a paddock. That way they drive the seed into the soil. If it rains hard (storm seeding) so much the better.

Part of why I do it this way is it is so easy and inexpensive.

-Walter

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Sometimes I think those people who haven't been west of the Missouri River struggle to understand how vast places like Wyoming really are. A single pasture might be as much or even more than a thousand acres. It isn't economically feasible for most of the land to be intensively grazed in small paddocks. There is a major limiting factor in the form of water, both rain for forage production and water for drinking. There is land where it is more than a mile to the closest source of water. And not a hydrant or developed source, but a spring, a watering hole, a seep, a creek bottom, any form of wet. To mob graze or intensively rotationally graze some of that land would involve hauling every drop of water for the livestock. And you would only be able to graze it once in a year, it doesn't rain enough to regrow for more grazing. (Sometimes it doesn't rain enough for it to grow even once).

Much of Wyoming (and the high plains) is rangeland, which has never had a plow on it. Management for rangeland is a bit different than managing a planted pasture. Would the rangeland benefit from nitrogen fertilizer? Probably yes. Is it the limiting factor in production? Highly unlikely.

Paddock size is more about time than space.

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