Things are going (and growing) well here. Although the weather was cool and wet most of this week, it was absolutely perfect today. Along with continuing the work of trellising up tomatoes, we worked on landscape related duties.
In the late morning, I noticed that a tractor showed at the south field gate. It was part of the haying crew preparing to start mowing. I immediately switched gears, got the brush mower, drank a bottle of water, ate a bite and hit the field. I needed to finish getting the line mowed between the hay and the trees so that the hay crew would not slip up and cut down trees. It took me a couple of hours but I got finished just before they started in mowing.
Mowing the Hay in the North Field
Along with the areas of the farm dedicated to seed production, we also have many acres in grass hay. The biggest field was planted into tall fescue in 1961 and is still producing well. The bottom field, the one in the picture above, is one of our old pastures from back when cattle was raised here. It consists of many different grasses.
The hay we raise is does several things for us. It is a low input crop requiring only an annual application of fertilizer. In our case, since we are a Certified Naturally Grown farm, we use chicken manure to feed the grass. Keeping the land in hay helps to keep it healthy, productive and the weeds at bay. As a bonus, the annual sale of the hay helps to pay the bills!
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