Manure Tea etc.

[Guest guest]

> Samba old boy long time no hear

> Manure tea is great stuff at least here out in the dry desert. If

> your manure is well rotted it "generally " has never damaged my crops. My

> rule of thumb for my climate is if the plants are heavy feeders I feed

> once a week with 20 liters of water and three liters of dry poop. Let

> soak in for a night and pour it on in the morning. I put my manure in a a

> ladies stocking and hang in the water.

 

Hare Krsna!

 

OK this is a bit clearer, but I dont yet get the dosage. you give one plant

20 litres of water, or one bed? We have beds of 100 Sq feet each, or 4'X

25'. I would have thought that I would need a good bit more than 20 litres

for that. In general I give such a bed about 40 litres, beyond that (at a

reasonable delivery speed) and the water starts to run off.

 

I've been real busy up there on the land. There's lots to learn. After 3

weeks of weeding, you start to think of ways to avoid getting into that

situation again. Greenhorns like me, are really wooly behind the ears

(whatever that means!) So much to learn.

 

Let me introduce you to the wooly thinking of a greenhorn. We learned about

double dug raised beds, and how good they are for root development. We have

to add a process to the general making of such beds, which is putting all

the earth through a sieve to get the stones out (each seive-full is one

quarter stone) and move the stones out the way. Consequently it takes an age

to make a bed. At this rate it will take us at least a year to make two

acres of beds (that timeframe includes doing all our fencing, irrigation

laying, and compost shed making). But then I figured that not everything is

best suited to such beds. I am just coming to grips with the fact that it

seems it will take too long to manualy deal (using hand spades, forks etc)

with 2 acres of raised beds. We are going to have to start thinking about

using some machines to sow seeds, prepare the soil etc. Animal drawn

machines of course, or small mechanical machines, until we can get an ox.

 

So I started to think just now, about semi de-rocking an acre of the land.

Getting one of those rototillers out (do they actualy turn the soil, and is

that good?) and making one acre of semi prepared soil, and then planting out

a variety of crops, in strips (companion style), instead of insisting on

making these great, yet time consuming beds. Does that make sense?

 

When you have never tried to make a go of any land whatsoever, what to speak

of two acres or more, it is really baffling how to go about it, and I admit

to being pretty baffled, although some light does get through occaisionaly.

 

I'm, not giving up, far from it, I am really relishing this adventure, it

just gets frustrating when an oversight ends up in three weeks of repetetive

weeding or something. I just wish I had someone with a lot of experience to

come over here, and show us the ropes.

 

Another problem I am not sure how to resolve. We are at 500 meters

elevation. I took the soil temperature the other day and in the morning the

soil is only at about 10 degrees celcius. At mid day it can rise to about 18

or maybe 20, but on a rainy day it wont get much above 14 or 15.

 

This is a difficult climate to germinate seeds in. The temperature is a bit

low, but if I made a greenhouse it might get too hot. Because there is no

long term tradition of farming in the country, the locals just grow what

does well with chemicals and know nothing else. Most of the books written

deal with cold northern climes or the tropics, its difficulat to get data on

a transitional zone like ours. If I was an experienced farm hand, I would

probably not have much problem adjusting, but being a rank neophyte, its

just another baffling problem on top of the others!

 

Anyway, I guess I will just have to request all of you who's heart goes out

to a fellow bhakta in distress, to pray that the Good Lord Sri Krsna, may

enlighten me in these matters!

 

YS Samba das