Cover crop mission
This past weekend Kristin, Noel and I went up to the land for a bit, visiting our beloved Wolfden. Sunday we had breakfast at the General Store Cafe in Pittsboro then dropped Kristin off in Carrboro. She is going on tour with Bellafea for two weeks.
Noel and I then headed to the land to put down some cover crops. This will be the first step we have taken to get the farm started.
I bought two hundred pounds of organic spring oats from Seven Springs Farm and fifty pounds of yellow sweet clover from Welter Seed & Honey.
The rate for each was fifteen pounds of clover per acre and forty eight pounds of oats per acre. To figure out our acreage, I looked for a cheap measuring device.
I picked up a walking measuring tape for cheap off The eBay. The three of us each guessed how big the front strip of land was. Noel said four, Kristin said three and I said two and half. When Noel and I got done walking it out and doing the calculations, we ended up with one and a half acres. We were all way off, and I found out that an acre is a lot of dirt.
From the marker by the bag to the road at the top of the picture is one and a third acre.
We decided to put down every seed that we brought on every piece of bare land we could find. Hopefully in a couple weeks there will be some good growth on the ground, and we can start to choke the weeds out. A good start and a productive day…
March 16, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Hi there. I stumbled on your blog purely at random (I love it when that happens), and was intrigued by your post from Feb. 15 about your rescuing perfectly good food from the dumpster. I’ve heard of others doing this but always wondered if it was safe? I mean, yeah, it’s good food–but how do you know it’s not contiminated somehow?
I also wondered how easy it is to rescue food in this way without getting caught by a disgruntled manager or a policeman?
I don’t even live in a big city. I’m just curious. But it’s something I’d be interested in trying if I thought it was worth it. :p
March 17, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Megan:
I have never gotten sick from any food I have found in the trash. Your nose and eyes are your best defense since you can see if something is not worth eating and you can also certainly give it a big old sniff test.
The best time to dumpster food is at night since there aren’t likely to be any managers around. And the folks taking out the trash could care less if you are going through the dumpster. Police and guards are a different situation. They can give you a ticket for trespassing, but you have to mouth off pretty good to get one of those. The two easiest excuses are that you are getting boxes for packing/moving or you are doing an art project. You’ll have to make up the art project depending on what you have in your hands at the time. I have only been hassled once in the past seven or eight years. I have only been caught physically in the dumpster twice, once when I was reading magazines at Barnes & Noble and once when Kristin and I were dumpstering candy behind a drug store.
You don’t need to live in a big city to find food in the trash. It is everywhere.
February 10, 2009 at 2:52 am
Hello, I just over seeded my a field/lawn next to my garden with red clover and spring oats out here in Oregon. I was wonder how you clover/oat planting turned out? Do you have any pictures of the fields?
I love your site and plan to make the pickled beet recipe. It sure looks yummy.
Paul