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Post by jeff on Apr 24, 2017 16:34:10 GMT
My wife and I are attempting to purchase some acreage, to make a homestead. The goal is to become self-sufficient, and have enough space and free-up enough of my fixed income to build something like the enlarged Little SSLV I described elsewhere, and be able to support it and others, with the foodstuffs we can grow.
Ideally, we would have a place with water access to the GoMex... That isn't happening, so we're planning highway access to the GoMex. We had worked toward one property, but the owner wouldn't give up any mineral rights. That's an important part of the purchase, since it allows the holder of the surface to deny the destruction of the open land, once farming has been established. It's a technicality that is highly worth the effort. Consider that the property we were working at buying is wooded and also probably has oil beneath it. Without some mineral rights, the people holding those rights can come in and have the property drilled/mined for minerals and only be expected to pay "reasonable compensation"... This could mean total destruction of everything we're working for, establishing pasture for grazing and hay, and space for gardening and orchards.
The plan is to establish Intensive Vegetable Gardening, semi-intensive livestock rotational grazing, an Osage Orange/Bois d'Arc orchard for wood and fuel, plus fruit and nut orchards. The crappy soil in East Texas can be rapidly improved using green-manure. Basically plant with a nitrogenous groundcover, disk it under and replant with something more carbonaceous, alternate and repeat, to build up humus.
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Post by thebastidge on Apr 24, 2017 17:30:32 GMT
Look at using bio-char soil amendments, probably more effective for long term soil improvement than chop and drop alone. you may be aware of "terra preta"? Since you're planning to coppice I'd also look at leguminous trees, acacia, etc to fix nitrogen without an annual till cycle.
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Post by jeff on Apr 25, 2017 3:26:35 GMT
Will be plenty of wood scraps to make biochar from. The green manure will be using something nitrogen fixing, like Alfalfa, but you need various stages of decomposition to make humus and the fastest way is with green manure/brown manure tilled in, and replanting in succession. Terra Preta takes longer, but is also very good. Combining all 3 techniques should yield impressive results, but it's still going to take years and deep-tilling, to make really good soil out of red clay.
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Post by thebastidge on Apr 25, 2017 16:20:21 GMT
Another thing that helps a lot with deep clay is tap root vegetables. Big huge daikon radishes, turnips, rutabagas... and let them rot in the ground. There's a concept called bio-till for breaking up deep clay and compacted soils that way. Terra preta really requires fungal and invertebrate components. There's a worm species that specifically grinds and spreads charcoal which increases the surface area much like "activated" charcoal. But adding the bio-char allows for these other species to thrive. Green manure is super helpful, but still ultimately can wash off. Perennial nitrogen fixers do long-term work for you, and don't require purchasing seed and planting repeatedly. www.fao.org/ag/agp/agpc/doc/publicat/gutt-shel/x5556e05.htmpermaculturenews.org/2008/09/29/nitrogen-fixing-trees-the-multipurpose-pioneers/If you have a source of bulk (not bagged, talking dump truck loads here) perlite, vermiculite, or the red lava rock used for landscaping mulch, that stuff all has lots of pores that absorb and retain water. It can be used for soil amendment as well as mulch; particularly for clay soils. Especially if you had a good way to further crush the lava rock- it's pretty brittle and relatively easy to crush. Most people just use it for covering areas to make a contrasting colour border, but it can be much more useful than that.
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Post by jeff on Apr 29, 2017 23:32:38 GMT
Actually, with green manure practices, you grow it, mow it, and disk it in. Adding a step to that, by spreading biochar before disking would help. Doing it a second time, letting the mowed plants brown, then adding more biochar, and disking that in would increase the stages of decomposing carbon and increase the rate of humus development.
Nitrogen-fixing bacteria and nematodes are also fairly common additions for farming.
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Post by thebastidge on May 1, 2017 15:37:39 GMT
Depends on the green manure practice. Lots of no-till and low-till advocates out there. Soil builds itself, if you let it and/or help it. The sod of the great plains prior to the sod-busting tactics of the European settlers had a much greater carrying capacity than now- so great it was still there for decades, but now it all has to be maintained artificially.
For building soil on clay-based substrate, I would deep-rip the first year to get some channels for water, with amendments as available- sand, soil, sawdust. Sawdust has the short term effect of absorbing nitrogen and longer term effect of slowly releasing it, so you have to be sure it works with your overall strategy. What it's really good for is absorbing and slowly releasing water. Managing water on clay is always a chore, so anything that increasing the soil porosity of clay substrate is a good thing. It also provide channels for root development and food for mycorhyzal development.
I have considered techniques for desert and semi-arid areas that I haven't seen anyone else advocating for. So far as I know, this concept is unique to me: If I were trying green up a semi-arid place like eastern Oregon/Washington and many parts of Texas, I would consider deep-ish trenching and burying "firewood" rounds vertically in the trench. Wood grain includes water vesicles and even after it is dead, this continues to be how wood absorbs water. This should nicely absorb excess water from the root zone, and draw up water like a straw from below the root zone when it's demanded by plants.
I would probably cut them shorter (10-12 inches instead of 18-24 inches), but the intent would be to provide a sponge down towards the bottom of the root zone. If I were planting an orchard, I would put these "sponges" in between the grid pattern of my trees. If planting less deeply rooted plants (vegetables etc.) I would just put them deeper than I plan to till (make sure they're deep enough to not "float" up into the tiller's depth).
As the rains penetrate, it absorbs. As the wet season fades, it slowly gives up the water. Being at the bottom of the root zone encourages the plants to reach a little deeper, which is just generally good for them and for general soil tilth. The trench is your opportunity to deep-rip clay to provide sub-surface water management, break up a path for root development, and it can be done with a tractor attachment in one burst of effort and expense, or in stages. Firewood is relatively cheap, and it's a VERY long term amendment. You're looking at probably 7-10 years minimum to totally rot away, and it continues to provide benefit even after it's no longer an intact piece of wood.
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Post by jeff on May 7, 2017 1:29:53 GMT
Put in a bid to purchase 30.3 acres outside Reklaw, Texas. See what happens...
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Post by jeff on May 17, 2017 5:08:35 GMT
Brief update: My wife and I have secured a contract to buy 30.3 acres/12.26 hectares of land, ~1/2 pasture - 1/2 wooded as the beginning of our homestead, some seasteading/Gulfsteading experiments, eventual base of supply for supporting the efforts of living offshore, and space to build at least one enlarged "Little SSLV" concept I oultined.
Our goal is to be off-grid, self-sufficient, then be able to expand productivity. As noted elsewhere, each acre of properly handled intensive, organic vegetable production space could produce 60,000 lbs of produce. Add areas of intensively grazed space for livestock in rotation, and there's food for a city, just off a few acres...
The SSLV will be of modular design, with everything trailerable, for delivery and assembly at the coast, then launch and operate much like an oversized party barge. Once on station, it will set anchors and the platform jacked up, as the pontoons are drawn under water for stability.
Jeff
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