It finally rained and I am sick...

I have been planing like mad for the last week.We have had a dry fall. I should have plowed.

But plowing takes time and money. Although, making eight passes with a heavy disk also costs a lot of money and doesn't bury the straw.

Today I had planned to help Muddy Valley with packing. However, I suspect he doesn't want me to show up with a serious cough, body aches, head ache, minor temperature, and no energy. (I doubt he minds if I am also grump.)

Crop prices or terrible. There is nothing to grow that will make any profit at this point for next year.

We have ten acres of grain corn which part is going for whiskey and the rest to the local feed mill for maybe $250 a ton. I was going to grind some for my neighbor. He has been setting on it for a year. I have very glad I didn't buy any for $450 a ton as I would still have it.

I have a friend with cows and I think I am going to put all my bags of grain together and make him a mix, sell it cheap, and sell the mixer grinder and pellet mill. It is not so much that there is not money in it. I am just tired.

We planted Timothy for hay, K31 Fescue (which can go for hay for seed) and Annual Ryegrass. Annual Ryegrass is not a good price but it is cheap to grown and seems to actually sell. Annual is used for cover crop and as long as there is price supports for cover crops in the Midwest I am hoping for a market. 

I want to grow buckwheat again next year as it is an excellent rotation but the people we grew it for this year are pretty sketchy so I don't know.

I experimented with Birdsfoot trefoil as it is nitrogen fixing and tends to reseed itself in hay fields. $250 for fifty pounds so it is an experiment.

My next project is hopefully 40 acres of Orchard Grass but it is getting late and we need to spray out the annual ryegrass in the field (annual ryegrass is a weed). They sprayer is broken and it is mid October so who knows.

My neighbor who grew lots of Orchard Grass before getting a real job has been giving me advice on planting. It is much different from the advice other people have. 

I guess it is a difference in attitude. This guy is precise and methodical. What I have found do work really well is just planting really heavy.

He suggested a seed inoculant which contains soil microbes. Sort of an instant compost tea. It is called Recharge and it is really super expensive, (as all good snake oil should be.)

It is mixed at 4 oz per 50lbs of seed. I was going to buy a cement mixer from Harbor Freight to mix it but they were sold out. I just used a stick. I put the magic powder on one side of the drill so we will see if there are trails in the field.

The product was a little short on application instructions and long on propaganda so I don't now if I did it right. The first mix I made for the Timothy I mixed water with it to make a liquid and then stirred it in. The rest I just dumped in dry. I can't remember if I used it on the K-31. 

I got another miracle grow product from the local Co-Op for that and planted half the field using that product in the liquid fertilizer.

Who knows....