Cara pulling our Kongskilde Vibromaster--also known by the more mundane "field cultivator"--through our upper field.
Our lower fields are still too wet to get into--just barely, but nonetheless--but the upper fields are totally good to go... except for the alfalfa. We're barely hanging on to our revised, less-optimistic schedule as is, though, so we've got to get into that ground one way or the other.
Alfalfa doesn't have roots like regular grass--it's more like the roots you'd find under a medium sized bush. Getting all that woody material to break down enough that you can form a clean bed and seed is a time-consuming process. You plow, disc, then disc or harrow once a week or so until you've wore all the energy out of the tenacious root systems and they've rotted down. We need the process to go quicker--as in, be done four week ago. We'd hoped to just drag the bed-former through all the alfalfa trash and deal with it later (famous last words) but it's so woody and thick that it clogged up the tool. We had no choice but to pull out a steel garden rake and hack at thousands of bed-feet of disced up alfalfa crowns, then pick them up by hand and haul them out of the way to clear a path for the seeder. It's backbreaking and, frankly, embarrassing--these fields are right by the road--but it cleared the beds.
Alfalfa doesn't have roots like regular grass--it's more like the roots you'd find under a medium sized bush. Getting all that woody material to break down enough that you can form a clean bed and seed is a time-consuming process. You plow, disc, then disc or harrow once a week or so until you've wore all the energy out of the tenacious root systems and they've rotted down. We need the process to go quicker--as in, be done four week ago. We'd hoped to just drag the bed-former through all the alfalfa trash and deal with it later (famous last words) but it's so woody and thick that it clogged up the tool. We had no choice but to pull out a steel garden rake and hack at thousands of bed-feet of disced up alfalfa crowns, then pick them up by hand and haul them out of the way to clear a path for the seeder. It's backbreaking and, frankly, embarrassing--these fields are right by the road--but it cleared the beds.
A big wagon-load of high Nitrogen organic matter getting carted off to somewhere where it won't clog the stupid seeder.
Once the alfalfa was out of the first few beds, Cara pulled out the trusty Earthway and got down to business. Neither of us have much experience with the Earthway, though it's the standby for a huge number of tiny market gardeners. I have to say, it worked better than I expected, but I won't cry when we can afford something better.
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