Bringing it all together

After work today I was in a mad scramble to take down 7500’ feet of barb wire, rusted T-post and rotten wooden post. I did several cases that went very well and when I walked out of the hospital it was pouring down rain. Rain makes corn. Not uncommon in Tennessee but last night I made the decision to purchase some cattle. Of course the only time I could take delivery is in 2 weeks, i’m going to be out of town, and I have a ton of work to get done before the pasture will be ready. Nothing like a deadline to get you fired up and in the pouring rain that rusted barb wire came down. I’m going to replace it with the Red Brand woven wire fence and am going to install a temporary watering solution. Plus I’ll put up a strand of Gallagher electric wire.

It’s not an impulse purchase unless you actually buy the cattle

Why Cows, pigs, goats, chickens, bees, ducks, otters, fish, deer, the garden, etc? I have ~30 different species of plants in the ground right now, several cover crops, and am striving for regenerative, no-till, soil building, beyond organic, diversified, rotational grazing, nutrient rich, locally grown, microbiomic agriculture. This sounds like a bunch of nonsense but Gabe Brown brings together all these ideas with his 5 principles.

The five principles of soil health are:

Limited disturbance. Limit mechanical, chemical, and physical disturbance of soil. Tillage destroys soil structure.It is constantly tearing apart the “house” that nature builds to protect the living organisms in the soil that create natural soil fertility. Soil structure includes aggregates and pore spaces (openings that allow water to infiltrate the soil). The result of tillage is soil erosion, the wasting of a precious natural resource. Synthetic fertilizers, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides all have negative impacts on life in the soil as well.

Armor. Keep soil covered at all times. This is a critical step toward rebuilding soil health. Bare soil is an anomaly—nature always works to cover soil. Providing a natural “coat of armor” protects soil from wind and water erosion while providing food and habitat for macro- and microorganisms. It will also prevent moisture evaporation and germination of weed seeds.

Diversity. Strive for diversity of both plant and animal species. Where in nature does one find monocultures? Only where humans have put them! When I look out over a stretch of native prairie, one of the first things I notice is the incredible diversity. Grasses, forbs, legumes, and shrubs all live and thrive in harmony with each other. Think of what each of these species has to offer. Some have shallow

Armoring the soil is one way to be resilient. The armor is the residue from a previous cover crop and a cash grain crop is growing through the armor.

roots, some deep, some fibrous, some tap. Some are high-carbon, some are low-carbon, some are legumes. Each of them plays a role in maintaining soil health. Diversity enhances ecosystem function.

Living roots. Maintain a living root in soil as long as possible throughout the year. Take a walk in the spring and you will see green plants poking their way through the last of the snow. Follow the same path in late fall or early winter and you will still see green, growing plants, which is a sign of living roots. Those living roots are feeding soil biology by providing its basic food source: carbon. This biology, in turn, fuels the nutrient cycle that feeds plants. Where I live in central North Dakota, we typically get our last spring frost around mid-May and our first fall frost around mid-September. I used to think those 120 days were my whole growing season. How wrong I was. We now plant fall-seeded biennials that continue growing into early winter and break dormancy earlier in the spring, thus feeding soil organisms at a time when the cropland used to lie idle.

Integrated animals. Nature does not function without animals. It is that simple. Integrating livestock onto an operation provides many benefits. The major benefit is that the grazing of plants stimulates the plants to pump more carbon into the soil. This drives nutrient cycling by feeding biology. Of course, it also has a major, positive impact on climate change by cycling more carbon out of the atmosphere and putting it into the soil. And if you want a healthy, functioning ecosystem on your farm or ranch, you must provide a home and habitat for not only farm animals but also pollinators, predator insects, earthworms, and all of the microbiology that drive ecosystem function.

The above quote and his books is available for purchase from Chelsea Green.

What I am trying to achieve is to bring nutrient rich food to my family, improve the soil, and make a positive impact.

Hopefully within this hollow post there is rich new life