We Want to Introduce Ourselves

shortcows · Joined: 01 Feb 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Ennis,TEXAS

Hi,
My name is Ron Jones and my wife's name Lupe. We have just been introduced to organic gardening, mostly farming, but have interest in all aspects of the Organic Lifestyle.

We live in Ennis, but have a small ranch down in Navarro County where we raise Dexter Cattle and a couple of horses. We bought this place acouple of years ago and have been working to get it back in shape. It hasn't really had anything done to it for 10 or more years except to be extremely overgrazed and littered with trash. We were able to put in a garden and after much work, we had good crops and look forward to improving it this coming year.

We still need to learn as much as possible to get our pastures in better condition. So we will be asking a lot of questions. We have turned the soil a little on about 10 acres and need to apply something to bring it back to life. This area had no grass and only a few weeds, so we are open for suggestions as to what soil ammendments might be used.

Also if anyone has any interest in Dexter cattle, we need to reduce our herd.

Thanks for having us!
Ron & Lu

Tony M · Joined: 31 Mar 2003 Posts: 1086 Location: McKinney,TEXAS

Hi Ron and Lupe-
Welcome to the forum.
I sent you a private message asking about your cattle and I will try to respond to your other post.
Tony

pakin · Joined: 31 Dec 1969 Posts: 219 Location: Hubbard,TEXAS

Of course, the first thing to do is get rid of all the trash and don't use non-organic chemicals.

How did you "turn the soil?" The organic method is to feed the microbes in the soil. Turning the soil may not be helpful. The Dirt Doc preaches that if you stop using harmful chemicals, the native grass will come back
without having to be planted.

Aerated compost tea is sprayed on the soil. You can make your own at a reasonable cost. Rabbit Hill Farm out of Corsicana has most of the ingredients you'll need.

Holistic Resource Management practices encourage using cross-fenced paddocks. The principle is that you crowd your cows close for 2-3 days, move them to a new paddock, and don't come back to the grazed paddock until the grass has recovered.

There's much, much more info to be found on this forum. Good Luck,

Pat Akin