Category Archives: Soil Conservation
Jars of Tools
Can you identify these seeds? They are some of our favorite cover crops. Here’s a hint list. Can you match the seed with the picture above? Buckwheat Daikon Radish Crimson Clover Hard Red Spring Wheat Why use cover crops? Here … Continue reading
Organic Far Superior
After 30 years of side-by-side research, Rodale Institute has demonstrated that organic farming is better equipped to feed us now and well into the ever changing future.: After thirty years of a rigorous side-by-side comparison, the Rodale Institute confidently concludes … Continue reading
Spring’s Farm Work
It’s early spring on the Allegheny Plateau. Spring’s farm work is to prepare the fields and sow the crops. It sure helped to plant a cover crop after the mid-summer garlic harvest last year. Our crop rotation is potatoes, alliums … Continue reading
A Garlic Field Cocktail
No, we aren’t throwing a cocktail party in the garlic field. But a well-planned cover crop can help the soil of a summer-harvested garlic field get through a Hurricane Sandy. A mixture of cover crops are being used not only … Continue reading
Decoding the Radishes
We have published 100 Wooleylot blogs. In doing this, we have tried to give you some fun garlic facts, informative updates, interactive polls, food recipes, and a little bit of humor. We have tried to treat our blog site like … Continue reading
Cover Crop Planning Tool
Talk to any farmer and they will tell you that cover crops are a cornerstone of sustainable agriculture. There are several choices and each one has a role in the cropping rotations. So, any tool to help us understand cover crops is … Continue reading
Winter Field Frost Seeding
February 23rd gave us a unusally warm and sunny day here in Potter County, Pennsylvania. On that winter day, we were able to frost seed fields 1 and 2 with medium red clover, and make some general field observations. Here’s the photo essay on the frost seeding. First … Continue reading
2012 Field Guide
The new year brings us an opportunity to plan next season’s plantings. We have had some successes to build upon. We are in the early stages of developing a living mulch system to grow garlic and potatoes. Living mulches are vegetative … Continue reading
Farm Soil Research
Did you ever wonder what is in a handful of soil? The field scientists from the Rodale Institute can answer that question for us. They visited Wooleylot Farm at Odin, Pennsylvania this week as part of an on going study to determine carbon … Continue reading
Garlic Field Preparation
It’s the middle of October and we’re busy! Lots of garlic to plant now. However, field preparation began two months ago in mid August. That’s when we planted Garlic Field 3 with oats that serve as a “living” mulch. Here’s Garlic … Continue reading
