Building a Hobby Farm- from woods to eggs

[riptides]

Originally Posted by tony123

Just checked on the fire this morning. It's still smoking! 48 hours later and through several rains.

Question: What do I do with these large piles of ash? Can I just spread it out and grade right into the soil? Is it helpful in vegetable garden soil?

If there is smoke, there is fire! Be aware.

When it is out, I usally drag the ashes out in the yard or pasture.

For continuous burns, I usually dig a small pit. Then regrade accordingly and move to anopther spot after some time.

-Mike Z.

[dieselfuelonly]

Yeah its good stuff for the garden, 'least here in NC we have had good luck putting the ashes from our fireplace into our garden. Don't get rid of it!!

[tony123]

Cool. I'll just spread them out across the pasture.

I'm ready for the pile to quit smoking so I can stop monitoring it! But the darn thing is still going. I just stood at it with a garden hose for about 20 minutes, and it is still smoking!

I also put out annual rye on the upper pad this evening. I was reluctent to, because I'm going to be doing so much work that I'm sure to trample most of it before long.

[Defective]

If you want to speed up the final stages of the burn, get a garden rake and carefully rake the top of the ashes as far in as you can reach without putting yourself in danger. With a big fire, the ashes will actually tend to smother the coals after most of the fire has burned down. It's kind of like banking a fire overnight... Once you've raked the ashes off the top, the coals will burn down faster with more air.

Hosing the fire down could be a mistake as you'll end up with big chunks of partially burned materials.

[tony123]

I can tell from the pile, that if I have partially burnt material, it won't be much at this point. Besides, I've got many more burns to do in this same spot. It will all eventually burn.

I'm attaching a pdf file of the master plan for the farm. It is probably hard to invision, but I'd like any comment and feedback from those that know something about laying out a garden and livestock. It shows all 3 acres with topo. You can see, it was a challenging property to work with. You can also see the neighbors house to the right of the sheet. That's the house you see in many of the photos.

farm plan 1.pdf

[HappyCPE]

Tony, your place looks great and I'm enjoying this post.

On your plan, it looks like the pole barn is all the way in the corner, in violation of the 25' setback? Is that OK?
Also, with all the earth you're moving, did you strip the topsoil and save it for the garden? That clay doesn't look like it will play nicely with veggie roots.

[tony123]

HappyCPE, you've got a sharp eye. It does violate the setback. I knew I had to figure out a solution to that, but hadn't yet.

Actually, this plan is drawn based off of pacing measurements. I need to go out with a tape and get it more precise.

We didn't strip the topsoil first. Because of the staging area and sequence of work, it would have been cost prohibitive to do so. You can see that the vegetable area is not that large that I can't bring in topsoil and amend. That's what I'll have to do I suppose. Good news is, 3' down I've got some great soil!

Glad you're enjoying the posts!

[dieselfuelonly]

I like that master plan. Very cool property!

[Tororider]

Nice drawing. You have the hardest part done, having a plan. Now the fun begins, the changing of the plans, hehe.

I look forward to seeing the continuing progress.

Kids are great, we have two boys a bit over 3 years, and 8 mons. Kids are the coolest things since... just about anything I can think of.

[tony123]

No doubt, I fully expect to change these plans all around. But you gotta start somewhere.

HappyCPE, I was happy to discover that the clearing for the polebarn actually measured exactly at the setback! Sometimes you get lucky.

We spent the weekend cleaning up random wood debris. We used the utility cart behind the Yanmar. I can already tell that we bought too light duty of a cart. I just couldn't stomach the high prices of good carts. Looks like I'll have to though. We may use this one until it falls apart but keep our eyes peeled for something in the paper.

All my seeding is coming up after the rains of last week. It looks good to see some green for a change! I'll try to get some photos posted soon.

Now, we just have to take advantage of each rain as a chance to burn off some debris......probably a long uninteresting process over the next few months.