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09/10/2006: "Amend this!"

Ours is a small farm, but even for a few acres things scale impressively. You can't just go down to the Fred Meyer or even the local feed and seed and expect to haul back enough fertilizer to spread over a couple of acres. The really big boys buy it in bulk, or rent the pre-filled spreader itself from a specialist dealer like Marion Ag Service. But that requires a working tractor, which unfortunately we no longer have (a story I will relate some other time).

Through a long series of phone calls to Wilco, Coastal Farm and Home, etc I was finally able to locate Tobin Bowers, who was willing to spread our amendments over the six acre main pasture area (contact information given at the end of this entry). However, we had to buy in bags, since he was using a small tow-behind broadcast spreader. What you're looking at in this photo is Nate standing atop 120 fifty-pound bags of gypsum and 90 bags of agricultural lime. I represents our best guess at what it will take to sweeten our pH 5.5 soil (acidic!) and lower the potassium level. So these aren't really fertilizer per se, but rather mineral amendments to alter the soil dynamics. It's kind of a long-term investment, rather than a short-term fix. We'll test the soil again next year, and see what effect it will have had.

If you're looking for someone to spread amendments on your small-acreage holding, we can recommend Tobin Bowers of Harrisburg, Oregon. His phone number is (541) 912-3079. I would also recommend Marion Ag Service as a willing partner for small operators like us. They gave us a fair price on the bagged material, and were very easy to work with as far as delivery and unloading.