Star & Sparrow’s first soil sample tests are done and the results are... acidic.  We’re not talking pure vinegar here, fortunately. More like strong black coffee. Still, with pH results coming in between 5.1 and 5.4, it’s out of a healthy range for most plants and common food crops. The right pH is vital for any given plant’s ability to utilize available nutrients, so even with a decent nutrient profile (ours is mostly ok but very low on nitrogen) most of what we’d like to grow cannot be expected to thrive under current conditions.

The obvious answer is to apply lime. The primary active ingredient in pulverized limestone is calcium carbonate (same basic ingredient in over-the-counter antacids) and is frequently used to raise pH levels in soil. Liming can be very effective in helping to maintain an environment where food crops can obtain optimal performance. The application is pretty straightforward, costs are reasonable, and results are almost always predictably good, or at least better than doing nothing. But right away, we have a dilemma here—remember that thing I wrote about letting the land be what it wants to be? Well, it wants to be acidic. We want it to be more neutral. Grrrr. 

By most accounts, applying lime will not be detrimental to our conservation goals but it’s still an important consideration. How will established pasture plants be affected by raising pH? Which organisms (microbes, insects, birds, mammals, tiger kings) will be impacted by this change? The general consensus among farmers that I’ve talked to is that the pasture will ‘pop’, meaning that it will be a more productive, lush green wonderland. That doesn’t end the considerations though. The logistics of farming can take a team of NASA engineers to sort out for high probability of success. Here’s how the last week played out for us:

Day 1 - soil is acidic, need to apply lime.
Day 2 - friend provides resource recommendations, we make a plan to lime soon.
Day 3 - Local haymaker (currently our only source of agricultural income) stops by to plan hay cutting —would prefer it if we didn’t lime until after the first cut, about a month from now. Less lime lost on the tall grass, more on the soil when applied later. Plan from day 2 changes to liming a little later.
Day 4 - I realize while mowing the lawn that it doesn’t make sense to lime in early summer —getting little to no rain to wash it into the soil means it will just sit there and possibly blow away. Yay, analytical skills! Coronapocalypse lockdown hasn’t made my mind too soft… yet. 
Day 5 - new plan is to wait until after the second cut of hay in the fall, then lime, then prepare planting areas for next spring. Areas that don’t get planted will still be ok because the hay should be even better. Hey—better hay!

Our liming consideration highlights a common procedural challenge for me—act now and get more done, or wait for more information and potentially get better done. If one thinks about this too much, the dreaded two-faced monster known as Analysis Paralysis will land on your head and at that point you might as well crawl back into bed. Our dogs love it when this happens, but it doesn’t result in much farming. At some point, you just have to act on the plan you have now. Or not. Ask me again tomorrow about liming—the plan will probably have changed again by then. 

Remember how popular culture used to make fun of farmers as thick-skulled simple folk? Well that really couldn’t be further from the truth—today’s successful farmers need to be able to do more than drive a tractor. They must be skilled geologists, botanists, chemists, veterinarians, accountants, general contractors, meteorologists, marketers, mechanics, and as you might suspect, most still have to do their own laundry, too. I’m not sure how many of these things we’ll be good at, but it’s been fun trying to find out. Except maybe today—it’s raining, so I have to fold socks!