Our land was raw. We decided to use a high fence deer breeder pen we had used for breeder bucks for our hunting operation and convert it to our first farm. Huge mesquite and huisache trees filled the space along with south Texas brush and grasses. We dozed the big trees and decided to keep it all in the plot and burn it down. The native tree and brush ashes were the perfect soil amendment to till back into the soil. We let the cattle back in the plot to eat the stubble left of the native cactus. It was a surreal experience watching the rough ranch landscape become farm soil. It took months of root plowing, manual labor picking up small branches left behind, and finally discing and tilling to get the soil just right. We then went in with our home grown horse menure and wood chip compost and disced it in again. The last piece of the soil amendment puzzle was adding cinderite which is a mineral from the interior of a volcano in Utah to add minerals into the soil. We then added hay and burned that down and finally tilled the burnt hay into the now soft soil.
What a transformation. I think grandpa would be proud.
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