Organic Gardener's Composting by Steve Solomon
page 81 of 245 (33%)
page 81 of 245 (33%)
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nutrients. In fact, spring grass may be as good an animal feed as
alfalfa or other legume hay. Young ryegrass, for example, may exceed two percent nitrogen-equaling about 13 percent protein. That's why cattle and horses on fresh spring grass frisk around and why June butter is so dark yellow, vitamin-rich and good-flavored. In late spring, grasses begin to form seed and their chemical composition changes. With the emergence of the seed stalk, nitrogen content drops markedly and the leaves become more fibrous, ligninous, and consequently, more reluctant to decompose. At pollination ryegrass has dropped to about l percent nitrogen and by the time mature seed has developed, to about 0.75 percent. These realities have profound implications for hay-making, for using grasses as green manures, and for evaluating the C/N of hay you may be planning to use in a compost heap. In earlier times, making grass hay that would be nutritious enough to maintain the health of cattle required cutting the grass before, or just at, the first appearance of seed stalks. Not only did early harvesting greatly reduce the bulk yield, it usually meant that without concern for cost or hours of labor the grass had to be painstakingly dried at a time of year when there were more frequent rains and lower temperatures. In nineteenth-century England, drying grass was draped by hand over low hurdles, dotting each pasture with hundreds of small racks that shed water like thatched roofs and allowed air flow from below. It is obvious to me where the sport of running hurdles came from; I envision energetic young countryfolk, pepped up on that rich spring milk and the first garden greens of the year, exuberantly racing each other across the just-mowed fields during haying season. |
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