Category: Soil Health

Harvesting our Undies!!

The day finally came to harvest our Undies!!!

If you remember back about two months, the kids and I buried some tighty whities in a tall fescue field by our house. The plan was to dig them up and see how much activity was in the soil that would breakdown the underwear.

If I’m being honest, I was nervous. I mean, what if they looked like perfectly white underwear??!!! What if our soil that had been tilled just this past fall had really killed all the microbes?! What if our efforts to keep our soils healthy didn’t matter?! What if, what if, what if….

But there was nothing left to do but dig….

and dig….

and then we finally started to get a glimpse of the dirty waistband. It was an exciting moment as we pulled them out and saw that there was absolutely nothing left. Like nothing!!!!! Holy smokes!

It was a pretty fun experiment to see how much just 60 days in some healthy soil can destroy a pair of tighty whities!

This isn’t the usual way we check on the health of our soil. But it was a cool way to connect with an item that everyone is familiar with to the soil that we as farmers are familiar with.

Our latest crop, Tighty Whities

We aren’t exactly “growing” the infamous tighty whities on our farm, but we did plant one giant pair!!

Last week the kids and I teamed up with 9 other women and Marion County Soil & Water Conservation District and buried a very large pair of underwear on our respective farms.

The project named the, “Soil Your Undies Challenge” begins with the underwear being buried 3-6″ deep in the soil. In 2 months we will dig them back up to take a look at the condition of the cotton briefs. With the help of microbes, worms, bugs and other creatures who live in healthy soils we hope to have barely recognizable pieces of tighty whities.

Managing our soils is something that we take very seriously on our farm. Like many farmers we realize that our soil has a direct link to our ability to continue growing healthy crops year after year.

The field where we buried the underwear this year was just planted this spring with tall fescue. This crop will not be harvested until the summer of 2020. And hopefully it will stay in the ground, which means we will not till the soil, for another 5 to 7 years. It would be interesting to do this project year after year, to see the change of our soils activity with the years of non-tillage.

Our soil health is something that is very important to us. It is also something that we are continually learning more and more about as our farming practices evolve, regulations change, and markets fluctuate, farmers in Oregon are always looking to improve and do better.

**Photo credit goes to Capital Press & Marion County Soil & Water Conservation District.

Spraying Field Video

Ever wonder what it’s like to be in a sprayer, or why we’re out there at all? Check out my video from this morning on a beautiful day here in Oregon.

I go over a lot of different topics including cover crops, taking care of the soil, technology, and spraying herbicides.

As always I’m here for any questions about why we do what we do! Post below or contact me directly on the “Contact” tab. Thanks for stopping in and have a great day!

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