Rolling Dog Farm Blog

It's that time of year again — getting the compost spread on the pastures.  We try to wait as late as possible in the fall, after we've moved animals out of the pastures but before the first heavy snow arrives.  And once or twice, we've been surprised by an earlier-than-usual 'season-ender' snowfall, forcing us to hold over a windrow or two of compost until the following spring.

This fall I have some help in the form of my brother Mike, visiting from Bozeman this week, who was driving the tractor when I took that photo above.  He — like every guy — loves any work that involves tractors, and this time of year we have plenty of that to go around.  (It's also National Put-Your-Relatives-To-Work Week.)  Late October and early November are crunch times around here, just like May is — a lot of time-consuming pasture work, but very dependent on the weather to determine what you can and can't get done on any given day.

We've already spread new grass seed in those parts of the pastures where we had sprayed for cheatgrass last fall or where we just had thin areas that needed some renovation.  (Cheatgrass is a nasty, invasive plant I've written about before.)  We're using the compost to lightly layer on top of the new seed.  It's cold enough that the seed will stay there, dormant under the compost and winter snows, until next spring.  This is called "frost seeding."  If you do this too early and get some warm weather, your seed can sprout — and then the tiny green shoots, along with their fragile new roots, will be killed by the subsequent cold weather. 

You may be wondering why we don't just wait till spring to plant, right?  Well, for a couple of reasons.  One, frost seeding gives the grass a head-start in the spring, when it might be too wet and muddy, and the ground too soft, for us to get in with the tractor and spreader to plant then.  (We do plant some grass seed in the spring, but it's usually around the buildings or along the drive where the ground is firmer and we don't have to worry about impacting grazing ground.)  Second, it also spreads out (no pun intended) the pasture management workload between two seasons, rather than trying to do it all in May. 

Hopefully the snow will hold off long enough for us to finish!

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