Taking Samples and Bustin' Sod

I'm officially a sodbuster. I don't think I could have done it if it were virgin prairie, but it was 10-year-old pasture. First, though, I took soil samples.

I borrowed a soil probe from the Conrad MSU Extension office and took 10 samples from the 3/4-acre garden field and 15 samples from the 15-acre field. I mixed the samples (each field separate) and sent them in to a lab in Washington. They'll tell me what levels of macro- and micro-nutrients I have in my soil and tell me what I need more of.





Here are the soil turds:



Back to the sod. Breaking ground is a violent activity, but it was satisfying. I think that had more to do with wanting a sense of order and creating a clean palette, than it did fulfilling some masculine desire to tear stuff up.

A couple days ago, Clyde mowed all the grass down.



Then last night (finishing up under a near-full moon) I went over the field with an implement called a Noble blade, which is a 4-foot wide single blade that cuts a few inches underneath the soil, severing the roots of the grass. After making a pass, it hardly looks as though anything happened, but while dragging the implement across the field you can see the grass rising as the blade passes underneath, then falling back down again, like a cartoon mole traveling underground.




Today, I hooked up the plow and made multiple passes in different directions with spikes (rather than shovels).



This basically chopped up the big chunks made by the Noble blade. After the roots have dried a couple of days, I'll go over the ground with a disk, which will further chop up the pieces of sod.