The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Techniques and skills => Topic started by: Miss Piggy on March 26, 2011, 08:33:30 pm
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Hi all,
We have a one and a quarter acre paddock that is desperate for lime. A recent soil test showed a ph of 5.8.
We have been unable to find anyone locally who will lime this small field for us.
Is there any way we can do this ourselves. We are about to take possession of a tractor, would a fertiliser attachment on the tractor do the job or can we spread it by hand in anyway?
We would greatly appreciate any help or advice.
Thanks for your time.
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Hi Miss Piggy,
We did ours back in January - luckily we bought a small Vicon spreader (our Chirstmas present to each other - how sad is that) we used the 'Granular' lime just remember to clean out the spreader and ALL the nooks and crannies otherwise the lime eats into them.
If we hadn't had the Chrissy present to ourselves then I would have donned rubber gloves and done it by-hand - i have spread fertilizer this way before. Bit long winded and you can't get it so even but it can be done. If you use some sort of markers (electric fencing stakes are good) at intervals 6' apart roughly in lines - I put the fert in the wheelbarrow and part filled a bucket from the wheelbarrow or fert bag - don't over fill the bucket, holdng it in onehand spread with the other throwing in an arc - if you pace yourself you can see how much you are covering - I found I was throwing at 3 strides. Line yourself up with the marker keep looking at the marker not what you are doing with the bucket. wear a mask and make sure it's not windy as there is some dust with the lime and you don't want it blowing back at you.
Hope you can make sense of this.
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One tonne to the acre will raise the pH 0.3 points. Don't apply more than 2 tonne to the acre at any one time.
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Hi both,
Thanks so much for your very helpful replies.
I am new to the forum and this was my first post.
That is great news, we had been hoping we could get a spreader that would do both fertiliser and lime.
Just need to sort the gear out, move the 2 dexters into another field and get the job done.
I see dyedinthewool you are are in pembrokeshire we are near Cardigan so can I ask where you sourced your pelleted lime. Was going to try CCF, haven't looked into that yet.
Many thanks again to you both.
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We got one of these, the 250 mounted version and it is solidly made and easy to use and to clean. We found that for fertiliser it needed a cover over the top otherwise the stirrer inside got a bit enthusiastic.
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If you want to use powdered lime there are a couple of small points.
Don't try spreading it on anything but a flat calm day. Any wind and half the lime will be in the next county.
Powdered lime doesn't run downhill unless it is stirred or agitated. So the hopper needs some sort of paddle or there will be a vertical hole in the lime powder over the hopper outlet and nothing will be feeding through to the land.
Don't let the lime get wet until it is on the land. Damp lime sets like a soft form of concrete. This will clog the spreader and make its cleaning difficult.
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Hi both,
Thanks so much for your very helpful replies.
I am new to the forum and this was my first post.
That is great news, we had been hoping we could get a spreader that would do both fertiliser and lime.
Just need to sort the gear out, move the 2 dexters into another field and get the job done.
I see dyedinthewool you are are in pembrokeshire we are near Cardigan so can I ask where you sourced your pelleted lime. Was going to try CCF, haven't looked into that yet.
Many thanks again to you both.
Hi Miss Piggy,
We got ours from carmarthen and pumpsaint Farmer in St Clears, but I should think CCF will also have it.
We has a 600 kg bag (one of those big tonny type bags) (that was for roughly 2.5 acre's - we are doing it in two goes so will put another 600kg in the autumn) and bucketed it into our small vicon spreader. The other sort of Lime is harder to spread.
just about right now for spreading with the bit of rain we have had... it takes a couple of weeks to dissapear into the ground.
Did you get to Whitland machinery sale last Saturday there was several spreaders there. Don't know the prices as we didn't get down on the sale day.
Too busy getting our hay paddock ready to over seed.
Good luck