September 3, 2023 • 34 mins
DO NOT DO THIS IN AN URBAN SPACE. You can grow grass for fodder, feed, or wildlife using this complete approach. Grass that grows feet in weeks, providing calories, habitat, and erosion control.
This system is completely free. You don’t need to buy expensive fertilizers, toxic herbicide, or buy special tools. I share how to manage grassland spaces. Use this to restore land, create habitat, start a forest, or feed animals.
Share this with other homesteaders. Stop killing your grass by managing it the wrong way. Sequester carbon to grow grass as a resource. Feed your animals all winter with even a small amount of pasture. Prevent erosion.
Discover secrets used by PGA golf courses, Forestry services, and top Pasture managers. Grow more grass with fewer inputs.
To see the videos mentioned and learn more about green grass year around, join us at https://www.prosperityhomestea...
#GrowGrass #Grasslands #NativeHabitat #GrassfedBeef #PastureAnimals #RaisingSheep
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prosperity-homestead--3659183/support.
This system is completely free. You don’t need to buy expensive fertilizers, toxic herbicide, or buy special tools. I share how to manage grassland spaces. Use this to restore land, create habitat, start a forest, or feed animals.
Share this with other homesteaders. Stop killing your grass by managing it the wrong way. Sequester carbon to grow grass as a resource. Feed your animals all winter with even a small amount of pasture. Prevent erosion.
Discover secrets used by PGA golf courses, Forestry services, and top Pasture managers. Grow more grass with fewer inputs.
To see the videos mentioned and learn more about green grass year around, join us at https://www.prosperityhomestea...
#GrowGrass #Grasslands #NativeHabitat #GrassfedBeef #PastureAnimals #RaisingSheep
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prosperity-homestead--3659183/support.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
How to grow grass annoyingly fast.Hey, this justin hit from Prosperity Homestead,
and I'm gonna show you a layman'sterms method that you can use to
start growing grass annoyingly fast. Nowwhat do I mean by that? It
means thick, lush grass growing fastevery day, adding inches every week.
(00:21):
As you've seen in many of mypodcast videos, the grass just goes crazy.
Especially after a rain, I canadd a foot of height to that
grass. And it's all because ofa unique system that I've put together that
honor soil biology, honors what thegrass needs, and ultimately cultivates thick,
luscious pastures. Now I say annoyinglyfast because if you do this in an
(00:44):
urban space, as I found out, you're gonna get in a lot of
trouble. Because it's a grass systemthat is designed to hold soil in place,
to create deep roots, to capturea large amount of carbon, to
be resilient against wildlife and other wearand tear that happens in an environment.
To stand up against heavy rains,because in Martinsville, Henry County, we
(01:06):
can get up the forty inches ofrainy year, sometimes two inches at a
time. And so this grass systemhad to be durable and grow quickly so
that it can take up space.Now, this is the kind of grass
system you might put in place aftera logging project. So somebody's removed trees,
they've regraded. Now you want grassto stay in place. You want
that grass to thrive. It couldbe a system you use in an area
(01:30):
that has animal traffic. So you'redoing a rotational system and you want that
grass to grow back before the animalsget onto it. This is an excellent
system to use. Now I'm goingto cover the system at a high level
in a way that you can actuallyimplement it. And it has three key
elements. Number one the enzyme activityin the soil. Number two the types
(01:53):
of seed and plant you put out. And number three the cycle in which
you cut it. Okay, becauseyou don't need to cut it could be
grazing, but there's a cycle involved. Number one, the soil must be
biologically active and allow for the exchangeof nutrients. What does that mean,
Well, it means there's a bunchof microbes down There are a bunch of
(02:14):
funguses and bacterias and different things thatcolonize the soil that help convert minerals into
usable plant material and then also allowsnutrients to come out. So part of
this is the soil biology. Partof this is the pH level of the
soil. But as you've seen inmy videos, I've been able to grow
(02:35):
grass on clay and the way thatwe do this is we use lime to
bring up the pH to a neutrallevel or bring down the pH to a
neutral level. You could test yoursoil. And then what we apply to
that grass is to that area that'sgoing to have grass is fermented liquids.
Okay, Now, these fermented liquidswere made with some kind of grass that's
(02:58):
already healthy or some kind of plantmaterial that already contains these enzymes. Sometimes
we're going to add calmaneure to it, so calves that have grazed on pasture,
and we're going to ferment this insideof a barrel and then use the
liquid from the fermentation as a dressingof the soil. Now we do this
(03:19):
even before seed goes out there,but once the grass starts growing, we
also put this out on the fields. Now this liquid does have a smell
to it and it can be producedtwo ways. I have videos to go
into depth on each of these ways, So we're just going to give you
a high level right here. Thefirst way is simply getting a barrel and
filling it full of fresh cut clippings, putting water in it, and through
(03:45):
anaerobic digestion, we're going to fermentthat grass and we've added some calmanure to
it to kind of kick it off, because we want the stomach enzymes from
the cow, we want the enzymesthat are on the ground. We want
to have all that stuff colonize.And so you can either use a bubbling
system where you put aerator in thebottom and get some air into it and
(04:08):
cultivate that set up bacteria and fungusesand all kinds of things, and or
you could use it in a biodigesterand just use the liquid that comes out
of the biodigester. Now, inboth ways you will be creating methane gas.
So if you could trap the gasand use it, that's all the
better. But what we're doing iswe're fermenting the grass over two or three
(04:30):
days, squeezing off that liquid,which is a liquid fertilizer, but it's
an enzymatic fertilizer. It contains differentthings. Now, can this process contain
a coali and other things. Yes, you do not want to get this
liquid on you, but you canput it over the soil at a rate
of one to five or one toten, and that means for every part
(04:51):
of the liquid you add additional partswater. So this will burn grass in
some cases because it is a verystrong fertilizer. But what we're doing is
we're inoculating the soil. Set Nowyou can also inoculate with different fungal activity,
because some fungal activities will remove grubs, will deter moles. It just
(05:15):
really depends on your area. Andthe way to do that is to find
funguses that grow in your area,blend them in a blender with some water,
and then provide that over top ofthe soil. Or you can buy
spores, or you can buy differentkinds of powdery mixes. But the key
is what we're doing to the soilis creating the very best environment for the
(05:39):
plants to grow. Okay, now, next thing we're gonna do is we're
going to choose the right seeds.Most people make the mistake of just going
out and buying grass seed and puttingit out there. Now, some grasses
grow tall Some grasses grow short,Some grasses grow fast, some grasses grow
slow. Your field or area whereyou want to grow grass has different light
(06:00):
conditions. So some grass grows inthe shade, some grass grows in the
sun. Some grass has high nutritionalvalue, some grass has low nutritional value.
Now you could go get a pastureblend of grass which typically has three
to four types of grasses, mighthave you know, Kentucky blue grass,
it could have. This is justa bunch of different kinds of grasses.
(06:24):
The ideal, though, is tomimic the grasses that are likely to be
in your area as native grasses.Now, native grasses themselves do not have
a high coleric value when it comesto having animals graze on it, and
that might be better suited for areaswhere you need the deep root structure in
order to prevent erosion. So whatI ended up doing is the hinds fifty
(06:46):
seven of grasses, but I madesure I had in it low pile white
clover. Okay, white clover isa nitrogen fixing plant, and we wanted
to have that in there to actuallywe feed the tree. So now we
got to soil a little bit better, so the nutrient exchange is cleaner,
and now we want to add nutrientsto the soil, which is atmospheric nitrogen,
(07:09):
not actually nitrogen that you buy atthe store, and then atmospheric nitrogen
goes in through the clover. Now, when we're establishing grass and we have
animal pressure, we want to havered clover in there because red clover is
going to give you a little bitmore bulk, gives the animals something to
eat. Now, you want tokeep animals off of this until you have
a good thick fifty percent density ofgrass. We'll tell you what that means
(07:30):
here in a little bit. Butthe seed mix that you're choosing has to
do with the combination of conditions aswell as both bulk of grass and feeding.
So you can have white clover oryellow clover, you can have red
clover, you can have alfalfa inthere, you can have other nitrogen fixing
(07:54):
legooms in there. And so we'renot really establishing grass initially, more of
a cover crop. So we wantto go quick quickly from clay soil,
maybe a light top dressing of compostor top soil, and then we're inoculating
all of that. We're using nativebiome in the sense of the soil innoculation
(08:16):
and sense of the maybe we're usingcompost t we're maybe we're fermenting and using
that liquid. Then we're establishing thecover crop, which is fifty fifty grass
and legooms. And then after thegrass starts to establish and we're gonna have
three to four different types of grassthere, we are now into the management
(08:37):
stage. So one thing about applyingthe seed though, is that we apply
the seed in series. So weapply the seed immediately when the ground is
disturbed, and then we'll come backlater and we'll set again. And we're
using like a one third mixture.So if they recommend, you know,
a pound the seed per acre ortwo pounds of seed per acre, we're
(08:58):
gonna put one third of that ininitially, and then we're gonna come back
later in a couple of months putanother third down, and then another third
down, because again we don't necessarilyhave the environmental conditions necessary for those seeds
to thrive, so we're using timeto have a better chance of hitting the
right conditions. We also want todust our seed with straw, and we're
(09:20):
going to do that each time weseed, so the straw is actually there
to keep the birds who eat theseed, because the birds will eat the
seed. Now we start getting thoseyoung sprouts. You get that green haze
across the guard, across the lawn, and that grass starts to grow.
Now, the first reflex in anurban space is that when grass gets about
six inches high, to go inthere and mow it. But we have
(09:43):
to understand a few things about howgrass functions and how grass grows in order
to mow at the right times andthe right height. So now we're looking
at that third part. This isa three legged stool. You need to
do all three of these well.You don't have to do them perfect,
but all three of these well,and you'll get grass that grows annoyingly fast.
(10:03):
Now again, annoyingly fast in anurban space is what I discovered.
But if I was in a pastureor a field, I can simply just
put animals on it. Because,as we're going to talk about shortly,
that cutting cycle is just as valuablein the growth of the grass as the
planting cycle. And when I talkabout fifty percent density, and that's the
point where we can put pressure onthe soil, I'm talking about if you
(10:24):
if you drew out a one footby one foot square and you determine the
square inches, and then you determinethe amount of space the grass takes up.
We want to have fifty percent ormore being took up by grass.
So this is a survey method thatgives you as you could do four or
(10:45):
five samples. Then you do themath and you'll know that the surface area
is covered fifty percent by grass.We don't want to worry about the clover,
we don't want to worry about theother plants that they're in there.
We want to know that grass stalksare taking up fifty percent or more of
the surface area in our samples.And now what this does is this allows
us to have less open space onthe soil, less exposed soil, and
(11:07):
then as we mow appropriately or wescythe appropriately, any of the thatch that
falls will fall between the grass andprovide additional habitat for worms, microbes,
and the biome that is in thesoil that is ultimately feeding the grass.
We also want to make sure thatwe get enough root establishment before we start
(11:31):
cutting the grass as well, soon our level areas, we can start
cutting the grass at six to teninches. If the grass is at fifty
per density. We need to lookat the grass to make sure it doesn't
become stalky because we want to cutthe grass before it goes to seed.
We're cutting the grass before it goesto seed. And by the way,
this is a complete course. Youdo this, it will work. I
(11:54):
want to see more grass. Grasscaptures carbon from the atmosphere. Grass protects
soil, it holds nutrients, Itprovides food for your animals. I want
you to use this and tell mehow well it works, because ultimately,
the more grass you have on yourproperty, unless you have trees, you
know, but you need to grassto establish the trees. But my point
(12:15):
is if you cut it too soon, you're gonna leave bare spots that will
be damaged. If you cut ittoo late, the grass will be all
stalky and you won't have the leafsurface area necessary to have the photosynthesis that
gives you healthy, strong growth.So we're looking to cut the grass after
it has two or more side shoots. So you're gonna get down there,
(12:37):
And my neighbors looked at me likeI was an idiot. But you're gonna
get down there on your hands andknees, and you're gonna be breaking through
the grass with your hands, lookingfor grass that the majority in that sample
area has two or more side branchingleaves, and so you're gonna you're gonna
look and it depends on the typeof grass what that's gonna look like.
(12:58):
But if it has who are more, then you can cut as up to
one third of the biomass out ofthe grass. So if the grass is
six inches tall, you can cutoff two inches and so that's one third
of the total height of the grassyou can cut off, and that means
you're going to have four inch tallgrass. Now for a lot of people,
(13:20):
that's very confusing because four inches seemslike a tall, deep, thick
grass. But that's what we're lookingfor here, folks. We're looking to
cultivate tall thick grass now mechanically.Initially you're going to cut the grass mechanically.
There will be areas like slopes thatare more difficult to access, where
we may allow the grass to growsix inches, ten inches, eighteen inches,
(13:45):
because again, as tall as thegrass is, that's how deep the
roots are going to be in theground. And for slope stabilization, And
I got this from the Department ofForestry in Virginia. The deeper the roots
are, the better the slope stabilization. And then that ass can be cut.
If it gets a little stalky orit has more than two shoots,
it can be just cut with ascythe and then rake the materials raked off
(14:07):
the top. Now, what dowe do with the materials that we rake
off the grass? Because if it'slevel ground and you're mechanically mowing it,
you can simply just leave that thatchon the soil because you're only taking off
one third of the growth. Buton a slope, you need to take
off all of the extra grass becauseit's you don't want it to clump and
kill the grass on the slope.What do we do with that grass we
(14:28):
raked off, Well, the bestthing to do is to chop it up
and go back to where we startit, ferment that grass, and then
use the fermented materials to put backon the soil. And that's gonna again,
it's gonna help start cultivating this biome. We're gonna test the soil pH
and we're gonna move that soil peach. It's close to neutral as we can
(14:50):
get. It doesn't have to beneutral. It could be a little acidic,
it could be a little base.It doesn't matter, as long as
it's as close to neutral as wecan get it. And then we're gonna
sand up all the pasture area orthe lawn area to make sure that we
have consistent application, because there couldbe some areas such as under oak trees,
that are a little more acidic.It might need some spot lining.
And we always use again the onethird method, where if they would recommend
(15:13):
a pound of lime, we're gonnaput one third of that on and then
we're going to do it over acycle of time with testing. Are you
still with me, because this soundslike a lot of work, but I'm
going to give you a very easyway to make it less work. But
the point being is that we're cultivatingsoil biology. We're overseating and sometimes top
(15:35):
dressing with composts, but we're certainlyadding this liquid fertilizer that's coming from the
grass itself. We're fermenting the grass, we're expanding its biological elements or benefits,
and they were putting it back outon there. If the pH level
is good, you're gonna tend tohave good, better enzymes, and you're
going to have less likely to havethat rancid look. So if you're doing
(15:56):
this fermentation and you've got like awhite film over the top of it,
or it just sounds kind of rancid, you can put some air into it
and kind of loosen that up.You can also take the grass clippings and
compost them and then use that biologicallyactive compost as a top dressing. Now,
if you're doing this for a lawn, how do you get your grass
from six to eight inches down towhat a lot of people like is like
(16:18):
a two inch grass. Well,I'm going to tell you you don't do
that because that's kind of dumb.If your front lawn is only two inches
high, it's not retaining water,it's not retaining moisture, it's not soaking
materials into the ground. You'll tendto have evaporation before the water can soak
into the ground. You're going totend to have these weird spots and things
(16:38):
because the grass will get scorched.I'm recommending a four to five inch even
six inch cut for a lawn.Now that's where I get into a little
bit of challenge in a city,because again, this grass method can add
feet to your grass in the courseof a week during your rainy season,
and that's appropriate for slopes, butit's not necessarily appropriate for near your house,
(17:02):
and so it can get out ofhand, and we're going to again
tell you a way to keep itmaintained fast and forever and create a huge
value out of this. But doyou see what we're doing here. We're
respecting the soil, We're giving theplant the ideal growing conditions. We're cutting
the grass at appropriate times, sowe're cutting it before it goes to seed,
(17:23):
and we're cutting it when it's hadenough growth on it to show us
that it's recovering from the cut.We're using mowers with very sharp blades.
We're using mowers that are balanced out, and we're going over the grass slowly.
We're not buzzing through it on azero turn of blowing grass everywhere.
We're only cutting one third of thegrass off, which is enough that we
(17:48):
are leveling out the grass so youget that nice clean look and we get
the grass. Clippings fall down andthey are easily digested or decomposed on the
soil surface, so you don't needto dethatch or anything. Because you're actually
building soil. You're building a blanketover top of that clay, and you're
protecting that soil, and you're reallyjust feeding the grass with its own clippings,
(18:08):
so you don't necessarily need to bagit. If you bag it,
you can ferment it and use theliquids to treat the soil. But ultimately
we're now getting into these cycles wherewe're getting this thicker, thicker grass that
grows very quickly, and on slopeswe might let it grow three or four
feet tall, because again, slopestabilization is more important than a beautiful,
(18:32):
clean cut of grass. Also onslopes we're cutting it differently and removing the
biomass. But the bottom line here, folks, is there is an easier
way to manage this. Because youmight be saying, well, justin it
sounds like a lot of mowing,and it might be, But what if
you just let the grass grow andnow you go from grass to savannah,
(18:57):
and from savannah you can go toa tree system. It's initially going to
be pines, it's going to bea nitrogen fixing trees, and then from
a basic tree system you go toa forest system, which may include different
layers of the forest could even becomea food forest, which would eventually shade
(19:17):
out the ground and all the grasswould go away. Now you could go
into silver pasture, which would allowstrips of trees and grass in between it,
and so you still have the grazingvalue, but you've eliminated all of
the mowing and things like that.And what will happen, and we showed
it in a number of videos,is the grass will grow really tall,
and then in a storm it'll allget knocked over, and then new grass
(19:40):
will grow through that old grass becausethe seed, of course drops, and
then the cycle will continue and you'llend up with a layer of topsoil.
And so we've now turned atmospheric carboninto a biome, and that biome becomes
a savannah or grassland, and itbecomes habitat for deer. It becomes habitat
for it will not attract a bunchof rats and mice. It just doesn't
(20:03):
work that way because when the seedfalls and the mice come, then foxes
will come and eat the mice.Owls will eat the mice. Other beneficial
creatures higher in the food chain willcome and eat the mice. You also
have black snakes and other things eatthe mice, and so ultimately this is
something you can do in your zonefour. You can do this in your
zone five. You can do thisto re establish an area after it's been
(20:26):
forested. You can do this totransform an area from unused and derelict to
a forest system. It is apowerful approach. If you want to turn
this into pasture. We can eliminatethe mowing by adding grazing animals. Now,
sheep will cut the grass off reallyshort, and it's okay because if
(20:49):
the grass is biologically active and hasthe enzymes, if the soil has a
good pH, then when the sheepeat the grasses, they're essentially pelletizing the
grass and reinoculating the grass and puttingit back onto the soil. So the
grass, after the initial establishment andthe initial mowing routines, the grass will
(21:12):
tolerate the sheep even though they mightcut it off pretty low. But you
want to monitor them. You don'twant them to eat half of it or
eat three quarters of it. Youwant them to eat a third off the
top and move them to the nextfield. That might mean different rotation cycles,
it might mean more sheep or lesssheep, but ultimately the sheep will
mow the grass for you. Nowlet's say you like grass fed beef and
(21:34):
you've got a little more acreage.Well, the same thing goes now,
Now cows are going to more ripthe grass. They're going to grab it
and rip it, and that's okayif the grass is tall enough. When
they go to rip the grass,they're not going to pull the roots out
of the ground. So you wantto monitor again, monitor your moisture levels
because the cows will imprint the soil. You want to monitor the amount of
(21:56):
grass that they're consuming in a day. And you course, you want to
keep them moving across the grass sothat we can keep the establishment there.
But the same technique I've shared herealso works to repair pasture. So those
cows are out there and they've imprintedthe pasture, they've manured the pasture,
which is the same as what we'redoing with the top dressing. They've peed
(22:17):
all over the pasture, which isthe same that we're doing with the inoculation
of enzymes. So the manures andthe rain will inoculate the enzymes, and
the pe will inoculate the enzymes.So essentially, what you can do is
keep cows on a field for ashort period of time, drag the field
afterwards, and then the impressions soyou can set it right after they've been
(22:40):
on it. You can come throughand drag it and then so that spreads
out the manure, and then youcan leave the field idle for it to
grow back. Now, it couldgrow back with some weeds in it or
other things that you don't want,and that's what we're going to do with
the sampling and monitoring to make surewe don't have a lot of that.
And there may be times where youwant to impound animals longer than other times,
(23:03):
but there might be a series oftimes where you do like Joel Salaston
talks about, and move the cowsand then follow them with chickens who will
do the spreading for you, andthen they'll eat a lot of those weed
seeds. And then after the chickensare off, you seed the field,
drag it and do your testing andthen let them field recover. Now,
what will tend to happen over timeif you keep the grass rotation and cutting.
(23:29):
You know, you don't put thecows back on the grass until you've
got two or three of the sideshoots. Is showing the grasses recovered.
If you keep the rotation strong,you don't have the seed. You could
probably seed once a year, youcan probably see every two years. But
the key is the enzomatic cycles,soil pH blend of grasses, blend of
(23:52):
nitrogen fixing plants, and the waythat we're monitoring the density of the grass,
the way that we're monitoring the heightof the grass and the pressure on
the grass. All of these thingscome together. And I'm starting to get
passionate about this type of activity.But all these things come together to make
your grass grow. And what you'venow learned, it's not annoying to you
(24:15):
because it's calories. So whether you'rerunning cheap cows, goats don't typically like
the grass a lot unless he getstoo overgrown. And then you can come
in and they'll eat all the woodystalks down and they'll trample the grass.
Chickens on pasture, rabbits on pasture. You're now able to take a piece
of land, recover it from bearsoil, establish a savannah or grassland area,
(24:42):
and now come in with animals.Now, if you just want to
leave it all alone, you canuse this to create habitat for quail,
you can use this to go fromfeed plot to savannah with heavy deer.
So dear love tall grass. Youwant to cut channels in it. You
(25:03):
want to cut paths in it sothe deer can move through the grass and
feel protected yet still have a lineof sight. We talk about that in
other videos. But the key hereis it doesn't take a lot of monitory.
I know people get passionate about theirlawns. You're gonna have that same
level of passion, except you're gonnabe producing calories for animals, so you're
gonna have meat on hoof. You'regonna be producing habitat for birds and bees
(25:26):
and beneficial insects. You're gonna besupporting wildlife and the health of your wildlife.
You're gonna have less inputs. SoI didn't say anything about bringing in
anything other than seeds. You wantto make sure your seed blend is appropriate
for your area. You're gonna havebiomass because, as we've shown in the
grass fed garden videos, as we'veshown in the composting videos, when you
(25:48):
take that grass off you can compostit. You're gonna have winter feed because
many of these fields. If you'veif you're cutting hay you can cut into
and turn it to baales the store. This is a blessing. It's annoying
to people in the city that don'tunderstand it. It's annoying to urban spaces
(26:10):
that have zoning laws that say youcan't have grass taller than ten inches,
even on slopes. By the way, if you cut your grass two inches
on a slope, you will haveerosion. No matter how thick that grass
is, you'll have erosion. You'llhave the need for outside resources, You'll
have nutrients wash off. You're gonnahave so many soil wash off, You're
gonna have so many problems. Sixinches is what you need. The even
(26:36):
lawn in the front yard six inches. You take your shoes off and you
walk around and that, Oh,it feels so great. The grass is
so thick. Neighbors will be envious. Actually, I've had neighbors that are
confused. So they'll come in andthey'll say, I've been driving by your
yard. Your yard is beautiful.It's so thick, green and luscious.
And then they come in and theysay, oh, why does it have
those little clover in it. Youshould put a weed and feed on that.
(26:57):
Why is it so tall? Youshould cut that, I said,
will not wait a second. Whenyou saw it from a distance, you
had a heart on. But whenyou see it up closed, now you're
all confused. What's the confusion.Take your shoes off and walk around in
this grass and they're like, oh, oh, we don't walk in our
lawn. You can walk in thislawn. This lawn will take the pressure
I've had somebody I don't even knowwho they are. Take their shoes off,
(27:19):
walk around in my yard. Thesmile opens up on their face and
they're like, Wow, this isnice. I see what you mean.
Now it can be cut at fourinches, it can cut five inches.
I think I'm usually around four tofive inches. But it'll grow out.
But the walking around barefoot is theclosing to the sail. Because the clover's
(27:40):
feed in the grass. The grasshas enough density in the soil to protect
the soil, and it remains niceand cool and fresh. On a ninety
degree day, and you're feeling yourfeet on the ground, it's almost cold.
That never has to be watered,that never has to be fed with
fertilizers. One of the reasons peopledon't walk on their lawns is because they
know it's a toxic pool of weedand feed and chemicals and nasty sprays.
(28:04):
The worst thing that's going to happenand my lawn is that you're gonna,
maybe I don't know, lay downand take an app because again, the
soil is healthy, the plants arehealthy. When your body touches that,
you're gonna feel that. And Iknow, maybe it's because I'm out there
(28:25):
in the grass on my hands andknees, just feeling around and parting the
grass and looking at it, andI've got a ruler out there and I'm
measuring the density and I'm doing math. You know, you don't. I'm
more of a citizen scientist than anythingelse. But the cycle of process is
complementary to an ecosystem, which doesn'tinhibit growth. It traps and soaks in
(28:52):
nutrients. It's soil that's biologically active, so there's that nutrient exchange. The
plants are doing their photo synthesis andbringing starches down to the soil while pumping
up water. The starches are beingexchanged with the mushrooms and the enzymes,
which they are then giving sugars tothe plant or giving other nutrients to the
plants. The yard takes care ofitself. The grasses that are more suitable
(29:15):
for shade grow fine in the shade. The grasses that are more suitable for
sun to tend to dominate the sunnyareas. But altogether, you're creating biomass
by trapping carbon from the atmosphere inthe soil. You're creating feed for animals.
You're creating feed for a compost bin. You're creating composts for your garden.
(29:37):
You're creating a luscious, beautiful ecosystemthat you can be proud of.
You can walk around barefoot, throwa picnic blanket out there. The kid
used to throw a blanket out thereand just lay in the grass. Look
at this, Look at this clouds. You're creating a recreational space. You're
creating an environment that doesn't require alot of maintenance. Because as actually will
(30:00):
start slowing down its growth as it'sat five to six inches, and so
you're cutting it off, it's gonnainstead of every week growing back, it
will grow back a little bit slowerin the areas that you're keeping cropped.
Now. In the areas that you'renot keeping cropped, it will grow afoot
in the rainy season and you don'tnecessarily want to mow it because it has
it put out its other shoots.But again, if you're rotating animals,
(30:26):
if you're willing to understand the differencebetween a slope and a flat area,
if you're willing to cultivate, you'regonna have what looks like a PGA golf
course. And that is the biggersecret of this. The methods that I've
described to you here are the holisticand natural methods used for some of the
PGA golf courses, some of thenatural ecosystems. It's recommended by the Department
(30:51):
of Forestry. It's been studied byuniversities who want pastures for grass fed beef.
Now I've simplified things a little bit. There's you know, there are
times you might add calcium or youmight add nutrients. It depends on the
condition of the field initially and thenultimately it is environmentally friendly. You can
restore habitat. If you're going togo the channel of wild animals, it's
(31:15):
a little bit different. If you'regoing to go to the channel of domesticated
animals, you're gonna put in fencing. It's gonna be a little bit different,
but it will grow like crazy,and I see that growth as abundance.
I see that growth as we're doingsomething right. We're capturing carbon,
sequestering it from the atmosphere. We'recreating a grass as a resource, and
(31:37):
we talk about that a lot inthe videos, and we're ultimately working with
nature rather than against it. Itis unnatural to cut your grass at two
inches. Now, when a PGAgolf course cuts the graphs grass at two
inches, they're doing that, andthey're they're putting sand in and they're doing
other things because it's a golf course. It's not your front yard. And
(32:00):
they're doing that because they're getting paidlarge amounts of money to do it.
But it's not the cost benefit analysisfor a homeowner is not there to pretty
much damage and shock the grass everytime you go through. If you're cutting
off a third of the grass,you could slowly get it down to three
or four inches if you want that. But ultimately, a five inch grass
(32:23):
that has a eighty to ninety percentdensity, you could throw a ball out
on it and it won't It won'tindent. You leave footprints in the yard
every time you walk across it.You can lay in that grass and feel
the coolness of the ground on thehottest and sunniest day. You don't have
to drag hoses around in water.You don't need a watering system. This
(32:45):
kind of approach is magical in thegrowth it gives you. It also tells
you when to put animals on andwhen to take animals off. It also
helps you use the biome and ecofertilizers that are already available on your property,
and then it ultimately helps you havegreen grass year round. If you
(33:07):
have questions about this method, Ido have a training program where we go
on site and we look specifically atdifferent lawns and then we list out some
of the holistic things that can bedone to either turn that grass into pasture,
turn that grass into natural habitat.And there will be times you might
want to oversee with natural grasses.Natural native Virginia grasses tend to clump,
(33:30):
so we might want to do thatbecause you're doing an English natural garden,
or you've got paths and it's anexhibit space. I'll be happy to look
at your nonprofit or your history place. The key is this stuff is management,
(33:51):
and it's pretty common management to placeswho pride themselves on a ecosystem of
grass rather than a a commercial,sanitized, cosmetic grass. And that's promocultural
aligned. That's people health, that'snature health, that's good quality soil.
(34:15):
I want to thank you for listening. If you have questions about this,
visit www dot prosperity homestead dot orgwhere we have numerous resources. Some of
the videos I mentioned will be there, and there's a free newsletter, so
you can go to the contact pageask your question, where you can join
our free newsletter. Thanks for listening. I'm justin hit with Prosperity Homestead
How to grow grass annoyingly fast.Hey, this justin hit from Prosperity Homestead,
and I'm gonna show you a layman'sterms method that you can use to
start growing grass annoyingly fast. Nowwhat do I mean by that? It
means thick, lush grass growing fastevery day, adding inches every week.
(00:21):
As you've seen in many of mypodcast videos, the grass just goes crazy.
Especially after a rain, I canadd a foot of height to that
grass. And it's all because ofa unique system that I've put together that
honor soil biology, honors what thegrass needs, and ultimately cultivates thick,
luscious pastures. Now I say annoyinglyfast because if you do this in an
(00:44):
urban space, as I found out, you're gonna get in a lot of
trouble. Because it's a grass systemthat is designed to hold soil in place,
to create deep roots, to capturea large amount of carbon, to
be resilient against wildlife and other wearand tear that happens in an environment.
To stand up against heavy rains,because in Martinsville, Henry County, we
(01:06):
can get up the forty inches ofrainy year, sometimes two inches at a
time. And so this grass systemhad to be durable and grow quickly so
that it can take up space.Now, this is the kind of grass
system you might put in place aftera logging project. So somebody's removed trees,
they've regraded. Now you want grassto stay in place. You want
that grass to thrive. It couldbe a system you use in an area
(01:30):
that has animal traffic. So you'redoing a rotational system and you want that
grass to grow back before the animalsget onto it. This is an excellent
system to use. Now I'm goingto cover the system at a high level
in a way that you can actuallyimplement it. And it has three key
elements. Number one the enzyme activityin the soil. Number two the types
(01:53):
of seed and plant you put out. And number three the cycle in which
you cut it. Okay, becauseyou don't need to cut it could be
grazing, but there's a cycle involved. Number one, the soil must be
biologically active and allow for the exchangeof nutrients. What does that mean,
Well, it means there's a bunchof microbes down There are a bunch of
(02:14):
funguses and bacterias and different things thatcolonize the soil that help convert minerals into
usable plant material and then also allowsnutrients to come out. So part of
this is the soil biology. Partof this is the pH level of the
soil. But as you've seen inmy videos, I've been able to grow
(02:35):
grass on clay and the way thatwe do this is we use lime to
bring up the pH to a neutrallevel or bring down the pH to a
neutral level. You could test yoursoil. And then what we apply to
that grass is to that area that'sgoing to have grass is fermented liquids.
Okay, Now, these fermented liquidswere made with some kind of grass that's
(02:58):
already healthy or some kind of plantmaterial that already contains these enzymes. Sometimes
we're going to add calmaneure to it, so calves that have grazed on pasture,
and we're going to ferment this insideof a barrel and then use the
liquid from the fermentation as a dressingof the soil. Now we do this
(03:19):
even before seed goes out there,but once the grass starts growing, we
also put this out on the fields. Now this liquid does have a smell
to it and it can be producedtwo ways. I have videos to go
into depth on each of these ways, So we're just going to give you
a high level right here. Thefirst way is simply getting a barrel and
filling it full of fresh cut clippings, putting water in it, and through
(03:45):
anaerobic digestion, we're going to fermentthat grass and we've added some calmanure to
it to kind of kick it off, because we want the stomach enzymes from
the cow, we want the enzymesthat are on the ground. We want
to have all that stuff colonize.And so you can either use a bubbling
system where you put aerator in thebottom and get some air into it and
(04:08):
cultivate that set up bacteria and fungusesand all kinds of things, and or
you could use it in a biodigesterand just use the liquid that comes out
of the biodigester. Now, inboth ways you will be creating methane gas.
So if you could trap the gasand use it, that's all the
better. But what we're doing iswe're fermenting the grass over two or three
(04:30):
days, squeezing off that liquid,which is a liquid fertilizer, but it's
an enzymatic fertilizer. It contains differentthings. Now, can this process contain
a coali and other things. Yes, you do not want to get this
liquid on you, but you canput it over the soil at a rate
of one to five or one toten, and that means for every part
(04:51):
of the liquid you add additional partswater. So this will burn grass in
some cases because it is a verystrong fertilizer. But what we're doing is
we're inoculating the soil. Set Nowyou can also inoculate with different fungal activity,
because some fungal activities will remove grubs, will deter moles. It just
(05:15):
really depends on your area. Andthe way to do that is to find
funguses that grow in your area,blend them in a blender with some water,
and then provide that over top ofthe soil. Or you can buy
spores, or you can buy differentkinds of powdery mixes. But the key
is what we're doing to the soilis creating the very best environment for the
(05:39):
plants to grow. Okay, now, next thing we're gonna do is we're
going to choose the right seeds.Most people make the mistake of just going
out and buying grass seed and puttingit out there. Now, some grasses
grow tall Some grasses grow short,Some grasses grow fast, some grasses grow
slow. Your field or area whereyou want to grow grass has different light
(06:00):
conditions. So some grass grows inthe shade, some grass grows in the
sun. Some grass has high nutritionalvalue, some grass has low nutritional value.
Now you could go get a pastureblend of grass which typically has three
to four types of grasses, mighthave you know, Kentucky blue grass,
it could have. This is justa bunch of different kinds of grasses.
(06:24):
The ideal, though, is tomimic the grasses that are likely to be
in your area as native grasses.Now, native grasses themselves do not have
a high coleric value when it comesto having animals graze on it, and
that might be better suited for areaswhere you need the deep root structure in
order to prevent erosion. So whatI ended up doing is the hinds fifty
(06:46):
seven of grasses, but I madesure I had in it low pile white
clover. Okay, white clover isa nitrogen fixing plant, and we wanted
to have that in there to actuallywe feed the tree. So now we
got to soil a little bit better, so the nutrient exchange is cleaner,
and now we want to add nutrientsto the soil, which is atmospheric nitrogen,
(07:09):
not actually nitrogen that you buy atthe store, and then atmospheric nitrogen
goes in through the clover. Now, when we're establishing grass and we have
animal pressure, we want to havered clover in there because red clover is
going to give you a little bitmore bulk, gives the animals something to
eat. Now, you want tokeep animals off of this until you have
a good thick fifty percent density ofgrass. We'll tell you what that means
(07:30):
here in a little bit. Butthe seed mix that you're choosing has to
do with the combination of conditions aswell as both bulk of grass and feeding.
So you can have white clover oryellow clover, you can have red
clover, you can have alfalfa inthere, you can have other nitrogen fixing
(07:54):
legooms in there. And so we'renot really establishing grass initially, more of
a cover crop. So we wantto go quick quickly from clay soil,
maybe a light top dressing of compostor top soil, and then we're inoculating
all of that. We're using nativebiome in the sense of the soil innoculation
(08:16):
and sense of the maybe we're usingcompost t we're maybe we're fermenting and using
that liquid. Then we're establishing thecover crop, which is fifty fifty grass
and legooms. And then after thegrass starts to establish and we're gonna have
three to four different types of grassthere, we are now into the management
(08:37):
stage. So one thing about applyingthe seed though, is that we apply
the seed in series. So weapply the seed immediately when the ground is
disturbed, and then we'll come backlater and we'll set again. And we're
using like a one third mixture.So if they recommend, you know,
a pound the seed per acre ortwo pounds of seed per acre, we're
(08:58):
gonna put one third of that ininitially, and then we're gonna come back
later in a couple of months putanother third down, and then another third
down, because again we don't necessarilyhave the environmental conditions necessary for those seeds
to thrive, so we're using timeto have a better chance of hitting the
right conditions. We also want todust our seed with straw, and we're
(09:20):
going to do that each time weseed, so the straw is actually there
to keep the birds who eat theseed, because the birds will eat the
seed. Now we start getting thoseyoung sprouts. You get that green haze
across the guard, across the lawn, and that grass starts to grow.
Now, the first reflex in anurban space is that when grass gets about
six inches high, to go inthere and mow it. But we have
(09:43):
to understand a few things about howgrass functions and how grass grows in order
to mow at the right times andthe right height. So now we're looking
at that third part. This isa three legged stool. You need to
do all three of these well.You don't have to do them perfect,
but all three of these well,and you'll get grass that grows annoyingly fast.
(10:03):
Now again, annoyingly fast in anurban space is what I discovered.
But if I was in a pastureor a field, I can simply just
put animals on it. Because,as we're going to talk about shortly,
that cutting cycle is just as valuablein the growth of the grass as the
planting cycle. And when I talkabout fifty percent density, and that's the
point where we can put pressure onthe soil, I'm talking about if you
(10:24):
if you drew out a one footby one foot square and you determine the
square inches, and then you determinethe amount of space the grass takes up.
We want to have fifty percent ormore being took up by grass.
So this is a survey method thatgives you as you could do four or
(10:45):
five samples. Then you do themath and you'll know that the surface area
is covered fifty percent by grass.We don't want to worry about the clover,
we don't want to worry about theother plants that they're in there.
We want to know that grass stalksare taking up fifty percent or more of
the surface area in our samples.And now what this does is this allows
us to have less open space onthe soil, less exposed soil, and
(11:07):
then as we mow appropriately or wescythe appropriately, any of the thatch that
falls will fall between the grass andprovide additional habitat for worms, microbes,
and the biome that is in thesoil that is ultimately feeding the grass.
We also want to make sure thatwe get enough root establishment before we start
(11:31):
cutting the grass as well, soon our level areas, we can start
cutting the grass at six to teninches. If the grass is at fifty
per density. We need to lookat the grass to make sure it doesn't
become stalky because we want to cutthe grass before it goes to seed.
We're cutting the grass before it goesto seed. And by the way,
this is a complete course. Youdo this, it will work. I
(11:54):
want to see more grass. Grasscaptures carbon from the atmosphere. Grass protects
soil, it holds nutrients, Itprovides food for your animals. I want
you to use this and tell mehow well it works, because ultimately,
the more grass you have on yourproperty, unless you have trees, you
know, but you need to grassto establish the trees. But my point
(12:15):
is if you cut it too soon, you're gonna leave bare spots that will
be damaged. If you cut ittoo late, the grass will be all
stalky and you won't have the leafsurface area necessary to have the photosynthesis that
gives you healthy, strong growth.So we're looking to cut the grass after
it has two or more side shoots. So you're gonna get down there,
(12:37):
And my neighbors looked at me likeI was an idiot. But you're gonna
get down there on your hands andknees, and you're gonna be breaking through
the grass with your hands, lookingfor grass that the majority in that sample
area has two or more side branchingleaves, and so you're gonna you're gonna
look and it depends on the typeof grass what that's gonna look like.
(12:58):
But if it has who are more, then you can cut as up to
one third of the biomass out ofthe grass. So if the grass is
six inches tall, you can cutoff two inches and so that's one third
of the total height of the grassyou can cut off, and that means
you're going to have four inch tallgrass. Now for a lot of people,
(13:20):
that's very confusing because four inches seemslike a tall, deep, thick
grass. But that's what we're lookingfor here, folks. We're looking to
cultivate tall thick grass now mechanically.Initially you're going to cut the grass mechanically.
There will be areas like slopes thatare more difficult to access, where
we may allow the grass to growsix inches, ten inches, eighteen inches,
(13:45):
because again, as tall as thegrass is, that's how deep the
roots are going to be in theground. And for slope stabilization, And
I got this from the Department ofForestry in Virginia. The deeper the roots
are, the better the slope stabilization. And then that ass can be cut.
If it gets a little stalky orit has more than two shoots,
it can be just cut with ascythe and then rake the materials raked off
(14:07):
the top. Now, what dowe do with the materials that we rake
off the grass? Because if it'slevel ground and you're mechanically mowing it,
you can simply just leave that thatchon the soil because you're only taking off
one third of the growth. Buton a slope, you need to take
off all of the extra grass becauseit's you don't want it to clump and
kill the grass on the slope.What do we do with that grass we
(14:28):
raked off, Well, the bestthing to do is to chop it up
and go back to where we startit, ferment that grass, and then
use the fermented materials to put backon the soil. And that's gonna again,
it's gonna help start cultivating this biome. We're gonna test the soil pH
and we're gonna move that soil peach. It's close to neutral as we can
(14:50):
get. It doesn't have to beneutral. It could be a little acidic,
it could be a little base.It doesn't matter, as long as
it's as close to neutral as wecan get it. And then we're gonna
sand up all the pasture area orthe lawn area to make sure that we
have consistent application, because there couldbe some areas such as under oak trees,
that are a little more acidic.It might need some spot lining.
And we always use again the onethird method, where if they would recommend
(15:13):
a pound of lime, we're gonnaput one third of that on and then
we're going to do it over acycle of time with testing. Are you
still with me, because this soundslike a lot of work, but I'm
going to give you a very easyway to make it less work. But
the point being is that we're cultivatingsoil biology. We're overseating and sometimes top
(15:35):
dressing with composts, but we're certainlyadding this liquid fertilizer that's coming from the
grass itself. We're fermenting the grass, we're expanding its biological elements or benefits,
and they were putting it back outon there. If the pH level
is good, you're gonna tend tohave good, better enzymes, and you're
going to have less likely to havethat rancid look. So if you're doing
(15:56):
this fermentation and you've got like awhite film over the top of it,
or it just sounds kind of rancid, you can put some air into it
and kind of loosen that up.You can also take the grass clippings and
compost them and then use that biologicallyactive compost as a top dressing. Now,
if you're doing this for a lawn, how do you get your grass
from six to eight inches down towhat a lot of people like is like
(16:18):
a two inch grass. Well,I'm going to tell you you don't do
that because that's kind of dumb.If your front lawn is only two inches
high, it's not retaining water,it's not retaining moisture, it's not soaking
materials into the ground. You'll tendto have evaporation before the water can soak
into the ground. You're going totend to have these weird spots and things
(16:38):
because the grass will get scorched.I'm recommending a four to five inch even
six inch cut for a lawn.Now that's where I get into a little
bit of challenge in a city,because again, this grass method can add
feet to your grass in the courseof a week during your rainy season,
and that's appropriate for slopes, butit's not necessarily appropriate for near your house,
(17:02):
and so it can get out ofhand, and we're going to again
tell you a way to keep itmaintained fast and forever and create a huge
value out of this. But doyou see what we're doing here. We're
respecting the soil, We're giving theplant the ideal growing conditions. We're cutting
the grass at appropriate times, sowe're cutting it before it goes to seed,
(17:23):
and we're cutting it when it's hadenough growth on it to show us
that it's recovering from the cut.We're using mowers with very sharp blades.
We're using mowers that are balanced out, and we're going over the grass slowly.
We're not buzzing through it on azero turn of blowing grass everywhere.
We're only cutting one third of thegrass off, which is enough that we
(17:48):
are leveling out the grass so youget that nice clean look and we get
the grass. Clippings fall down andthey are easily digested or decomposed on the
soil surface, so you don't needto dethatch or anything. Because you're actually
building soil. You're building a blanketover top of that clay, and you're
protecting that soil, and you're reallyjust feeding the grass with its own clippings,
(18:08):
so you don't necessarily need to bagit. If you bag it,
you can ferment it and use theliquids to treat the soil. But ultimately
we're now getting into these cycles wherewe're getting this thicker, thicker grass that
grows very quickly, and on slopeswe might let it grow three or four
feet tall, because again, slopestabilization is more important than a beautiful,
(18:32):
clean cut of grass. Also onslopes we're cutting it differently and removing the
biomass. But the bottom line here, folks, is there is an easier
way to manage this. Because youmight be saying, well, justin it
sounds like a lot of mowing,and it might be, But what if
you just let the grass grow andnow you go from grass to savannah,
(18:57):
and from savannah you can go toa tree system. It's initially going to
be pines, it's going to bea nitrogen fixing trees, and then from
a basic tree system you go toa forest system, which may include different
layers of the forest could even becomea food forest, which would eventually shade
(19:17):
out the ground and all the grasswould go away. Now you could go
into silver pasture, which would allowstrips of trees and grass in between it,
and so you still have the grazingvalue, but you've eliminated all of
the mowing and things like that.And what will happen, and we showed
it in a number of videos,is the grass will grow really tall,
and then in a storm it'll allget knocked over, and then new grass
(19:40):
will grow through that old grass becausethe seed, of course drops, and
then the cycle will continue and you'llend up with a layer of topsoil.
And so we've now turned atmospheric carboninto a biome, and that biome becomes
a savannah or grassland, and itbecomes habitat for deer. It becomes habitat
for it will not attract a bunchof rats and mice. It just doesn't
(20:03):
work that way because when the seedfalls and the mice come, then foxes
will come and eat the mice.Owls will eat the mice. Other beneficial
creatures higher in the food chain willcome and eat the mice. You also
have black snakes and other things eatthe mice, and so ultimately this is
something you can do in your zonefour. You can do this in your
zone five. You can do thisto re establish an area after it's been
(20:26):
forested. You can do this totransform an area from unused and derelict to
a forest system. It is apowerful approach. If you want to turn
this into pasture. We can eliminatethe mowing by adding grazing animals. Now,
sheep will cut the grass off reallyshort, and it's okay because if
(20:49):
the grass is biologically active and hasthe enzymes, if the soil has a
good pH, then when the sheepeat the grasses, they're essentially pelletizing the
grass and reinoculating the grass and puttingit back onto the soil. So the
grass, after the initial establishment andthe initial mowing routines, the grass will
(21:12):
tolerate the sheep even though they mightcut it off pretty low. But you
want to monitor them. You don'twant them to eat half of it or
eat three quarters of it. Youwant them to eat a third off the
top and move them to the nextfield. That might mean different rotation cycles,
it might mean more sheep or lesssheep, but ultimately the sheep will
mow the grass for you. Nowlet's say you like grass fed beef and
(21:34):
you've got a little more acreage.Well, the same thing goes now,
Now cows are going to more ripthe grass. They're going to grab it
and rip it, and that's okayif the grass is tall enough. When
they go to rip the grass,they're not going to pull the roots out
of the ground. So you wantto monitor again, monitor your moisture levels
because the cows will imprint the soil. You want to monitor the amount of
(21:56):
grass that they're consuming in a day. And you course, you want to
keep them moving across the grass sothat we can keep the establishment there.
But the same technique I've shared herealso works to repair pasture. So those
cows are out there and they've imprintedthe pasture, they've manured the pasture,
which is the same as what we'redoing with the top dressing. They've peed
(22:17):
all over the pasture, which isthe same that we're doing with the inoculation
of enzymes. So the manures andthe rain will inoculate the enzymes, and
the pe will inoculate the enzymes.So essentially, what you can do is
keep cows on a field for ashort period of time, drag the field
afterwards, and then the impressions soyou can set it right after they've been
(22:40):
on it. You can come throughand drag it and then so that spreads
out the manure, and then youcan leave the field idle for it to
grow back. Now, it couldgrow back with some weeds in it or
other things that you don't want,and that's what we're going to do with
the sampling and monitoring to make surewe don't have a lot of that.
And there may be times where youwant to impound animals longer than other times,
(23:03):
but there might be a series oftimes where you do like Joel Salaston
talks about, and move the cowsand then follow them with chickens who will
do the spreading for you, andthen they'll eat a lot of those weed
seeds. And then after the chickensare off, you seed the field,
drag it and do your testing andthen let them field recover. Now,
what will tend to happen over timeif you keep the grass rotation and cutting.
(23:29):
You know, you don't put thecows back on the grass until you've
got two or three of the sideshoots. Is showing the grasses recovered.
If you keep the rotation strong,you don't have the seed. You could
probably seed once a year, youcan probably see every two years. But
the key is the enzomatic cycles,soil pH blend of grasses, blend of
(23:52):
nitrogen fixing plants, and the waythat we're monitoring the density of the grass,
the way that we're monitoring the heightof the grass and the pressure on
the grass. All of these thingscome together. And I'm starting to get
passionate about this type of activity.But all these things come together to make
your grass grow. And what you'venow learned, it's not annoying to you
(24:15):
because it's calories. So whether you'rerunning cheap cows, goats don't typically like
the grass a lot unless he getstoo overgrown. And then you can come
in and they'll eat all the woodystalks down and they'll trample the grass.
Chickens on pasture, rabbits on pasture. You're now able to take a piece
of land, recover it from bearsoil, establish a savannah or grassland area,
(24:42):
and now come in with animals.Now, if you just want to
leave it all alone, you canuse this to create habitat for quail,
you can use this to go fromfeed plot to savannah with heavy deer.
So dear love tall grass. Youwant to cut channels in it. You
(25:03):
want to cut paths in it sothe deer can move through the grass and
feel protected yet still have a lineof sight. We talk about that in
other videos. But the key hereis it doesn't take a lot of monitory.
I know people get passionate about theirlawns. You're gonna have that same
level of passion, except you're gonnabe producing calories for animals, so you're
gonna have meat on hoof. You'regonna be producing habitat for birds and bees
(25:26):
and beneficial insects. You're gonna besupporting wildlife and the health of your wildlife.
You're gonna have less inputs. SoI didn't say anything about bringing in
anything other than seeds. You wantto make sure your seed blend is appropriate
for your area. You're gonna havebiomass because, as we've shown in the
grass fed garden videos, as we'veshown in the composting videos, when you
(25:48):
take that grass off you can compostit. You're gonna have winter feed because
many of these fields. If you'veif you're cutting hay you can cut into
and turn it to baales the store. This is a blessing. It's annoying
to people in the city that don'tunderstand it. It's annoying to urban spaces
(26:10):
that have zoning laws that say youcan't have grass taller than ten inches,
even on slopes. By the way, if you cut your grass two inches
on a slope, you will haveerosion. No matter how thick that grass
is, you'll have erosion. You'llhave the need for outside resources, You'll
have nutrients wash off. You're gonnahave so many soil wash off, You're
gonna have so many problems. Sixinches is what you need. The even
(26:36):
lawn in the front yard six inches. You take your shoes off and you
walk around and that, Oh,it feels so great. The grass is
so thick. Neighbors will be envious. Actually, I've had neighbors that are
confused. So they'll come in andthey'll say, I've been driving by your
yard. Your yard is beautiful.It's so thick, green and luscious.
And then they come in and theysay, oh, why does it have
those little clover in it. Youshould put a weed and feed on that.
(26:57):
Why is it so tall? Youshould cut that, I said,
will not wait a second. Whenyou saw it from a distance, you
had a heart on. But whenyou see it up closed, now you're
all confused. What's the confusion.Take your shoes off and walk around in
this grass and they're like, oh, oh, we don't walk in our
lawn. You can walk in thislawn. This lawn will take the pressure
I've had somebody I don't even knowwho they are. Take their shoes off,
(27:19):
walk around in my yard. Thesmile opens up on their face and
they're like, Wow, this isnice. I see what you mean.
Now it can be cut at fourinches, it can cut five inches.
I think I'm usually around four tofive inches. But it'll grow out.
But the walking around barefoot is theclosing to the sail. Because the clover's
(27:40):
feed in the grass. The grasshas enough density in the soil to protect
the soil, and it remains niceand cool and fresh. On a ninety
degree day, and you're feeling yourfeet on the ground, it's almost cold.
That never has to be watered,that never has to be fed with
fertilizers. One of the reasons peopledon't walk on their lawns is because they
know it's a toxic pool of weedand feed and chemicals and nasty sprays.
(28:04):
The worst thing that's going to happenand my lawn is that you're gonna,
maybe I don't know, lay downand take an app because again, the
soil is healthy, the plants arehealthy. When your body touches that,
you're gonna feel that. And Iknow, maybe it's because I'm out there
(28:25):
in the grass on my hands andknees, just feeling around and parting the
grass and looking at it, andI've got a ruler out there and I'm
measuring the density and I'm doing math. You know, you don't. I'm
more of a citizen scientist than anythingelse. But the cycle of process is
complementary to an ecosystem, which doesn'tinhibit growth. It traps and soaks in
(28:52):
nutrients. It's soil that's biologically active, so there's that nutrient exchange. The
plants are doing their photo synthesis andbringing starches down to the soil while pumping
up water. The starches are beingexchanged with the mushrooms and the enzymes,
which they are then giving sugars tothe plant or giving other nutrients to the
plants. The yard takes care ofitself. The grasses that are more suitable
(29:15):
for shade grow fine in the shade. The grasses that are more suitable for
sun to tend to dominate the sunnyareas. But altogether, you're creating biomass
by trapping carbon from the atmosphere inthe soil. You're creating feed for animals.
You're creating feed for a compost bin. You're creating composts for your garden.
(29:37):
You're creating a luscious, beautiful ecosystemthat you can be proud of.
You can walk around barefoot, throwa picnic blanket out there. The kid
used to throw a blanket out thereand just lay in the grass. Look
at this, Look at this clouds. You're creating a recreational space. You're
creating an environment that doesn't require alot of maintenance. Because as actually will
(30:00):
start slowing down its growth as it'sat five to six inches, and so
you're cutting it off, it's gonnainstead of every week growing back, it
will grow back a little bit slowerin the areas that you're keeping cropped.
Now. In the areas that you'renot keeping cropped, it will grow afoot
in the rainy season and you don'tnecessarily want to mow it because it has
it put out its other shoots.But again, if you're rotating animals,
(30:26):
if you're willing to understand the differencebetween a slope and a flat area,
if you're willing to cultivate, you'regonna have what looks like a PGA golf
course. And that is the biggersecret of this. The methods that I've
described to you here are the holisticand natural methods used for some of the
PGA golf courses, some of thenatural ecosystems. It's recommended by the Department
(30:51):
of Forestry. It's been studied byuniversities who want pastures for grass fed beef.
Now I've simplified things a little bit. There's you know, there are
times you might add calcium or youmight add nutrients. It depends on the
condition of the field initially and thenultimately it is environmentally friendly. You can
restore habitat. If you're going togo the channel of wild animals, it's
(31:15):
a little bit different. If you'regoing to go to the channel of domesticated
animals, you're gonna put in fencing. It's gonna be a little bit different,
but it will grow like crazy,and I see that growth as abundance.
I see that growth as we're doingsomething right. We're capturing carbon,
sequestering it from the atmosphere. We'recreating a grass as a resource, and
(31:37):
we talk about that a lot inthe videos, and we're ultimately working with
nature rather than against it. Itis unnatural to cut your grass at two
inches. Now, when a PGAgolf course cuts the graphs grass at two
inches, they're doing that, andthey're they're putting sand in and they're doing
other things because it's a golf course. It's not your front yard. And
(32:00):
they're doing that because they're getting paidlarge amounts of money to do it.
But it's not the cost benefit analysisfor a homeowner is not there to pretty
much damage and shock the grass everytime you go through. If you're cutting
off a third of the grass,you could slowly get it down to three
or four inches if you want that. But ultimately, a five inch grass
(32:23):
that has a eighty to ninety percentdensity, you could throw a ball out
on it and it won't It won'tindent. You leave footprints in the yard
every time you walk across it.You can lay in that grass and feel
the coolness of the ground on thehottest and sunniest day. You don't have
to drag hoses around in water.You don't need a watering system. This
(32:45):
kind of approach is magical in thegrowth it gives you. It also tells
you when to put animals on andwhen to take animals off. It also
helps you use the biome and ecofertilizers that are already available on your property,
and then it ultimately helps you havegreen grass year round. If you
(33:07):
have questions about this method, Ido have a training program where we go
on site and we look specifically atdifferent lawns and then we list out some
of the holistic things that can bedone to either turn that grass into pasture,
turn that grass into natural habitat.And there will be times you might
want to oversee with natural grasses.Natural native Virginia grasses tend to clump,
(33:30):
so we might want to do thatbecause you're doing an English natural garden,
or you've got paths and it's anexhibit space. I'll be happy to look
at your nonprofit or your history place. The key is this stuff is management,
(33:51):
and it's pretty common management to placeswho pride themselves on a ecosystem of
grass rather than a a commercial,sanitized, cosmetic grass. And that's promocultural
aligned. That's people health, that'snature health, that's good quality soil.
(34:15):
I want to thank you for listening. If you have questions about this,
visit www dot prosperity homestead dot orgwhere we have numerous resources. Some of
the videos I mentioned will be there, and there's a free newsletter, so
you can go to the contact pageask your question, where you can join
our free newsletter. Thanks for listening. I'm justin hit with Prosperity Homestead
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.