Post Planting - Dove Field Worries

I was a little worried after planting the Millet and Sesame.  Worried because the fertilizer was not down, worried that there would not be enough rain.  There’s not much I could do about the rain, but hopefully, applying the fertilizer a couple days after planting would be fine.

Preparing the Dove field Before Planting

I called the farm and garden center on Monday; they were backed up and could not spread the fertilizer.  “Call back tomorrow” was the only help I could get.  I called Tuesday and finally, they could spread our plots in the afternoon.  So I drove 2 hours to the store to pay and meet the driver at 12:30.  But he was stuck in another county waiting for someone to show up and tell him where to spread his load.  So again I waited until 2:00, then 3:00, then 4:00 and at 4:30 he was finally on his way back.  A few hundred dollars and minutes to mix our fertilizer was all that held us, and then we were on the way to the field.

At the field, I climbed in his truck and pointed down the narrow path towards the dove field.  Johnny isn’t bush hogging the roads because we found out this is bad for the quail. Trees growing beside the road had not been trimmed this year making the path to the plot look like a needle eye for the large fertilizer truck.  The driver complained and told me I was going to damage the truck.  “How much further is it?”  I could only reply the same as I do to my children on a long trip; oh, we’re almost there, it just up over the next hill.”

Climbing the last hill was the worst for him, he got stuck twice and at one point I thought we would have to call in a tow as his complaining led to cussing.  But he made it and I quickly found that spreading a small field takes no time at all and in about 5 minutes we were headed back down the hill to spread some of the quail plots.  I also found that ordering enough fertilizer to spread four acres of field will get you about 3 acres spread. Many of the quail plots were left without fertilizer.

With this accomplished, I didn’t have to worry about the fertilizer, and since it rained just before and after we planted, I wasn’t worried about the rain.  That was until it stopped raining.  While the rest of the country is facing epic floods, I am not asking for rain.  The problem is that South Georgia is facing a drought and some areas haven’t received rain in nearly five weeks.

Sesame and Millet starting to emerge through the Georgia Clay

But as I visited family in North Carolina, the news finally came in.  Johnny was up at the field and sent back a picture with the caption “the field looks better than the picture shows.”  And the picture shows some Sesame and Millet sprouting through the dry earth in Georgia clay.

I’ll be up in a week or so to look at the results and to start on the next planting – Proso Millet.