Scything Mulch for the Borner Farm Project

This is my second year with helping The Borner Farm Project in Prescott, WI, obtain scythe cut mulch for their 1+ acre market garden and hoophouses, from the adjoining 20 acre field. Once a part of the farm, the neighboring field has been idle for decades, as the town developed around it. It was used last used as a cow pasture and hayfield. It has a beautifully dense mix of brome and bluegrass. It is for sale, and it would be so glorious, if the field surrounded by the town could be bought and developed by the Borner Farm Project, as a permaculture farm. A 20 acre, fertile organic field, surrounded by residents that can pick and eat the food. But alas, it's for sale, as 18 platted lots, for something like a total of $90,000! Until it sells, the Borner Farm has permission to use the 20 acres of land for growing food, as long as they don't do anything permanent to it. But it's hard to do much with it, since it could sell at any time. Also, because it's right in town, no livestock is allowed. Just a maximum of 6 chickens. I suggested that they could at least harvest bio-mass from it, and when I visited and saw the tall brome, I immediately suggested harvesting it in late season for use as garden mulch, and bedding in the chicken coop.
  The first year went well, but this year we got an early start to winter due to an unusual fluctuation in the polar vortex. It is warm in Siberia while it's below zero here! I had planned on mowing some more mulch, but then this lobe of the polar vortex came and we got a few inches of snow and immediately followed by a plunge in temps to 15 below zero. When it warmed back up into the teens, I decided to see if I could still mow the brome even with a little snow on it. I had done it before at my farm. To my delight it worked extremely well. I was able to mow even more mulch than the previous year. The 85cm Falci 100 blade I was using cut a lot per stroke and just whisked the brome stems right out of the snow. The Borner Farm had hoped to use the mulch to cover their garlic, but winter came so early and was here to stay. The ground froze before they could plant the garlic. So I just made a haystack for them with the mulch to use in the spring. Late season brome makes a great seed-free garden mulch.

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