Planted my hayfield

I finished discing the hayfield a second time on Sunday.

I put extra weight on the disc so it would cut into the ground deeper.

I started planting my hayfield last night and finished planting this evening at sunset.

While the seed company sold me a little more seed than needed for 15 acres (at my request), I was afraid I would run out of seed.  That was because the control for dispensing the seed was vague.  (The control is the lever near the right top handle in the photo below.)  There were two scratch marks on the control and Chris (the owner) suggested to set the lever at one scratch.  I set the lever at the second, slightly higher, scratch which was approximately two-thirds open.

It turns out I should have left the control full open.  I had six 50 pound bags of seed (One bag of seed completely filled the red seed compartment.)  When I finished seeding/packing the field I had used 3 and 1/3 bags of seed.  I had 2 and 2/3 bags left - much more than I expected.

So I had to go around the field a second time.  Once I covered half the field a second time I moved the control down to the first scratch.  That enabled me to completely cover the field a second time just as the seed ran out.  I didn't finish until 9 pm.   I hadn't planned on making two passes over the field.

Fortunately as my soil is not firm to begin with, packing the soil a second time was ok.  The second go around was trickier than the first go around.  As seen below I could easily see where I had already packed/planted during the first go around.   Not so easy the second time.   I went clockwise the first time and counter-clockwise a second time.   I rejected the idea of going diagonally the second time.  While it would have been easier to see due to the perpendicular grooves, going diagonally would have resulted in multiple instances of going over and over the same areas.   I did go diagonally a few times to make "perpendicular marks" as reference points of being on course when going counter-clockwise.

I had been pushing to complete the planting today.  I would have preferred to have been done last Friday.  That is because it rained on Saturday and again on Monday.  The forecast is for rain tomorrow and again on Friday before a dry period starts.  With the seed in the ground I need water to germinate.

I thought discing and replanting my field would make it smoother.  No.  As you can see, even the packer's weight doesn't compress the soil as much as the tractor's tires.

Each little square below the box and above the shield is where the seed exits the box.  The seed falls in front of the shield which guides it to fall between the packer's rollers.

The seeds are mixture of alfalfa (80%) and orchard grass seed (20%).  I don't know which is the purple seed - most likely the alfalfa seeds which I understand to be smaller than the grass seeds.

I'm so happy to have my field finally replanted.