The “Orchard Meadow” thick and green, full of a variety of grasses and perennial weeds.
When we moved to the farm almost seven years ago the area that we now call the “Orchard Meadow” was barren, except for tumble weeds, some cheat grass and burrs. It was pretty sad. Our efforts to reclaim the land, to restore and add fertility and productivity were really quite simple. All land will eventually restore itself and naturally move towards supporting life and fertility within its sphere, we were looking to accelerate that process and add a bit more.
Common Mallow and White Clover, both have a very important roll in the health and vigor of the meadow.
To begin with we mowed down all the weeds and planted trees, mulching them deeply with horse manure, straw and wood chips. The second winter we over seeded the whole thing with drought tolerant pasture grasses and in the spring white clover and sweet clover. We irrigated the entire meadow and let the grass, clover and weeds grow.
Comfrey, the deep tap root bring important minerals to the surface and when mowed deposit them where the trees and grasses can most benefit .
Yes, even the weeds. Weeds in the context of reclaiming pasture are not a bad thing. The earth naturally reclaims herself, and what we would call common weeds are some of the first plants that come into an area to help restore, rebuild and nourish. And we had a lot of weeds, big tall lambs quarter and hog weed, and we mowed them a few times and in doing that created a layer of natural mulch. Every year the grass, clovers and good perennial weeds got thicker and the starter weeds became less and less. We added animals in movable pens to eat down the grass and fertilize.
Alfalfa, creates a lot of biomass and fixes nitrogen from the air and makes it bioavailable in the soil around it.
This year our trees are bigger and the grass thicker and greener than it’s ever been. I still have to water at least once a week because the trees are still young (some only a year old, we lost a few to gophers) but soon the plan is to only water every few weeks as needed.
Plantain, not only great for the pasture, but very medicinal.
Here on our farm we don’t have vast pastures, we have small meadows and paddocks, but that same principle applies, just on a smaller scale. We set the goats out daily to graze, watching carefully so as not to over tax the land and then move our animals so the plot can rest and rejuvenate, making it more fertile and productive.
Comfrey is quite easy to dry, but there are some considerations. The leaves are quite big and hold a lot of moisture, therefore they need to be dried loosely. Typically a person will gather a large bunch of plant materials, tie it in a bundle and dry. This won’t work with comfrey, I have ruined many batches by doing it this way, the comfrey will mold, and we don’t want that. Instead I have found that it is just as easy to hang each stalk on a nail and it drys very quickly this way, with out the mold.
After a couple weeks the comfrey will be nice and dry. At this point I will chop it up and store it in brown bags in a dark dry place. The reason I use brown bags is so any moisture that is left can be wicked out, instead of growing mold. I will use this through out the year in herbal infusions and poultices. Comfrey is one of my favorites for the garden, and for the body.
Another plant I have been harvesting a lot of is the Common Mallow. We eat mallow fresh, cooked, we dry, tincture and vinegar mallow. I wrote an article about the medicianl properties of mallow here:
