Everything on the farm has a at least two jobs to do. Sometimes it’s as simple as: provide protection and company, like our dog and cat. Sometimes it’s more complex: provide fruit, shelter for birds, attract beneficial insects, produce bio mass and shade, like the apple trees in our orchard.
Rabbits happily grazing in their mobile cage.
Even the rabbits have more than one job. Our rabbits are meat rabbits, breed to feed my family, but that isn’t the job I love them the most for. They are quite efficient at turning grass into fertilizer. One of the benefits of rabbit manure is that it’s is what’s termed “cold”, meaning it’s not so high in nitrogen, like poultry or cow manure that it needs to be composted first, it can go directly on the garden and planted in. I have some rabbits in cages and when their trays are cleaned I do put it directly in the garden, but this year we experimented with “pasturing” our grow outs. I’ve been so happy with the results.
The path of grazed meadow, this is what it looks like as we move it.
We simply built large, open changes with wire bottoms, to keep the rabbits digging out and predators from digging in. Everyday their cage is moved to a different patch of ground in the Orchard Meadow, they keep the grass clipped and leave their fertilizer behind. I’ve been so happy with the results, the meadow has never been as lush and our feed bill is much lower than normal. We do still give them pellets, the grass isn’t quite enough, but it’s a great, healthy supplement.
Meadow that had the rabbits on it about two weeks ago, you can still see the grass is shorter, but growing in nicely.
much time and effort into crops that either didn’t produce or were over run by bugs and field bind weed. Organic farming is hard, so very hard.
This is one of the views you get when you travel the roads that lead to our little piece of heaven. To get to our farm, you have to drive on a gravel road. Being isolated like that gives has advantages and disadvantages. This year has been the year of replacements. We have replaced our water heaters, air conditioner, furnace and who knows what will happen next.
Yup, we found that the water leak was coming from under the driveway, so we then went to work on the side closest to the house.
In a few hours, we had both ends of the driveway excavated down to the pipe and knew what needed to be done the next morning.
Jeramiah showed up early in the morning and the work really started. We wanted to avoid digging up the driveway, so Jeramiah came up with the idea of using a connector and hooking the old water line to the new water line, and then pulling the old water line from under the driveway and keep pulling so that the new water line replaced it. It worked well, we were able to pull the new line under the driveway without having to cut any concrete.
After everything was said and done, we had 80 feet of new water line ran, and the driveway was now usable again.
The green beans were planted in one of the two beds that we didn’t sheet mulch. We didn’t have time to get it done before planting season and I figured that since they were such a hardy and easy-going plant that they’d do just fine with a little manure raked in. I was wrong. I think they might be jealous of their neighbors, who are planted in several inches of good compost and mulched heavily with bark and leaves. Who knew green beans could be such divas?
When the clover gets tall and starts to blossom its time to harvest! Cover is a fun herb to harvest, especially for the little kids, its very simple, just pop the flower off. My little ones like to recite the line “Mama had a baby and her head popped off!” while picking clover, they also like to snack on the blossoms as we gather. We get a big paper grocery sack and fill it up about half way full. you have to be careful drying clover blossoms, they need a lot of air flow to dry without molding. Some people suggest laying the blossoms in a basket in a single layer not touching. I don’t have the room to dry herbs that way, so I put them the paper grocery sack and leave it on the kitchen counter where I see it often, and several times a day I give it a shake or stir. The paper helps wick away the moisture and stirring it often keeps the blossoms separate and allows for air flow. It takes about two weeks to dry in my neck of the woods, but we are dry, it will take longer in more humid climates.
Red Clover is an infusion that I use in my regular rotation, I plan on making it my ally when I move from child bearing years to my menopausal years and beyond.
Carrots washed and peeled, I love the soft, translucent orange and light yellow of the roots when I peel them. I had planned on having dark purple carrots as well, but they had a different surprise in mind for me, something I will write about later.
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.