If you’ve followed the blog or talked with me about the farm, you know that I use ALL of the animals on the farm to rebuild, restore and add essential nutrients back into the soil. I thought it would be fun for you to see some before and after pictures of the garden area.
This picture is the fallow garden area at the end of the growing season. The last half of the season I do very little weed maintenance and pretty much let everything finish doing its thing.
We then put the goats into a small area, usually 20 x 100 ft to eat all the leftovers and weeds. It usually takes my 3 girls about a week to clear through each area. When they are done, the chickens get a week or so to scratch through and get the leftovers.
Finally, the pigs get a turn in each area. The pigs use their powerful noses to root through and turn over the soil; eating all the roots and grubs that may still be in the ground. While they’re wandering around, their sharp hooves pierce the ground and shove the goat and chicken manure into the soil.
The pigs do a FANTASTIC job or turning the soil over and working everything up. It just takes a few passes with the harrow and tiller to lift and smooth out the soil for planting!
Using the livestock on my farm to ‘help’ with vegetable production is a win-win for everyone. Pasturing them to ‘clean-up’ the remnants reduces my feed costs, adding the manure directly to the dirt reduces my labor and money for applying fertilizer (I also don’t have to much stalls or figure out ‘waste’ disposal!) and my animals are healthy and happy!
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