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Gardens & Orchards Fruits, Vegetables, & Herbs
One of our next projects for the farm will be to put in a large garden for herbs, berries, and vegetables, and to plant a small orchard of fruits and nuts.
We’ll be reclaiming an area where the soil is thin, hard-packed clay, infested with a thicket of large, thorny weeds. So, obviously, it will be a long-term project to turn it back into fertile, productive soil.
We’ll use compost from the sheep, pig, and chicken manure, plus all the wasted hay from each winter. After it rots, this mixture turns into a lovely rich, black soil. As much as possible, we will allow the pigs to plow up the garden for us, cutting down on the amount we need to use a rototiller.
Once established, the orchard trees will eventually provide shade in what has been an otherwise unbearably shade-less pasture. The livestock will be allowed to graze beneath the trees and clean up any fruits or nuts that fall on the ground.
Give us a few years to put this plan into action. Our first step is to prepare the soil and establish the plants. Then, we want to start providing the majority of our own food. After that, we hope to begin offering produce for sale to the public. |
