One year after my lament about tilling, I have the opportunity to introduce a permaculture inspired solution to my quandary, illustrating several permaculture principles, and all thanks to my goats doing what goats do best.
Permaculture recommends getting as much use as possible from whatever one brings onto one's site (as well as from everything else), in order to recoup its embedded energy--the energy spent producing it. I invite you to follow a bale of hay, as it cycles through its different forms and functions on the property.
I keep goats for milk; and to keep them fed over winter, and producing well while lactating, I feed them alfalfa blend hay. This I buy from a local independent grower--"only" 100+ km away--when I'm going that way anyhow (the principle of local trade). The goats eat the stemmy hay from their hay rack, and the process of digesting the coarser material warms them (Function #1). The goats drop a great deal of hay through the rack's slats, which is why I've built a tray below to catch the crumbles. They get a second serving of the same hay, when they eat the crumbles. This shattered, leafy part of the hay offers them the most nutrition (Function #2).
Being picky eaters, the goats toss the coarsest stems onto the ground, where they get trampled and soiled, but build up bedding (Function #3, and principle of accumulation). I estimate that in the does' barn, the manure pack--that is, the bedding and the manure underneath it--has accumulated to an average depth of one foot thick--with no odour at all. It has been making heat while quietly decomposing, adding to the goats' comfort, in cold weather (Function #4, illustrating an aspect of the mulch and composting principle). While cleaning the bucks' barn on a cool January day, where the manure pack builds depth more quickly, being tighter quarters, the bedding was comfortably warm at middle depth, and steaming when exposed. Part of me was sorry to remove it before winter was over, but it was getting ridiculously deep--starting to bury the water bucket--and was developing an ammonia smell, having exceeded its absorption capacity. One of the convenient things about using old hay as bedding, is that when it comes time to clean out the barn, you can rake the upper layer into a corner; it will still be quite clean. With a fork, you can lift and remove the compacted bedding--the manure pack--then simply spread the cleaner bedding out again, to become the new bottom layer. Note: the same "waste" hay is serving as bedding, twice: Function #5. Functions #4 and #5 illustrate the mulch and composting principle.
As it wasn't exactly gardening season when I cleaned that barn, I piled the manured hay for future reference (an example of the resource inventory principle). Here, the loose, mineral topsoil lies above a sloping, impermeable layer; so currently, watering results in soil minerals washing down, then flowing sideways, away. My plan now is to dig trenches as broad as the planting beds, in the formerly tilled area; to line the trenches with that hay; and to back fill with the soil that was removed; the idea being that the mucky hay will serve as a sponge to absorb moisture, preventing loss of both the soil and its moisture (Functions #6 and #7--patch garden and small earthworks principles). The sponge will also to add to the soil, as it breaks down and releases the nutrients that the goats contributed, and enrich the soil texture through its own decay (Functions #8 and #9, patch garden and mulch and compost principles). Further, once plants have germinated in these beds, more old hay can be placed on top as a mulch, to smother weeds (Function #10), and to prevent water evaporation--which I've battled with every summer--keeping moisture levels even (Function #11), illustrating mulch and compost principles.
This is the same bale of hay with eleven different consecutive functions, not eleven different bales, with one function each! Perhaps best of all--as continual mulching will keep the weeds down, and build the soil structure--I won't need to till! This is all thanks to having goats, and I haven't begun to talk about their milk, yet! That's for another post.
If you would like to read further on permaculture, or at least find out what all these principles are that I'm talking about, I suggest The Permaculture Handboook, by Peter Bane.
Permaculture recommends getting as much use as possible from whatever one brings onto one's site (as well as from everything else), in order to recoup its embedded energy--the energy spent producing it. I invite you to follow a bale of hay, as it cycles through its different forms and functions on the property.
I keep goats for milk; and to keep them fed over winter, and producing well while lactating, I feed them alfalfa blend hay. This I buy from a local independent grower--"only" 100+ km away--when I'm going that way anyhow (the principle of local trade). The goats eat the stemmy hay from their hay rack, and the process of digesting the coarser material warms them (Function #1). The goats drop a great deal of hay through the rack's slats, which is why I've built a tray below to catch the crumbles. They get a second serving of the same hay, when they eat the crumbles. This shattered, leafy part of the hay offers them the most nutrition (Function #2).
Being picky eaters, the goats toss the coarsest stems onto the ground, where they get trampled and soiled, but build up bedding (Function #3, and principle of accumulation). I estimate that in the does' barn, the manure pack--that is, the bedding and the manure underneath it--has accumulated to an average depth of one foot thick--with no odour at all. It has been making heat while quietly decomposing, adding to the goats' comfort, in cold weather (Function #4, illustrating an aspect of the mulch and composting principle). While cleaning the bucks' barn on a cool January day, where the manure pack builds depth more quickly, being tighter quarters, the bedding was comfortably warm at middle depth, and steaming when exposed. Part of me was sorry to remove it before winter was over, but it was getting ridiculously deep--starting to bury the water bucket--and was developing an ammonia smell, having exceeded its absorption capacity. One of the convenient things about using old hay as bedding, is that when it comes time to clean out the barn, you can rake the upper layer into a corner; it will still be quite clean. With a fork, you can lift and remove the compacted bedding--the manure pack--then simply spread the cleaner bedding out again, to become the new bottom layer. Note: the same "waste" hay is serving as bedding, twice: Function #5. Functions #4 and #5 illustrate the mulch and composting principle.
As it wasn't exactly gardening season when I cleaned that barn, I piled the manured hay for future reference (an example of the resource inventory principle). Here, the loose, mineral topsoil lies above a sloping, impermeable layer; so currently, watering results in soil minerals washing down, then flowing sideways, away. My plan now is to dig trenches as broad as the planting beds, in the formerly tilled area; to line the trenches with that hay; and to back fill with the soil that was removed; the idea being that the mucky hay will serve as a sponge to absorb moisture, preventing loss of both the soil and its moisture (Functions #6 and #7--patch garden and small earthworks principles). The sponge will also to add to the soil, as it breaks down and releases the nutrients that the goats contributed, and enrich the soil texture through its own decay (Functions #8 and #9, patch garden and mulch and compost principles). Further, once plants have germinated in these beds, more old hay can be placed on top as a mulch, to smother weeds (Function #10), and to prevent water evaporation--which I've battled with every summer--keeping moisture levels even (Function #11), illustrating mulch and compost principles.
This is the same bale of hay with eleven different consecutive functions, not eleven different bales, with one function each! Perhaps best of all--as continual mulching will keep the weeds down, and build the soil structure--I won't need to till! This is all thanks to having goats, and I haven't begun to talk about their milk, yet! That's for another post.
If you would like to read further on permaculture, or at least find out what all these principles are that I'm talking about, I suggest The Permaculture Handboook, by Peter Bane.