Prowling his own quiet backyard or asleep by the fire, he is still only a whisker away from the wilds.
~ Jean Burden
Elements found in Zone 1:
Greenhouse and shaderoom
Garden shed
Workshop
Herb spirals
Kitchen garden with salad for clipping and pathside vegetables
Miniature fruit trees
Broad beds with plants like leeks
Broadcast sown grain
Vines and trellis
Semi-wild and hardy trees and bushes
Very quiet small animals like rabbits and quail
Compost bin
Clothesline
Outdoor kitchen or barbecue pit
Pigeon, rabbit, or quail pens
Design Considerations of Zone 1
Zone 1 hugs the house because it is the area you will work in or walk through every day. The size and shape of it depends on how much land you have, how you access it, your own daily schedule, how much time you have, and whether you have animals in a barn located at the edge in Zone 2. City dwellers may have a Zone 1 only reaching 10 feet, while rural people might have a half-acre or more. The zone is designed with the same considerations that you used in chapter 1 to plan the layout of your property, such as the climate, wind, and relationships between the elements.
On top of those considerations, you also need to keep in mind:
• How will I access each element? Do I need a road to get to Zone 2 or beyond?
• Where is the best place for the road? When I build the drainage from the paths and roads, where will the water runoff go?
• Where are the doors to the house, and where will the greenhouse and shaderoom go?
• Where is the best place to put a clothesline so that it gets sunlight and also has easy access to the laundry room?
• Where is the best place for a play area? Even if you don’t have children, a place to relax or play an outdoor game is important.
• If you are using wood heat, where will the woodpile go so that it is close to the door and sheltered from the weather? Where will the chopping block be?
• What kind of outdoor kitchen or barbecue are you building? It will probably extend from the shaderoom.
• Where is the water source for this zone? Where are the storage tanks and hoses, and where will you distribute the graywater from the house? What kind of irrigation will you use?
• What kind of fencing or hedge will span the perimeter to keep out larger animals?
• Are you growing pigeons, bees, quail, rabbits, or worms? What kind of housing will they need? How will you give them water? Where will the waste go?
The Ideal Zone 1
Zone 1 is highly controlled, irrigated, and drained.
When your garden is in its best working order, the soil will be completely mulched and the soil rich with organic matter. When you harvest a plant, as much of it will be eaten as possible, and the rest composted in the compost bin. Some of your dill, fennel, and carrots are left to go to seed to attract parasitic wasps. In the winter, a green manure crop is grown and turned over to return precious nutrients to the soil. Any volunteer tomatoes and cucumbers from the compost heap are replanted in an empty spot.
Zone 1 irrigation and controlled garden beds.
Zone 1: garden beds, Zone 2: fruit trellising, Zone 3: forest garden.
The gardens are self-sufficient, and the trees provide shade and food just a few steps from the kitchen. A small grassy area extends from a shady trellis that covers an outdoor kitchen with a mud oven and a sturdy table where people can gather for delicious food and conversation at dusk in the cool air of the evening. A pathway leads from the backdoor through winding paths sheltered on either side by an abundance of beautiful and edible plants that are picked when needed. The path leads to a small pond where a few ducks splash in the water, eating insects and helping the fish to grow. They hide their nest among the reeds, which you gather later and make into baskets.
The ideal outdoor kitchen and living space.
The first concern with the plants directly next to the house is how they can make the house cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. Deciduous (trees that lose their leaves in the fall) varieties are placed on the sunny and eastern sides of the house. In the winter the sun will be able to shine in, and in the summer the leaves will block the sun. The shade room and all sides of the house can be grown with vines (like grapes) while the trees are growing. Around the other sides of the house (besides the east side) grow evergreen trees to protect the house from the heat and wind at all times of the year. Bamboo is a particularly valuable windbreak, especially in a hurricane zone.
Deciduous trees provide shade in summer, allow heat in winter.
Herbs should be located as close to your kitchen door as possible, so you can run out and grab what you need as you are cooking. This is accomplished with the herb spiral. At the top of the spiral are the thyme, rosemary, and sage, and the shady places are for mint, cilantro, parsley, and chives. At the very bottom is a tiny pond lined with plastic for water chestnut or watercress. A sprinkler at the top waters the whole thing.
Spiral herb garden with small pond.
Located near the herb spiral is the salad bed. This is a narrow bed for easy reach from the path, where more herbs, salad greens, chives, and shallots are grown. These types of greens grow very quickly as they are trimmed, and the soil should be kept mulched throughout the year.
Any pathways around the house are populated on each side with vegetables that can be harvested throughout the summer. These are transplanted from the greenhouse and include Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts, onions, celery, broccoli, kale, mustard, spinach, peppers, zucchini, and fennel. Most of these can be picked as needed, but if you do use it up, you can have seedlings growing in the meantime to be transplanted when ready. At the end of the season leave some to go to seed for next year.
The main garden is made up of two types of beds: narrow and wide. Beans, tomatoes, carrots, peas, zucchini, eggplant, and herbs such as chamomile and cumin can be grown in the narrow beds. These plants are picked more frequently and need easy access. The wide beds are for vegetables and fruit that mature all summer and are harvested once, such as corn, melons, onions, potatoes, beets, leeks, and turnips. They can be planted close together and mulch themselves. They usually take less work to maintain, and so you may want to have additional wide beds in Zone 2 as a cash crop.
Beets.
At the edge of Zone 1, and possibly around some of the areas of the gardens or outbuildings, hedges are grown to keep out animals, the wind, and weeds. These can also perform other valuable functions like creating mulch material, providing animal food, fixing nitrogen, and creating food for humans. Plant your hedges and mulch the soil around them heavily with cardboard, straw, or sawdust. While you wait for them to grow, you will also have to grow a quick growing plant that can stop the grass from invading the area again. Comfrey, bamboo, Jerusalem artichoke, or Siberian pea shrub can all provide this type of temporary barrier. Plant them in a band 4 feet wide outside the hedge bed and keep them controlled so that they don’t spread, which some of them tend to do. If you want just a small barrier within a garden, you can use most perennial herbs, such as rosemary.
If you have strong winds and need to protect the garden before your hedges grow, you can build a barrier instantly with tires, which also act as a thermal mass that absorbs heat. The ground should be prepared first with newspaper and mulch. Then the tires can be stacked and filled with earth, compost, hay, or whatever scraps you may have. At the top you can plant a species that is wind tolerant.
RABBITS
What is a country without rabbits and partridges? They are among the most simple and indigenous animal products; ancient and venerable families known to antiquity as to modern times; of the very hue and substance of Nature, nearest allied to leaves and to the ground.
~ Henry David Thoreau
How They Fit into the System
In a permaculture system, bunnies are not kept as pets. They provide meat, manure, and fur. Unlike other animals, they can never be allowed to roam the gardens, because they will eat everything and multiply beyond control. Instead, they live in a hutch with a mesh floor so that their droppings will fall down for easy cleanup. A worm bin can be placed underneath for even easier cleanup. Rabbits eat grass, leaves, twigs, hay, vegetables and kitchen scraps, and they are especially practical for urban homesteaders because rabbit hutches are legal in most places. Any rabbit breed can be eaten, but there are rabbits that are designed specifically for meat and grow to be much larger, such as California, New Zealand, Champagne d’Argent, or Florida White.
The nutritional value of rabbit is not as high as that of chicken or other meat staples, but since rabbits are very self-reliant and quiet, they make a valuable meat source. They need a constant supply of fresh water, and the wire mesh of their cage should not be larger than half an inch. The hutch should be kept clean, dry, and sheltered from the weather.
Breeding
Rabbits breed very prolifically and easily but may not always be the best mothers. Small breeds should not have babies until they are six months old, and a large breed not until they are nine months old. Males and females should be kept separate and only put together for breeding for a short time under supervision by putting the doe into the male’s cage so that he notices her. It’s a good idea to have him try again about eight hours later just to make sure. Once she is pregnant, she should be provided with a nesting box and soft material such as hay or down. After the babies are weaned, the males and females should be separated so that they will not breed too early. They become very territorial and will need their own cages shortly anyway. It should be noted here that while siblings should not mate, it is common practice among rabbit breeders to allow mother and son or cousins to breed. Don’t breed a rabbit with defects or illness, and choose a good breeding pair promoting the best traits. Around 30 days later, the doe will kindle or give birth.
Baby rabbits or kits.
A doe needs a nesting box in her cage at least a few days before she kindles, which is a low-sided wood box with a tall back and a roof awning that comes down over the back. She will pull her own fur out to make a nest. If she doesn’t, you can gently pull small bits of fur from all over her body. A couple of days before birth, her fur will loosen, and this will be easy to do. You can also add clean straw for even more warmth. Sometimes does don’t give birth in the box, and you will have to move the babies back into the nest. They will probably be too cold to survive, but you can try to warm them up. If you are able to save them, put them back in the nest in a little hollow of fur and cover them. Sometimes a doe might eat her young, which can be caused by anything from stress to poor nutrition to disturbing her when she was about to give birth. She may just be a terrible mother. Sometimes does don’t feed their young, or they step on them and kill the babies accidently. It is possible to try to feed, them but chances are they won’t survive. Since she can have another litter soon, it may not be worth the trouble of feeding the babies every two hours. It is typical to breed a doe every six weeks and wean the babies when they are around five weeks old, and with such an intense breeding schedule you may be able to raise 300 pounds of meat.
PIGEONS AND QUAIL
And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host.
~ Exodus 16:13
How They Fit into the System
Pigeons are kept in cages tall enough for you to walk around inside. Quail can be kept in much smaller cages and up to six can be raised in a square foot (0.09 meters), although for our purposes we would want to give them more space than that. Quail can also live in the greenhouse because they don’t eat the plants; pigeons eat seeds and grain, and quail eat insects. They provide eggs and meat and like rabbits can be legally grown in the city. For people who live in urban locations and are not able to raise chickens, pigeons, and quail are sometimes allowed (although not necessarily in the quantities you will want to raise). Quail are considered wildlife, and in many places you may need to get a game bird license. A breeding pair of pigeons can produce twelve squabs, or baby pigeons, per year. Squabs are considered a gourmet dish and are incredibly easy to raise. Quail lay about 200 eggs a year (almost every day), depending on how much light they have. If you add lighting during the winter, they can produce 300 or more. Unlike pigeons, quail aren’t very good at brooding their own eggs, and like chickens, they need a little extra help. They are more often raised for the eggs than for their meat, because they are smaller than pigeons but lay more eggs.
The pigeon coop should be at least 6 × 8 feet (1.8 x 2.5 meters), and 7 feet (2 meters) tall. Each breeding pair also needs a nesting box attached to the wall off the ground, filled with straw or hay, and a constant supply of fresh water. Pigeons and quail are social animals, and so it is better to have at least three breeding pairs at any one time. There are pigeon breeds just for show, but you are looking for a large meat variety like Cropper, White King, or Silver King. Quail breeds raised for meat include Coturnix (Japanese) and Eastern Bobwhite.
Pigeons and quail can both be allowed to fly free during the day because they will return to the coop at night. They will eat from the garden and fertilize everything, and it is a common practice. There is a much higher chance that predators will eat them if you do this, but make sure that they get closed in securely at night when they return to the nest. While most coops are designed to walk into, you could also design a coop that sits off the ground like a rabbit hutch to deter possums or weasels.
Breeding
Quail house.
Pigeons mate for life and need very little care. As long as you have a breeding pair together, they will find a nesting box and settle in to make babies. Both take turns sitting on the eggs, which will hatch in 18 days. Coturnix quail eggs will hatch in 18 days, and Bobwhite in 23 days. Pigeons will feed the squabs regurgitated food, and after 28 days they can be butchered, before they start to fly. Quail can be butchered in 6 weeks. To kill a squab or quail, take it from the nest in the morning before it eats, cut off the head, and hang it to bleed out (the same as you would a chicken). The feathers are carefully pulled out without scalding. Remove the feet and throw them out, then cut the body from the vent to the breastbone and remove the organs. Save the gizzard, heart, and liver. Rinse with cold water and refrigerate or freeze as soon as possible. It takes two squabs to make a meal for one person.
Nesting pigeon.
It is difficult to tell which birds are male and which are female. You will want to eventually replace your first breeding pairs with younger pairs, and so you will have to watch their behavior. Males are noisy and busy strutting, while females are very quiet and sit still.
BEES
For so work the honey-bees, creatures that by a rule in nature teach the act of order to a peopled kingdom.
~ William Shakespeare
How They Fit into the System
Bees are the producers of most of what you eat. Without their pollination, producing enough food to feed us would be impossible. They also make honey and beeswax. The most difficult part of keeping bees is making sure they have enough forage to make enough food to keep them alive through the winter. If they don’t have enough, they have to be moved or sugar water added to the hive to try to keep them going. To choose a location for the hives, we have to go back and think about our sectors. Bees prefer to fly at least 300 feet to their food source, and they won’t forage well in the face of a cold wind. Using the sector map, place the hives away from the wind and use hedges of herbs to shelter them in the direction that you want them to go.
As a beekeeper you are certain to get stung many times, and you can build up immunity. However, you can also suddenly have an allergic reaction. Before buying bees, get tested for allergies to bees and bee stings. Buy protective bee gear and always work with someone so that if you do develop an allergy, your partner can get help. When you get stung, scrape the stinger out quickly with your fingernail so that less venom will enter your skin.
There are two kinds of forage, pollen and nectar, and bees need both. The pollen species are planted within 100 feet of the hives, and the nectar species are planted at least 300 feet or more away. The line of herb hedges doesn’t even have to be more than 3 feet tall, and it directs them from the hive doorway towards the forage by sheltering them from the wind. These can be rosemary, acacia, or built up soil beds planted with thyme, catmint, or field daisies. The pollen producers around the house you have probably already planted to provide shade can be willow, acacia, pine, and vines like grapes. Everything else can be planned to flower in succession so that the bees can have a constant supply throughout the season. Having a minimum of 30 species to forage from is insurance for your hives. These include gooseberries, apples, white clover, blackberries, citrus, buckwheat, mustard, and other fragrant herbs. The rest can be supplied from field crops.
Bees fly outside the circle for food.
There are three types of honeybees: Italian, Caucasian, and Carniolan. Italians work harder, Caucasians sting less, and Carniolans are the gentlest. Honeybees can only sting once (unlike wasps) because they die, and this makes them less likely to sting. You can either buy bees from a supplier or buy a whole hive from a local beekeeper. The last option is the easiest because the hive will be well established. Once you have one or two hives, you can have an unlimited supply by encouraging bees to establish new hives.
The Tools
You will need a hive, a smoker, a hive tool (a small hooked lever for taking frames out of the hive), bee clothing, a bee brush (for brushing bees off a frame), and a feeder. A hive has several layers. At the bottom is a hive stand, a platform that makes sure the hive is level. Above the stand is the bottom board, a thin frame that holds up the brood chamber. The brood chamber is where the bees make their home, and it is where the queen lays eggs, which are deposited in cells to become baby bees. Supers, or honey supers, are shallow boxes that sit on the brood chamber and usually hold honey, although sometimes they have baby bee cells. It is better to have a shallow super than a deep one because the latter can get too full of honey and difficult to carry. Each super has 10 vertical removable frames. On each frame is a foundation, a flat sheet of beeswax that has hexagons imprinted on it as a template on which the bees to build cells. In most areas used bee equipment is illegal because of disease, so contact your area’s department of agriculture before purchasing any.
Hive with two supers.
A hive tool.
Handling bees:
1. In your smoker, start a fire with crumbled paper and add tinder such as pine needles and dry grass. The fuel doesn’t need to be too dry, because you want it to create smoke. When the fire is burning well, close the lid and use the pump to keep it smoldering.
2. Stand to one side of the entrance to the hive and blow smoke in the door. Wait a minute or two, take off the cover, and blow more smoke in the top.
3. Anytime that the bees start to get agitated with you, use more smoke. Be careful not to hurt a bee, or it will release a panic odor alerting the bees to sting you.
Knowing the hive
Brood cells: have dark colored caps (unlike honey cells which are light colored) and contain baby bees.
Queen cells: are 1 inch (2.5 cm) long and look like a peanut shell that hangs away from the rest of the comb. They contain baby queens.
Drone cells: stick out like the queen cell, but not as far, and have bullet-shaped tops. They contain baby drones.
Worker cells: are the smallest cells, are level with the rest of the comb, and contain baby workers.
Queen bee: the queen is unique. She is 1 inch (2.5 cm) long and has a tapered body. The other bees won’t crowd around her.
Drone bee: they don’t have stingers, are very fat, and have big eyes. Their only job is to compete to mate with the queen. It takes 24 days for a drone to hatch.
Worker bees: they are the ones that sting, and they keep the hive going. It takes 21 days for them to hatch.
The hive can be inspected if the temperature is over 50°F (10°C) and the weather is nice. Some people take a look once a week, but that’s a bit more than the bees are comfortable with. In general it is only necessary to check in if you suspect a problem, and in the spring and fall. In the spring carefully remove every single frame and find the queen. Look for queen cells, find out how many bees there are, how many brood cells there are and what type, how much honey is coming, and whether the bees need more supers. Supers prevent overcrowding, which prevents swarming.
Bee smoker.
Bees always need fresh, clean water. Big ponds don’t make a good water source, however, because bees may drown or be killed by a resident dragonfly. One or two hives only require an outside faucet left to drip onto a slanted board. If you have many hives, then either a soaked mat near the pond or a very tiny pond near the hive can supply them. If you see bees standing around outside the door of the hive in warm weather and you know the hive has a high population, it means they are having trouble cooling the hive. Move the hive into the shade, make the entrance larger, and stagger the supers for ventilation. In the winter, making the door much smaller will help keep heat in and also prevent mice from creeping in and stealing honey.
Bees fare better in a warmer climate because of the greater availability of food and because they are less likely to freeze. If you get a gallon per summer per hive in the first three years, you will be very lucky because it takes a while for the hive to get established. With practice you should eventually get 4-5 gallons. Placement is the key to a successful hive. Point the door of the hive towards wherever you want them to go and away from houses, barns, and loud motors. One hive will need 50–100 pounds of honey to get through the winter. If the bees get low on honey, feed them 2 parts granulated sugar per 1 part water, and in the spring you can give them artificial pollen.
Artificial pollen:
1 part brewer’s yeast
3 parts soy flour
1 part nonfat dry milk
Use as much natural pollen (such as goldenrod saved in the fridge) as you have. Put directly into the hive.
Making New Hives
To move an entire hive, plug the door of the hive very tightly with a porous material that allows air in, so the bees won’t suffocate. It must be very secure or you will find yourself in the middle of an angry swarm. To create more hives, at the beginning of May you can take four frames with brood cells from your most established hive, as well as some honey and some bee bread (or pollen). Bee bread is yellow and grainy. You will also need worker bees, which you can just brush into the hive. It is better to have one queen cell per frame, but if you don’t, they will make one. Put the frames into the new hive and stuff the door loosely with grass. It can take two weeks for the hive to produce a queen, and then the queen needs four weeks to mature and mate. The bees will put so much effort into this process that they will only make enough honey to support themselves over the winter, and you will not be able to collect any honey that year from the source hive or the new hive for yourself. You also run the risk of losing a new colony if the bees fail to feed royal jelly to the queen on the first day of hatching.
Beekeeping calendar:
Early spring: Check that they have enough food and supply them with artificial pollen. In some cold climates you might see dead bees at the bottom of the hive, but this usually means the queen has died. If the queen dies and there are no eggs, the worker bees will wander around and eventually die. If they do have eggs or larvae, they will make a new queen. The workers should keep the hive very clean. If it gets dirty, it’s a sign that the queen is gone and they will all die.
Keeping bees healthy
Only buy bees from a place with a good reputation.
Don’t buy used equipment unless you’ve talked to a local apiary official.
Replace foundations every 2–4 years.
Watch for disease and infestations every time you open the hive:
• bees that can’t fly
• discolored or misshapen cells
• punctured or sunken cells
• dead larvae
• dead bees
• swollen bees with shaking wings
• mites with 8 legs
• gray webs in the comb
Late spring/early summer: When you think the bee population is big enough, add another section to the hive to hold the increase in comb production. This is also the time to split the hive into two hives if you want. If the bees feel too crowded, they will swarm—that is, they will leave the hive as a group. They won’t sting, and you may have to track them down and coax them into the hive. Splitting the hive and adding sections prevents this.
Fall: On a warm sunny day in the afternoon, take out the honey. Leave at least 50–100 pounds for them to eat during the winter, depending on how long your winter is.
A swarm of bees gathered under the eaves of a house.
Scraping comb off of a frame.
Winter: Keep the hive very well ventilated and protect it from wind. Check the bees’ food supply and add sugar or sugar water to keep them from starving.
ZONE 2: ORCHARD
I am not bound for any public place, but for ground of my own where I have planted vines and orchard trees, and in the heat of the day climbed up into the healing shadow of the woods.
~ Wendell Berry
The Perimeter
Even though rigid lines represent the zones on your map, the edges should be very blurry in real life. At the edge of your Zone 1 gardens is the orchard, but first you have to prepare the soil and develop nitrogen-fixing leguminous plants, such as clover or some species of shrubs. Then you can plant your orchard trees amongst the shrubs and small plants. These really shouldn’t be in rows if they are for your own use, but if you are using the orchard to generate income, then you should plant in rows, always making sure to form them along contours. The edge between the two zones should be curved or zigzagged, as always.
Choosing the Right Trees
When mature, will the tree:
• Be shaped like an umbrella, or will it be more open? Open trees let in light for intercropping.
• Be tolerant to shade? If you want to grow smaller trees under your larger trees, pick ones that are tolerant to shade.
• Grow too tall? A tall tree grows very wide and will shade out undergrowth unless you want to spend the time pruning it back to an extreme degree.
• Need lots of water? Keep trees that don’t need water away from trees that do, to simplify the watering process.
• Do well with what’s around it? Some trees may stop other trees from growing well. Also make sure to plant male and female species together for pollination.
You must also choose species that do well in your region. In a cold climate, apple, pear, quince, cherry, peach, plum, apricot, filbert, chestnut, walnut, hickory, olive, loquat, and pineapple guava may be grown. The species must be disease-resistant, which is more likely with a heritage variety.
A well-pruned orchard.
Intercropping
Intercropping has been discussed previously in this book but is just as important in the orchard as in other places. It is here in the orchard that the forest garden model has a chance to really play out. The species that you choose should be resistant to disease, won’t compete with other plants for water and nutrients, and can function as a windbreak. Under the trees you can grow green manure, nitrogen-fixers, forage crops for chickens or sheep or a pig, repel insects and grass, grow flowers and herbs for bees, or grow vegetables until the trees get too big.
To stop grass from growing under the trees, a variety of small plants can be grown. These are really needed only in the first few years, when young trees are competing with the grass.
• Bulbs like daffodils and onion species come up in the spring and die off by summer.
• Dandelions and comfrey have deep spike roots and leaves that cover the ground.
• Fennel, dill, tansy, carrot, Queen Anne’s lace, catnip, and daisy all attract wasps, bees, and friendly birds.
• Clover and leguminous plants cover the ground and create nitrogen in the soil.
A desert orchard.
Desert Orchards
When planning an orchard in a dry region, the first consideration is species. Choose trees that don’t need much water or that can withstand drought. The trees will have to be spaced farther apart than they would be in a temperate zone, so that they won’t compete for water, and it is a good idea to plant them during the rainy season. Trees should also be mulched. In deserts, rocks can be used to protect the roots from heat and damage and act as a thermal mass that keeps the roots warm at night. Palm leaves or brush can be propped over the tree to protect saplings from the sun, and fencing or dogs should keep nibbling animals away. Interplant leguminous species in between.
The most efficient way to water trees in dry climates is by either using drip irrigation, which is a pipe system underground, or by building roof water and storm drains that lead into swales. The trees can be planted on the edge of the swales to take advantage of the water. If the soil is very sandy, each tree can also be planted in a hole that has been lined with mud clay so that the sand won’t collapse and water will be retained.
On a slope, trees should be planted in zigzags with logs or water runoff ditches running between them. At the top of the hill the hardiest trees can be planted, with progressively less tolerant species towards the bottom where the deepest soil and most water will be.
In a desert, you can be more flexible with your zones. If valleys and streams flow through the property, meandering through all the zones, you may need to plant trees along the pathway of the water or right next to the house to take advantage of graywater. It is much easier to grow a tree where there is water already rather than bring water uphill to a dry place.
These pigs are aerating soil and clearing the land.
Animals in the Orchard
While the orchard is getting established, you will not want to let animals in, or they would destroy the young saplings. But, once the trees and the bushes and herbs in the undergrowth are reasonably well grown, you can let very small chicken breeds in. The chickens will eat insects and the fruit that falls to the ground (stopping pests from gathering), fertilize the soil, and scavenge free food. This can be done at a ratio of about 100 chickens per acre (0.4 hectares). When the orchard is around 3 to 7 years old, you can let the pigs in, and they will do the same job. After 7 years, you can let sheep in, and after 15 years you can let cattle in.
Pruning
Pyramid: This type of pruning keeps the tree quite a bit smaller than other methods. It is a good idea to do this type of pruning after April rather than in the winter, to prevent silver leaf disease. It is a fairly straightforward strategy. You would carefully cut the tree into a pyramid shape.
1. A sapling in the first year should be cut back to a height of 2 feet (60 cm).
2. In the second year cut off 18 inches (45 cm) from the top of the main stem and trim off the ends of the remaining branches to just above the previous year’s healthy bud.
3. The third year, cut 18 inches (45 cm) off the top of the main stem and trim back the ends of the top few branches to just above the last healthy bud, or about 10 inches (25 cm).
Pyramid, bush, and fan pruning.
Silver leaf disease
Found all over the world, Chondrostereum purpureum is a fungal disease that attacks just about any deciduous trees. Any home orchard is susceptible to it, and it can spread between species through wounds in the bark. It is recognizable by the silvery sheen it makes on the leaves when it damages the leaf cells. Apples tend to be fairly hardy and can usually recover, but other species can die from it. In the meantime it reduces the amount and quality of the fruit you do get. To prevent silver leaf, it is important to follow smart pruning strategies.
• Use sharp, high quality pruning shears so that the cuts you make are clean and smooth, and so the wood won’t split. If the branch is big, use a saw to make a clean cut.
• Prune in the spring on a warm sunny day, not in the winter. Silver leaf prefers cool, wet conditions.
• If you are going to use wound dressing after the cut dries, do it on the same day. The dressing should be applied thickly with several coats. You should also know that pruning paint may be expensive, but making your own is ineffective. If you can’t buy some, don’t use any. The tree’s natural defenses will help it heal, and homemade stuff will actually prevent it from healing.
Bush: Also called open-centered, the bush shape has a stem of 2 ½ feet (0.8 meters). The aim is to create a shape that has (obviously) an open center. This is done in early spring.
1. On a tree that is grown, pinch off any buds on the bottom of the trunk and pull off any suckers (shoots that grow off the roots and out of the ground).
2. This type of pruning is not very extensive. You should only have to remove stems and branches that are crossing, vertical, weak, or diseased.
3. If you still need to thin the branches a bit more, you can do so in July.
Fan: Fan training is used when a tree is grown up against a wall or fence at least 6 feet high and, hopefully, facing south or southwest for most varieties. Dwarf varieties work the best for this.
1. The tree should be planted 6 to 9 inches (15–22 cm) away from the wall, angled slightly towards it.
2. It is best to do the cutting in the spring, when branches can heal quickly. In the first year, when a sapling has no branches, cut back the main stem to 15 inches (38 cm), making sure that there are at least three strong buds.
3. In the summer, put two stakes into the ground at 45° on either side of the tree and tie the two side branches to them to start creating the fan shape.
4. Repeat the next year for two more inside branches at a lesser angle.
5. When a tree is already a couple of years old and hasn’t been trained, you will have to cut back the main stem to about 15 inches (38 cm), put in the stakes, and cut each arm of the fan by two-thirds to just above an upward-facing bud.
6. At this point the tree will have two arms extending from each side. In the summer, tie four shoots from each arm 30° from the main arm so that they will create a fan shape.
7. Pinch off any shoots that are growing out towards the wall and all others back to one leaf.
8. The next spring cut back the four branches on each side by one-third, just above an upward-facing bud if you can.
Small orchards provide hundreds of pounds of fruit per year.
There is one order of beauty which seems made to turn heads. It is a beauty like that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle rippling noises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle.
~ T. S. Eliot
How They Fit into the System
Ducks are the gentlest and most versatile poultry. They eat algae and weeds from ponds, slugs, snails, grubs, soft greens and grasses, water plants, small tree greens, and grains and at the same time fertilize the water and the soil, improving fish production. They will walk on small plants, and they do eat some of them too, so they work better in a well-mulched area with plants that are well established. They also need less care and feeding than chickens, although they need more planning. While a few bantam chickens can be thrown in a greenhouse, a flock of ducks needs lots of water and grazing. If you have other animals that need to drink from watering troughs or ponds, the ducks must be separated from those water sources, or they will make them too dirty. The best system is an enclosed area just for ducks around a small pond with an island in the middle for them to nest on, usually in or on the edge of Zone 2. Around the pond could be a forage garden, and if you have fish, the duck’s manure will feed algae-eating organisms and help grow pond plants. You can keep 25 ducks per acre of pond surface. If this pond area is next to the Zone 1 garden, you can open it up now and then so that they can eat the slugs and pests, but only when the plants are at least as big as the ducks.
Duck Care
If the ducks have adequate water, a grassy yard with new grass, and a forage garden with bugs in it, then you won’t need much extra feed. Ducks need young grass to eat, and if their pasture is too small and unvaried, they will quickly destroy a grassy backyard. If you must give them additional food, wheat is the best grain for ducks and goes well with oats. Hard round fruits and vegetables need to be crushed for them first. Liquid milk and hard-boiled eggs are good sources of protein for laying birds, and all ducks need calcium from eggshells or seashells, and grit. Ducks, unlike other poultry, need a little more niacin in their diet, but lots of fresh greens or peas should be enough to provide them with what they need. In turn, they will give you eggs, meat, feathers, pest control, and fertilizer.
Homemade poultry chick feed
30% grain: finely ground wheat, a little corn, and oats
20% protein: fish meal, meat meal, yogurt, cottage cheese, worms, bugs, and grubs
50% greens: alfalfa meal, alfalfa leaves or fresh greens such as chopped lettuce
Extras: wheat germ, sunflower seeds, linseed meal
Sand for grit
Ground shells: mussel, snail, oyster, or eggshells
Homemade poultry adult feed:
30% grain: finely ground wheat, a little corn, and oats
15% protein: fish meal, meat meal, yogurt, cottage cheese, worms, bugs, and grubs
55% greens: alfalfa meal, alfalfa leaves, or fresh greens such as chopped lettuce
Extras: wheat germ, sunflower seeds, linseed meal
Sand for grit
Ground shells: mussel, snail, oyster, or eggshells
Ducks are social creatures and need a flock to be happy, so you’ll need to have at least two ducks or more. Each duck needs four square feet of housing. During the day this can be a three-sided shelter near the pond, but at night ducks need to be kept away from predators. They can be put in the barn in a room with a bed of straw, or in a simple shed. This shed should have a door for people so that you can harvest all the valuable fertilized straw. Ducks can usually fly and need to be clipped, or else they will fly around your whole property or even leave completely. Use big scissors to clip off the ends of long feathers of one wing when they first grow, and after each molting after that. Don’t cut during the molting, or you may cause fatal bleeding.
In the winter they will run out of forage and can quickly turn the area around the pond into mud. Throw down another layer of mulch, such as fallen leaves or hay, as they stir up the earth. Ducks can tolerate freezing temperatures as long as they can still run back into their three-sided shelter away from the wind when they need to.
There are several breeds that are popular with duck owners because they are better for eggs, meat, or both. Khaki Campbell is the most popular and was the first domestic duck breed, followed by Indian Runners. They produce just as many eggs as chickens, but are not good meat birds. Meat breeds include Muscovy, Rouen, and Pekin. To find a breed that is dual purpose or works well for meat and eggs, you will have to look to history and pick a heritage breed. Heritage breeds are types that were raised by small farmers over hundreds of years and are now not as commercially viable. Because of this, they are dying out. Ancona, Appleyard, Buff, Magpie, and Saxony are good dual-purpose breeds. Saxony is probably the best of these for their foraging and egg laying ability.
Breeding
Duck males and females are difficult to tell apart. The female will have a loud, raspy quack, and the male will be a bit quieter or sometimes silent. Some male ducks will also become very protective of the females. If you have a motherly duck, it is best to let her raise her own ducklings, as she’ll do a better job than you. Ducks will start laying in the spring, when they are around six to seven months old, and keep laying for three years or longer. They always lay in the morning and are very scheduled, so let them out of the barn after 10:00 A.M. and then lure them back into the barn in the evening with a handful of grain. A mother duck and her ducklings should be kept separate from the other ducks until the chicks are six to eight weeks old.
Mother duck roosting.
CHICKENS
People who count their chickens before they are hatched, act very wisely, because chickens run about so absurdly that it is impossible to count them accurately.
~ Oscar Wilde
How They Fit into the System
The goal is to feed chickens from Zone 2 and profit from them in Zone 1, and so they are located on the very edge of Zone 1 or as close as possible to it. They provide meat, eggs, feathers, fertilizer, pest control, and weed control. The chickens live in a coop, which has an attached pen that runs along the border of the Zone 1 gardens and the Zone 2 orchard. It should also have a second pen for chicks, surrounded by spiny shrubs to protect them from hawks. The trees and ground in their pen should be well mulched with straw, corn stalks, sawdust, yard waster, or bark, with wire mesh around the trees holding the mulch in. The chicken run can be planted with fruit trees (which will drop fruit on the ground), grains, corn, sunflowers, and greens. When weeding the garden, the waste can just be thrown over the fence into the chicken run. The run is divided into several pens planted in succession, so the chickens can be rotated when the plants are ready, and each pen also has a log on the ground. The log is left to sit for a while and can then be flipped over to reveal all the pill bugs and worms. The fence dividing these pens and keeping the chickens from your other gardens should be at least five feet high.
Chickens can run in the garden at certain times of the year.
Chickens can’t be let into the mulched gardens or orchards that are for your use, which are typically in Zones 1–3, because they’ll destroy the mulch. However, you can let them into an unmulched orchard. When the orchard is young, only let bantams or very small chickens forage where they will eat dropped fruit and weeds and fertilize the soil. There should be no more than 50–100 chickens per acre in the orchard or in a pasture with other breeds. Twenty-five light breed hens producing eggs will eat a quarter pound of food per day, and a heavy breed even more. If you are using chickens as a cash crop, then you may grow 300 chickens per acre on a well-planned forage pasture if no other animals are with them.
Alternatively, and this is especially the case for urban dwellers, chickens can live in a chicken tractor or ark. This is simply a small house for fewer chickens that is built to be moved around a yard or pasture. There are a myriad of designs and even commercially available chicken tractors made out of plastic. The house itself usually doesn’t hold more than 3–8 chickens, and the pen is much smaller, usually only twice the size of the coop. Each chicken needs 3 square feet (0.3 square meters), which includes space in the pen. A large pen for more birds is too heavy to move frequently, which is why they are so small. The floor is open, of course, so the birds can eat, and the poop falls down onto the ground.
The pasture and pens should have trees and shrubs such as pigeon pea, berries, and fruits, as well as acacias, clovers, grasses, chicory, comfrey, and dandelions. Insects and larvae can be introduced by having a large manure pile or mulches, or you can grow your own crickets. You can give them cottage cheese or other dairy for more protein. They also need ground shells for minerals and grit to help them digest their food, which can come from their own eggshells, or from mussels or snails that you raise. If you don’t provide this, they might eat their own eggs. Gravel, sand, and pebbles can also be put in a container on the ground for grit. See the section on ducks for a homemade poultry feed formula.
Chicken Plants
These can be planted in your pens and pasture where chickens eat. See the chapter on plants for more information.
Alfalfa
Amaranth
Autumn olive
Barley
Buckwheat
Chickweed
Chicory
Clover
Comfrey
Corn
Cucumber
Currant
Dandelion
Elderberry
Fava beans
Fennel
Fruit and nut trees
Honey locust
Oak
Oats
Quinoa
Russian olive
Rye
Siberian pea shrub
Stinging nettle
Sunflower
Swiss chard
Vetch
Wheat
The coop must be at least 3 square feet (0.3 meters) per chicken. A manageable size is 7 x 7 feet (2.1 x 2.1 meters), or 49 square feet (4.5 square meters), which is enough space for 16 chickens. A small chick-house can be attached to the side that is fortified from predators. Unlike a traditional coop, a permaculture coop is set on stilts so that the manure can simply drop down, either into a swale or into a waiting wheelbarrow, through slats in the floor. Inside, you will need roosts and nesting boxes. Roosts are long poles or boards at least 18 inches (45 cm) from the wall and low enough for them to fly up to. Nesting boxes are square boxes around the wall about 18 inches (45 cm) from the ground, and at least 12 x 12 inches (30 x 30 cm) in size. These boxes can be attached to the outside of the coop with a lid so that you don’t need to go in to disturb the chickens every day to get the eggs. The general rule is one box for every two hens. The chicken door should be 12 inches (30 cm) high and incorporated into the peak of the roof. Not only does the door serve as ventilation, but the height also deters predators. A ladder to the door opening should be 5 feet wide with rungs 3 feet apart—very difficult for foxes to climb, but the rungs are close enough for chickens to comfortably traverse. In a cold climate the coop needs extra insulation and should be able to be closed up at night. The gaps in the floor may be a problem as well, but unless your climate is extremely cold, adding a thick layer of hay as bedding may be enough.
Chicken coop with fox-proof door.
Keeping chickens healthy
• Disinfect the coop and equipment before you bring in new chickens.
• Keep bedding clean and dry, cleaning it out once a week.
• Clean and disinfect the coop once a year.
• Provide fresh water every day, making sure it is always available.
• Separate old birds from young birds to prevent the spread of diseases.
• Provide a small amount of crushed shells every day.
• A grit supply and cleanliness prevents worms and parasites.
• Cannibalism is prevented by adequate space and nutrition.
• Birds need vitamin D. In a northern winter you may need to provide cod liver oil.
Chicken Tractor
The most common small design for a chicken tractor is an A-frame, with a triangular house and a totally enclosed triangular pen covered in chicken wire. The other common design is a rectangular pen. The house takes up 1/3 of the total space and has a square cut out for the chickens to go out into their tiny run. A side wall or roof of the house is hinged so it can be opened up for collecting eggs and cleaning.
A-frame chicken tractor.
Another feature that makes moving the chickens around much easier is wheels. The wheels must be set very low to the ground, as any gaps around the bottom of the pen can allow predators to get in. The solution to this is an extra wood barrier set around the pen that is removed when you have to move the chickens. Others have made larger, full coops on wheels with a removable ramp. These do not have an attached pen and are instead rolled out into a pasture. At night the chickens must be shut in the coop.
Breeds
There are so many different types of chickens that when people start to shop for their first batch, they are often overwhelmed. In North America, most of our eggs come from white hens that lay white eggs, but there are hundreds of other breeds from which to choose. These are divided into two categories: light or heavy. The light breeds can fly short distances, aren’t good mothers, and aren’t as hardy as the heavy breeds, but they are excellent at foraging and don’t usually need supplementary food. The heavy breeds don’t fly, are better mothers, and usually lay brown eggs. They tend to be hardier and lay eggs longer during the season but aren’t as good at foraging. Some breeds are also much nicer than others, cutting down on pecking order problems. When chickens see a weakness in a bird either because of size or injury, they often gang up on it and peck it repeatedly, sometimes to death. Orpington is one of the most popular dual-purpose breeds. These chickens are fairly laid back and easy to handle. They are a good choice for a beginner.
Orpington hen.
Eggs
Chickens molt, or lose their feathers, once a year and usually in the fall, and they also stop laying. The feathers will start falling from the neck, then the breast, thighs, and back, and then the wings and tail. Usually, molting is triggered by less sunlight from shorter days, but by using a light on a timer in the coop you can keep the egg production up. Molting in the summer may be caused by stress, such as a food or water shortage, disease, cold temperature, or sudden lighting changes. Chickens also stop laying just because they get old. Their comb, vents, and wattle become shrunken and pale, their body will be smaller, and as time goes on their vent, eye ring, and beak will become yellow. However, chickens are amazing egg providers and usually produce at least one egg a day, giving you about 300 eggs per year.
Breeding
In a permaculture system, ideally you would want your chickens to hatch their own eggs, or at least the ones that you don’t eat. This means you need to keep a rooster (which you can’t do in the city), and there are a few other drawbacks as well. Roosters are loud and aggressive.
You also need the right breed for your hens. Heritage varieties are more likely to get broody. A broody hen is one with the instinct to sit on a nest, which most hybrid modern breeds don’t have. Even then many get a nest started and then forget all about it. To encourage her, you can build her a private nest out of wood—about 15 x 15 x 15 inches (38 x 38 x 38 cm)—with a roof. It sits right on the ground and could have a little straw in it. You can also use a dummy egg, which is a wooden egg that you put in the nest to trick the hen into thinking she needs to sit there. When the weather is warm she will lay one egg a day and start setting or incubating the eggs. Don’t let anyone disturb her or the nest, or she may abandon it. After 21 days the chicks will hatch. Many people take the hatched chicks into the house until all of the eggs have hatched because the hen often will be torn between sitting on the eggs and taking care of the new chicks—she could end up losing both. Put the new chicks into a brooder (see below for more information on brooders), and then slip them back under her the first night after hatching. At this time you can also clean up her nest and take out any eggshells and dummy eggs. You can add in a few orphan chicks if you want. The next day watch the hen. If she pecks any chicks, return them to the brooder. Normally a hen breaks up big seeds for her babies, but if she doesn’t, use the same methods for brooder chicks to feed them. The family should be kept away from other chickens—other mothering hens can cause fights, and adult birds may peck and kill chicks.
A brooder is simply a box with a light that keeps chicks warm like a broody hen. You can buy a brooder, or you can make one by using a box with a red heat lamp and a thermometer. The bulb should be low-wattage, and the temperature should be about 95°F (35°C). A box 30 inches (76 cm) square with a 69-watt bulb can brood 50 chicks. Put your hand down to test the heat. If it is uncomfortably hot, the lamp is too close or is too many watts. Check the chicks 2–3 times per night the first week. If they are cold, they will huddle under the light, and if they are too hot they will stay near the walls. If they are content, they will look and sound like it by cheeping happily. Decrease the heat 5° per week, so that in 6 weeks it is 70°F (21°C). Then you can turn the heat off unless it gets chilly. As the chicks get older, tape another box next to the first and cut a door. Hang heavy cloth in the door, and the other room will be cool, so the chicks can run in and out. The light should be red or green and very dim, as a sudden adjustment to total darkness could kill them. Chicks also need water and bedding. You will need 1 gallon (4 liters) of water per 50 chicks. Keep the water clean and full at all times and make sure it is room temperature, not cold, although you can’t put the water right under the heat lamp or it will be too hot and evaporate. The first week use burlap or cloth rags (with no loose threads) laid out flat for bedding over a layer of newspaper. Then, when the chicks have learned what food is, graduate to a thick layer of black and white shredded newspaper, hay (not straw), or wood shavings. If you do use wood shavings, the pieces should be too big to fit in a chick’s mouth. Stir the litter every day and remove wet spots to prevent spraddle legs (legs turning outward) and infection.
Newly hatched chick.
If you hatched your own chickens, wait until they start pecking at the floor to give them food. If you bought them, have food ready because they will already be three days old. For the first week put the food in an egg carton or on a piece of cardboard so that the food is up to their eye level. Once they figure out what it is, put the food in a container that is difficult to walk in and scratch food out of but short enough to reach in. Each chick will need 1 inch (2.54 cm) of feeding space until they are 30 days old, then they will need 3 inches (7.6 cm). Don’t put the feeder right under the heat lamp, and only fill it half full to stop them from throwing the food out. Clean out the old food each time you fill it, and keep it full most of the time. Chicks need small grit to help them digest food, which you can give by sprinkling sand on top of the feed. This last step is simple but absolutely necessary, especially if you are making your own feed rather than buying commercial feed.
When they are 4 weeks old, chicks can stand on anything, so if you have a chick house outside attached to your coop, transfer the brooder to it then. When they are 6 weeks old you can remove the box, and when they are 10–12 weeks you can put them with the other chickens (if they are big enough and the weather is warm). These small chickens are called pullets and should be moved before they start laying.
Chick Dust
Chick dust is a powder that comes from dry chick droppings. It can get into your lungs and over time can cause lung disease, which is a good reason to either get chicks out of the house quickly or raise them in a separate area altogether.
GEESE
Oh, nature’s noblest gift, my grey goose quill, Slave of my thoughts, obedient to my will,
Torn from the parent bird to form a pen,
That mighty instrument of little men.
~ Lord Byron
How Geese Fit into the System
Geese eat grass and weeds and in return will fertilize the soil while leaving your crops and mulch alone. They also protect your property from predators and provide eggs, meat, and feathers. They should only be allowed into a well-established area so that they won’t squash any young shoots, and they will eat fruit and vegetables so they should be removed before your garden ripens.
Geese can be let into the Zone 1 vegetable garden after plants like strawberries and tomatoes have grown to the point that they won’t sustain any real damage when the geese walk on them, but usually they will live in Zone 2, especially if you have ducks. Put seven geese per acre in the field when they are over eight weeks old, and let them graze until spring when the sprouts come up. There should be a fence around the field at least three feet high so they won’t get into any other gardens.
Geese can live with a small pond just like ducks, but heavy breeds won’t breed unless they have more water. Six geese is the maximum population per acre of water surface. If there is enough of it, they can also live just off grass pasture, and unlike ducks they eat older grass. Geese are meat birds and do well as watchdogs or guards, although they are very quiet. If you keep a goose for a long time, it can become too big for you to handle and will become dangerous if you aren’t handling it every day, but a meat goose doesn’t get big enough to pose a threat, because you’ll eat it first.
There are breeds of geese for eggs and some for meat. Dark breeds are harder to feather when butchering, which is why you always see pictures of the traditional white goose in farm scenery. It is difficult to tell the difference between a male and a female unless you are practiced in flipping them upside down and looking in their vent. The easiest but less accurate way is to watch the flock for geese with a broader head, longer neck, and more aggressiveness. A gander (male) has a deeper, louder call, and is much more aggressive. It is fairly simple to figure out if you watch during mating. Don’t eat a goose over three years old, which you can tell by the soft, yellow down on its legs.
The goose house needs to be 10 square feet (0.9 square meters) per goose, and their yard needs to be very roomy, 30–40 square feet (2.8–3.7 square meters) per goose. The house doesn’t need to be very fancy, just a simple shed that is very dry. A box feeder can be located inside, but the water trough should be outside under an awning. The floor should be covered with clean bedding such as chopped straw.
Geese can eat the same food as the ducks, as long as it has the correct ratios with 15% protein. However, they are able to live entirely off pasture and, unlike ducks, don’t mind eating older grass. They do mind eating alfalfa though and generally won’t touch it unless they are very hungry. In the winter provide dried grass, hay (not alfalfa), corn fodder, grain, and whatever scraps you would feed ducks.
Geese need to be clipped, just like ducks, after each molting. Clip 5 inches (12 cm) off the feathers of one wing, being careful not to clip the wing itself or during molting, causing permanent injury or even death. Geese are big and unwieldy, and an irritated goose can bite your face. Always pick them up backwards with the head facing towards your back and the wings pinned under your arm.
Gather the goose eggs twice a day. If you want to raise goslings, you will need a gander. A big gander can service 2–3 geese, and a smaller one can handle 4–5. Once he picks, he will stick with the same females every year and help raise the goslings. Keep the ganders separate and let them in with the hens in late fall or early winter. It is recommended to wait until a goose is two years old before breeding because the quality of its eggs is so much better. Geese will want to brood outside, in an old tire with straw or a tiny brooding house. When a hen starts to lay, leave two and take the rest until the nest is full. Until she has a full nest, she may not start to set, and you could lose some of the goslings anyway, so doing this will also provide you with goose eggs and allow you to keep the hen laying. It takes between 28 to 35 days for the eggs to hatch. Around day 20 you will have to spray the eggs down completely with warm water and turn them over yourself.
Goslings raised in a brooder need the same floor space as ducks, 1.5 square feet (0.14 square meters) until 7 weeks and then 2.5 square feet (0.23 square meters) after that, but there should only be 25 goslings per 250-watt heat lamp. They will need to be fed 4 times a day, with enough food to eat in 15 minutes. This includes tender, green grass or weeds, along with a bit of duck food and some grit. At 5 to 6 weeks they can survive completely on a big pasture (1 acre or 0.4 hectare per 20–40 geese), or you can add some grain. Goslings can be butchered before winter as long as their pinfeathers aren’t growing in, which happens in cycles. The grease has traditionally been used for frying, pastry, and hand salves, since goose tends to be greasier than other meats.
PIGS
I had rather be shut up in a very modest cottage with my books, my family and a few old friends, dining on simple bacon, and letting the world roll on as it liked, than to occupy the most splendid post, which any human power can give.
~ Thomas Jefferson
How Pigs Fit into the System
Pigs are very efficient foragers and will eat any fruit that falls on the ground (helping to deter pests), grass, herbs, vines, and nuts and will dig up roots with their noses. This rooting action makes them excellent natural plows, preparing and clearing a garden bed before planting. The best place is a shady, treed area full of waste material and weeds and not too muddy. Pigs can be allowed into the orchard when the trees are at least a few years old. They will also eat any food waste and will eat 25 pounds (11.3 kg) of food per day. The pasture should be prepared with a chisel plow, and lime should be added. It should be planted with legumes, comfrey, endive, and grass. There should be no more than 20 pigs per acre (0.4 hectare), which will clear the whole thing. They will remove blackberries and scrub, and after they clear the pasture, the pigs can be taken out, the area can be replanted, and cattle can be allowed in. After the cattle clear it, replant and let the pigs return. Some plants can be grown as forage as well, including cattail, legumes, chicory, comfrey, and duck potatoes. A hundred pigs penned on 5 acres (2 hectares) will eat through 100 acres (40 hectares) in 18 months, which can be a good thing if you have lots of land to clear, but everyone else needs to be careful to keep the population low.
In a cold climate pigs will need a three-sided shed with a soft dry floor in the pasture, and for breeding a farrowing pen will be needed. Farrowing is when a sow gives birth to piglets. She will use it for three months out of the year, and so if you have two sows, they can take turns. A lactating sow needs 7 pounds (3.2 kg) of grain per day when she gives birth, working up to 12 pounds (5.4 kg) when the piglets are a few weeks old. Each sow should have at least 2.5 acres (1 hectare) for forage just for herself and the piglets. All pigs also need a large and reliable constant supply of water. Since pigs don’t sweat, an automatic waterer that the pigs can turn on and use to spray themselves will keep them happy.
As you are probably raising them for bacon, you may have to feed some grain for a couple of weeks at the end to fatten them up. If you don’t care about bacon and just want healthy pork, then forage will do.
Pig breeds are divided into dark and light breeds according to their skin color. For the small farmer interested in a breed that will raise its own young, white breeds are often chosen because they tend to have good mothering instincts and are excellent foragers. Chester White, Yorkshire, and Landrance are popular mothering breeds that produce large litters, but these aren’t known for their foraging ability. Alternatively, you could choose a heritage breed that has both skills, such as British Saddleback, Large Black, or Tamworth.
Breeding
Sows are generally gentle if you handle them often, but boars are not. They can be aggressive and can injure you easily, so you may not want to keep your own. If you do want to keep a boar, avoid the Chester White breed, which are worse. The sow will go into heat if she isn’t nursing, and you can bring them together then. It takes four months for her to give birth, which she will do in your farrowing pen. The piglets need to be kept warm, about 86°F (30°C), and they will huddle together even then. The farrowing pen, which is simply a well-ventilated shed with a door that is big enough for the sow to go in and turn around in, has two dividers on each side for the piglets to be able walk through so that the sow won’t accidently lay down on one and smother it. You will also need a creep feeder. When the piglets are around a month old, they can begin to be weaned, and a feeder on one end of their grazing area that only the piglets can get into will make this process easier.
Farrowing pen.
Market weight for pigs is around 250 pounds (113 kg), which yields 140 pounds (63.5 kg) of meat. This takes about six months, depending on how much grain you are feeding them. If it is getting close to winter and the pigs haven’t put on that much weight, then forage hasn’t been enough, and you’ll have to supplement it with grain. Butchering pigs is very labor-intensive and requires some extra sanitary procedures than with other animals, and so it is recommended that you delegate that task out to a professional. Unless you are raising them commercially and have an interest in setting up a professional butchering facility, it is worth paying someone else for the amount of time spent butchering one hog.
GOATS
He who lets the goat be laid on his shoulders is soon after forced to carry the cow.
~ Italian Proverb
How They Fit into the System
Goats are exceptionally good at clearing pasture and effectively clear the toughest brambles and unwanted vegetation. They can be temporarily used for this purpose by penning them or tying them with a halter and moving them from place to place. Goats can be so destructive, however, that it is only recommended to keep a few for milk and meat production. More than one goat per person in your family is unnecessary. If you do use lactating goats to clear a pasture, you will have to give them a little bit of grain to keep their milk production up.
Goat Management
Goats are clever and can also jump high. The fence should be at least 4.5 feet (1.4 meters) high, with ¼ acre (0.1 hectare) per goat. Wrap trees with chicken wire so they can’t strip the bark off, and make sure the fence does not have a gap wider than 8 inches (20 cm). If the goats can’t see through it, they won’t try to get out, but if you must, have a rail fence the make sure they can’t squeeze through. Goats can unlock most standard latches with their tongue, so a padlock may be necessary. If the goat does try to get out all the time, put a Y shaped yoke on its head so it can’t fit; soon it will give up trying, and then you can remove the yoke. The goat house can be any kind of sturdy three-sided shed in their pasture, or in the barn as long as there is 36 square feet (3.3 square meters) per goat, with clean hay for bedding.
Goats will strip a tree of everything they can reach.
Goats are very curious, so pretend to examine something while showing them some grain. Not only will a goat want the grain, she will want to see what you are looking at. You will need a second person to help you, and when the goat walks closer to investigate, the helper can grab her. If you spend a lot of time with your goats, this may not be necessary, as they can become quite attached to you. To find out the sex of the goat, a boy pees from the middle of his belly, and a girl has to pee squatting backwards a bit.
Goats will try to eat anything, including poisonous plants. Check their pasture for these common dangers:
Milkweed
Nightshade plants
Buckthorn
Cowbane
Dog’s mercury
Foxglove
Greater celandine
Hemlock trees
Henbane
Ragwort
Rhododendron
Rhubarb leaves
Spindle
Water dropwort
Yew
Iris
Azalea
Beet leaves
Evergreen trees
Each goat needs about 4 to 5 pounds (1.8 to 2.3 kg) of hay per day of mixed grass and legumes, such as alfalfa. That’s about half a bale of hay per 10 goats, twice a day, placed on a hayrack. Since you probably have them on an overgrown pasture, they will eat less hay. Goats also need salt and water at all times. Goats won’t lick a salt block, and so you will have to provide loose mineralized salt. While goats are destructive and curious and tend to get out of their fencing, in other ways they are very easy to care for. If they get lice, rub them down with vinegar. Trim the hooves once a month using a knife or hoof nippers, or they will keep growing. Goats are very susceptible to worms and under regular standards would be wormed three times a year. For organic standards this is not possible. The goats themselves will control their own worms in the way that they eat, by eating higher leaves first and working their way down, and wandering far distances over their pasture, which is the tree method of pasture, is particularly valuable for them. They should be rotated to new pasture every three weeks, which is the lifespan of a stomach worm. They need to be kept in very clean conditions with fresh clean water readily available at all times. Unless you have lots of room for the goats to roam and lots of forage available off the ground, you may have to worm them.
Breeding
Start feeding the breeding does a quarter pound of grain per day. Start on October 1st and increase a quarter pound (0.11 kg) per week until the beginning of November when each doe is getting 1 pound (0.5 kg) of grain per day. This will increase the chances of having twins and triplets. For healthy older does, taper off this grain starting December 15 (six weeks after breeding), and then bring it back up again starting February 15 (six weeks before kidding). First-time breeders and unhealthy animals can keep eating grain all the way through. Bucks that are running in with the does will have access to grain as well, but it should be gradually tapered off when a buck is in good condition.
An average doe produces about 3 quarts of milk per day. About one 1.5 quarts goes to her kid, leaving only 1.5 quarts per day for you. If she is a new mom, she will give even less than that. Check the mother’s udder twice a day after kidding to make sure it isn’t too full. Her milk will come in three to five days after kidding, so during that time don’t give her grain, or the milk will come in too fast. What you feed your milk goat can change how the milk tastes. If the milk tastes bitter, try removing high-odor foods from her diet, like garlic or cabbage. Goat milk may taste naturally “goaty,” but you can fix this by putting a pan of baking soda in her feed trough. Keep it full of soda, and in a few days the milk will taste sweet. In fact, any goat eating grain should eat baking soda to avoid a sickness resulting from too much acid. Pregnant does who are producing only a little milk should stop milking two months before kidding, but you can keep heavy-producing does milking all the way through continuously. Pregnant milkers need high quality feed, but not too fattening.
To have milk from a doe, she will have to breed with a buck. Whether you raise a buck yourself or buy an adult goat, always treat it gently and carefully so that the butting instinct is not awakened. Don’t make a pet out of it and don’t allow it to think you are a part of its herd. The best strategy is to teach him to lead and stand quietly for grooming and hoof trimming, and then leave him alone in his own separate pasture.
Breed your does 149 days or 5 months before you want to have kids. For small farms, having kids about April 1st is ideal, so breed on November 1st. Don’t breed does that are less than 70 pounds or 2 years old because they will have health problems. One buck can service 50 does, but 30 are easier to handle. A buck should have his own sturdy pen, and as the does goes into heat, she can be put in with him until they breed. Then you will know the exact due date because does almost always kid exactly 149 days later. Does are in heat when they spend time sniffing and wagging tails towards the buck pen, and make more noise.
When a doe is close to kidding, you should check on her every morning, and if she has delivered, you will need to find the kids as soon as possible. It’s best to be on the safe side and keep the goats nearby. A barn floor with dry bedding is ideal if they are familiar with the place. Give the doe clean, fresh water in a small bucket and lots of good hay. When she starts to give birth, you can clean the nose and mouth to help the kid breath. Otherwise, leave her alone unless:
• her water breaks and 2 hours pass without seeing any part of a kid
• if she’s in great pain and 30 minutes pass with nothing happening
• if she’s totally exhausted and 15 minutes pass with nothing happening
Nanny goat with newborn kids.
Ketosis
Pregnant does can be susceptible to ketosis, with symptoms that include dullness, lack of appetite, grinding teeth, and wandering. To prevent this, give the does blackstrap molasses during the last two months of pregnancy. Stress, overfeeding, underfeeding, or lack of exercise can cause ketosis. It’s a good idea to trim the hooves at this time as well.
To assist in the birth of a head first kid, pull gently downward with each contraction. If one of the situations above occurs or you can see a bum or neck coming out first, scrub your hands and arms well and make sure your nails are very clean. Reach in very carefully, determine the kid’s position, and gently reposition it until its feet and nose are coming out together. After delivery, give the doe a bucket of warm water with some molasses in it and let her deliver the afterbirth. She may eat it, or you can bury it.
Wipe the kid’s face, and if the goat isn’t doing a good job of drying the kid, then go ahead and dry it off. If you find a kid outside after birth, bring it inside and wrap it up next to a heat source until it is warm. It isn’t necessary to tie the cord, just dip the end in iodine or alcohol to kill bacteria. It’s common for a goat to have two or three kids, and they should be standing up right away. If one doesn’t, nurse within the first 15 minutes, helping it by holding the teat in its mouth so it can suck. If it doesn’t suck, squirt milk in its mouth and then try to get it to suck again in 3 or 4 hours, or when it seems hungry. Some kids need help like this for 3 days. If it still doesn’t suck after several hours, then you’ll have to bottle feed, but only a couple of times so it learns to suck—then try having it suck on the mother. Don’t keep the kid in the house or away from the mother for more than 6 hours, or the mother will reject it. For 3 to 5 days after birth the kids and mother should be kept separate from the herd until they are strong and nursing well.
A rejected kid must still be fed colostrum. Give the mother a little grain and milk her. Save the colostrum, put it in a bottle with a lamb nipple on the end, and feed it to the baby. If the kid is too weak to use the lamb nipple, use a human baby’s nasal aspirator (or syringe). Never feed a kid cold milk. It is so important to get the colostrum into the baby; it is the difference between life and death. The kid will have to be fed every 2 ounces (57 grams) ever 2 hours on day one, gradually increasing to 3 ounces (85 grams) every 3 hours on day three, and 6 ounces (170 grams) every 4 hours on day seven. Work your way up to 8 ounces (226 grams) morning, noon, and night for 2 weeks, and then gradually to 16 ounces (half a kilogram) morning and night after you milk. If you can’t give the kid goat’s milk, the next best is cow’s milk, but the kid may still get scours (or diarrhea) and die. You will have to butcher the kid if you don’t have goat milk or if you need the milk yourself. It is possible to overfeed a kid. Normally a mother goat lets the kid start eating and then walks off after less than a minute. Frequent, small meals are better. After the kids are 2 or 3 months old, they can be weaned, but a bottle-fed kid will be more attached to you and become annoying.
Let the kids stay with their mother until they are strong and eating solid food well. This usually takes 2 months for singles and twins and 3 months for triplets. Then separate the kids from the mother at night and milk her in the morning, and then put her again back with the kids. In a few days they will learn the routine, although they will make a lot of noise about it. As the kids wean, keep milking her more and more so she will get used to holding more milk in her udder at a time and her teats will lengthen. You can either keep letting the mother feed the kids at night and only milk once a day, or you can gradually work toward milking her every 12 hours. If you let the mother nurse once a day, she will eventually wean them herself.
Besides the rejected kids that you can’t feed, it is also likely that you will end up with more billy goats than you need. Nanny goats are valuable and you will hardly ever need to kill them because you can sell them instead, but billies don’t give milk, and if you have too many, then you get no milk for yourself. All of the extras can be raised for meat until the fall. If you have them butchered in November, then you won’t have to feed them over the winter.
Milking
Stainless steel equipment without seams are the best and also the most expensive containers for milk. Food grade plastic and glass will work also if they are seamless, but don’t reuse plastic milk jugs from the store. You’ll have to purchase containers. Rinse buckets, containers, and utensils in lukewarm water right after you use them, or they will collect milk deposits that are difficult to remove. Wash them after every use by scrubbing thoroughly in warm, soapy water, then rinse again in scalding water. Air dry upside down. Any cloth used for straining should be rinsed and boiled directly after.
Acceptable seamless milk containers.
Goat milking troubleshooting
The milk won’t let down: Massage the udder either with the cleaning cloth or with a bag balm, or gently pat the udder like a kid butting her. If she still won’t let down, real goatherds suck on the teat a little.
Drying up milk: This is done to let her have another kid. When you milk, leave a little milk in the udder. When the doe’s milk production has reduced, milk her only once a day. Be aware of the signs of mastitis, as this is when she is most at risk.
Mastitis: The first sign is milk with strange texture: flakes, lumps, or strings. Don’t drink it and don’t throw it somewhere that an animal can lick it! Wash your hands very well after touching the animal because it is infectious. Even healthy does should be checked at least once a week by squirting the milk into a cloth. Feel the udder for tumors, large hard areas, or an abscess. An abscess is a red, tender swelling of a whole side of the udder, which makes it warmer and more difficult to get milk from. If you allow it to get worse, the milk may turn yellow or even brown or pink from pus and blood. The only cure is antibiotics. A bruised udder, getting too full for too long, or having had a previous case of mastitis makes her more susceptible.
Self-sucking: Goats are flexible enough to suck their own milk. Other than butchering, you can use an Elizabethan collar or side-stick harness that can prevent a doe from reaching her udder.
1. Clean the milking utensils in warm soapy water.
2. Put the goat in a stanchion, a frame that holds the goat by its neck. Many people have a milking stand that raises the goat a little higher for milking comfort. Brush the fur to get out loose hair and dirt, put down fresh bedding, and keep the long hair under the udder clipped.
3. Put some feed in the stanchion’s trough. Milking is done every 12 hours, starting early morning before goats go eat. Always be on time, or the goat will get too full, which is painful. If you aren’t a morning person, just make sure that you stick to a schedule.
4. Brush the doe and look it over for problems. Then wash your hands and dry them, and fill a bucket with water 120–130°F (49–54°C).
5. Wash her udder and teats. This helps the milk let down and removes dirt and bacteria, making better milk and a healthier goat. Wait a minute after washing to start milking.
6. The goat needs to be happy and relaxed for the milk to let down. Put your thumb and forefinger around the teat near the top of the udder, pushing up slightly and allow the teat to fill with milk. Then close your hand around it and squeeze the milk out while pulling down. Keep your hand away from the nipple hole or the milk will go all over. Squirt the first three squeezes into the ground because the first milk has more bacteria in it. Make sure you completely empty the udder or she will produce less and less until it’s gone.
7. Strain the milk. Use a regular kitchen strainer lined with several layers of clean fabric such as a dishcloth, muslin, or even a cloth diaper.
A healthy udder.
8. If you choose to pasteurize, get a double boiler. Use a thermometer to heat the milk to 161°F (72°C), stirring constantly. Maintain that temperature for 20 seconds, then quickly remove the milk from heat and immerse the pot in very cold water, stirring constantly until it gets down to 60°F (16°C).
10. If you don’t pasteurize, put the storage container inside another container full of cold water. It needs to be chilled to 40°F (4°C) within 1 hour. Store any milk in the coldest part of the fridge.
SHEEP
In order to be an immaculate member of a flock of sheep, one must above all be a sheep oneself.
~ Albert Einstein
How They Fit into the System
Sheep can be let into the orchard to forage after the trees are at least 7 years old, but sheep must be carefully controlled. They must be taken out if they start to damage the trees. However, just because the orchard is not available doesn’t mean trees can’t be developed as a mainstay of their food within their grazing area. Trees provide food, protect from the elements, benefit the soil, and prevent erosion. Sheep also need a salt lick and a variety of other food types. A legume-grass mix pasture will feed 5 ewes and 8 lambs per acre in a northern region, but it needs to be rotated every week. In the last month of pregnancy, ewes need 0.5 to 1 pound (0.22 to 0.5 kg) of grain per day. After lambing, sheep with one lamb need 1 pound (0.5 kg) of grain, and sheep with 2 lambs need 1.5 to 2 pounds (0.7 to 0.9 kg). This amount can be gradually tapered off in the next 2 months. A ram needs 1 pound of grain each day during breeding season. This grain supplement can be offset by tree forage. Each sheep also needs 1.5 gallons (6 liters) of fresh, clean water every day. Every spring you will need to gradually introduce the sheep to pasture so they can adjust. In the winter they can forage from a harvested corn field and roots left in the garden. Each sheep will eat 75 pounds (34 kg) of grain and 10 bales of hay over the winter.
Great Pyrenees dogs live with the sheep.
Sheep don’t need much housing. A three-sided shelter in the pasture is sufficient, along with a place in the barn for lambing or extreme weather. Sheep are very vulnerable to stress. Moving them in a truck, abrupt feed changes, or loud storms are enough to make them stop eating and even have a heart attack. They are also an easy target for predators. Stray dogs can “chase a sheep to death” without biting it, and of course any larger animal can eat a sheep. A dog is the most effective prevention. A border collie will herd the sheep, or you can have a guard dog live with the sheep in the field. The Great Pyrenees was bred for this purpose: to stay in the field and attack sheep predators.
Breeding
Breed your sheep in October, and in 5 months you will have lambs. If your sheep have hair on their faces, clip the wool away from the eyes, and also tag them, or clip the wool away from the vagina. Every time you do something to a ewe is a good time to check her feet. You can buy a yearling ram every year to breed with the ewes and then eat him afterwards, or you can keep a ram full time. Obviously it’s a bad idea to use rams from the same family for breeding. Lambing is almost exactly the same as kidding for goats, and orphan lambs can drink goat milk as a replacement.
CATTLE
All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.
~ Grant Wood
How They Fit into the System
Cows can be allowed to graze in the orchard after at least 7 years if the sheep do well and aren’t harming the trees. They should not be allowed to clear the orchard of vegetation but simply graze now and then to control the grass. Cows have four stomachs and are built to eat with their heads down low, but even so they can still be destructive on the orchard trees. They need fresh, clean water at all times, and a salt block that is sheltered from the weather. The best dairy cow pasture is lush clover and alfalfa, with grasses and herbs like lavender, mustard, rosemary, and sage. In the winter they need tender green hay that was cut just after it bloomed, 2 to 3 pounds (0.9 to 1.3 kg) per 100 pounds (45 kg) of body weight. Every cow needs about two tons of hay over the winter. Don’t give her more than she can eat until the next milking or she won’t eat the old stuff. If you have only good quality hay or grass, she will still give milk, but if the quality drops, so will her milk supply. If you have no fenced pasture, you can stake a milk cow with a large bucket of water and move her three times a day, which helps utilize more pasture. After a cow gives birth, you can supplement with grains in order to increase her milk production, slowly increasing it as her milk supply grows and tapering it off again near the end of her lactation. The most she will ever need is 1 pound (0.5 kg) of grain per 3 pounds (1.4 kg) of milk she makes. With quality grass and 0.5 pounds (0.23 kg) of grain she will give about 90% of her milk-producing capacity. Cornstalks, washed and sliced root vegetables, and whole sunflower heads make great supplements. If you feed her with grains, make sure they are chopped or ground, and it is better to mix different types of grains together. Quality alfalfa pasture or hay may be rich enough that you wouldn’t need a supplement.
Cattle Management
There are hundreds of breeds of cows, and they are divided into two groups: beef and dairy. Dairy cows make more milk and are gentler. There are a few breeds that have been bred to do both, such as Shorthorn and Brown Swiss. For the small farmer, dairy or dual-purpose breeds are the most versatile as the young bulls can still be used for beef, and the steers could be used as oxen. If you are inexperienced with cows, buy a 4 or 5-year-old cow instead of a heifer because she will be more experienced in giving birth.
Cattle are red-green color blind and have nearly 360° vision, so they can startle quite easily. If something jumps into their peripheral vision suddenly they can freak out. Put blinders on and they calm down—what they can’t see doesn’t bother them. Their lives are based on habit, so they sometimes seem stupid because they are driven by routine, but they are actually quite intelligent. Be very patient, quiet, and gentle, and utilize their herd instinct—if you get one cow to do something, they all will follow. If you use food as a reward, you can call them, and they will come without any work on your part. Cows with calves are very protective, and cows in labor can be violent, so you might want to tie those for safety. Be careful around cows in heat and never ever turn your back on a bull. Never let your kids around a bull, and if a bull threatens you, eat it. Don’t breed a bull younger than 18 months old.
Common Cow Problems
Downed cow: Sometimes a cow can’t get up. It could just be a matter of helping her reposition her legs, in which case just get several people to pull her legs out on a level surface. If it is an injury, make sure she is fed and watered until she can be moved.
Scours: Scours is severe diarrhea caused by nasty things that attack a young calf’s gut. Give the calf Kaopectate, which is a mixture of pectin and kaolin clay. The only prevention is providing a clean, dry birthing area and making sure calves get colostrum.
Heel fly: Heel flies lays eggs in the heel of a cow and then they hatch and crawl through the cow’s blood vessels to bore holes through the skin and fly away. The only prevention is reducing the fly population with friendly predators like frogs or lizards.
A cow can have a calf every year and provide you with milk almost the entire year, until she is 10–16 years old. Some cows have been known to have calves until 20 years of age, but that is rare. Some of the best dairy breeds are Ayrshire, Brown Swiss, Guernsey, Holstein, Jersey, Red Poll, and Devon. Don’t breed a cow until after she is a year old, and be careful, because a three-month old can conceive. You wouldn’t want her brothers to do the deed. You don’t need to dry up a cow to get her pregnant again, but to have a healthy pregnancy she needs to put on weight, which she can’t do if she is lactating the whole time. Breed her, and then dry her up 2 to 3 months before she calves. Her gestation period is 285 days (9 ½ months). Usually she will go into heat for 18–24 days, but it will be 30–60 days after she calves, so keep an eye on her. Then you can breed her immediately. If you breed in the middle of May, she will have her calves at the beginning of March. A cow in heat will be restless, stamp her feet, and twitch her tail excessively, and she may make lots of noise. Her vulva may get red and swollen, and other cows will try to mount her, even females. A normally peaceful cow might suddenly run through a fence, or bulls might struggle to get to her. She might even try to mount you.
When your cow is close to calving, bring her into the barn and put down a thick layer of clean bedding. Check her frequently, but she should be able to calve alone. You can call a vet if she doesn’t give birth after 3 to 4 hours of active labor. Make sure that the calf can get up and get milk (or colostrum) fairly soon after birth. If the mother doesn’t clean the calf very well, it is fine to rub it dry, as there is not much danger of her rejecting her calf. After you let them back in the pasture, the cow may try to hide her calf somewhere and just go to feed it during the day. Make sure you check on it, and if you want to move it, just pick it up and the cow will follow. If you find the calf and it has become chilled, bring it in the house, wrap it up, and warm it by the woodstove.
Milking
Keep your cow milked at least once a day or she will have too much milk and might get mastitis. You will get at least a gallon of milk or more per milking. The first 4 days after she gives birth is all colostrum, which needs to go to the calf. Once the colostrum taste is out, you can drink it too—you will have plenty of milk for both of you. A calf isn’t often orphaned or rejected, so the easiest way to feed it is by letting it run with its mother until weaned. A family shouldn’t need more than a gallon of milk per day for its own needs, and a couple of extra cows will provide enough to make a small profit. The care and milking of cows is exactly the same as it is for goats. When it is time to wean, wait for the calf to start being interested in other foods by offering grass and hay or by creep feeding. A creep feeder is a little structure with tempting foods in it that only the calves can get into. It is put into the pasture so that the calves get curious and nibble from it. As the calf eats more and more grass, allow him access to his mother less and less until he is only eating hay and grass. This is a good time to separate your young bulls from your heifers so that no inbreeding occurs. They should be weaned by 4 or 5 months old. During summer they will need at least an acre of good pasture. In winter a weaned calf will eat about 2 pounds (0.9 kg) of hay per 100 pounds (45 kg) of body weight per day. Three pounds (1.4 kg) of cornstalks and cobs correspond to one pound (0.5 kg) of hay.
An older calf in the process of weaning.
ZONE 3: BARN
A little and a little, collected together, becomes a great deal; the heap in the barn consists of single grains, and drop and drop makes an inundation.
~ Arabian proverb
Barn Design
Having a Zone 3 on your property is a privilege, but along with it comes the responsibility of building and maintaining a barn. The barn is the center of your extended zone activities, ranging from grain and cash crop harvest to animal shelter and food storage. It should be designed to save work. For example, if you build the barn on a slope uphill from the garden, a chute can be built to push manure under the barn for easy access, which can be rolled downhill easily.
• Orient the barn at a 45° angle to the prevailing wind so that the barn won’t act as a wind tunnel. If this is not possible, build entrances from two different directions.
• Put the barn close to the manure pile and opening into a pasture. Water and feed should be nearby, and it should be easy to remove manure from all the stalls.
• Window vents should be placed high on the outside walls so that the animals can’t reach them.
• Use natural lighting as much as possible, and make sure each stall has its own light bulb with its own switch.
• A horse stall needs to be at least 12 x 12 feet (4 x 4 meters) and 10 feet (3 meters) high. The bigger the stall the easier it is to clean. Walls into the center aisle can have bars for ventilation but between stalls should be solid to provide privacy.
• Stall doors should have wood lower section and bars above so horses can see out.
• Make one stall a wash stall with a drain in the center of the floor (a slope of 4° going into the drain) and supply a hose for bathing. Storage, a sink, and counters are also nice to have.
• The feed room should be rodent-proofed with sheet metal. Mucking equipment should be kept somewhere other than the feed room, to prevent contamination.
A barn designed for permaculture can be a little different. The barn can have two levels and is most ideally built on a slope so that animals can go into the main floor upstairs without needing a ramp. Behind each stall are slats in the floor so that manure can be pushed through to fall down to the bottom level. This bottom level collects manure, which can be left there to decompose for a while or taken to the compost heap. In a very warm climate the bottom level doesn’t have to be enclosed at all.
The iconic barn, set at the edge of a Zone 2 garden.
Flooring
The animals that you house in the barn all have a variety of different needs, and while the roof is important for keeping them dry, it is the floor that is the crucial component of your animal’s well-being. Horses are particularly demanding in their requirements because they need a ventilated floor to prevent foot and health problems. The floor must be absorbent so that it does not become slippery, easily cleaned, and resistant to degradation due to pawing. Before you even build the floor, remove the topsoil to prevent settling, because any dips or divots in the floor can cause a problem.
Clay: Clay is an inexpensive option but is also high maintenance. It stays warmer than other flooring materials, but it can become slippery, holes can form, and it is difficult to clean. It should be placed over a well-drained subfloor of crushed rock or gravel. If you mix sand with the clay (combine two parts clay and one part sand), it will be easier to maintain and have better drainage. Pack it down well and make sure it is level.
Two-story small barns for easy manure collection.
Sand: Sand is cheap because you won’t have to add any extra bedding such as straw, but you will still have to change the sand regularly. It may not be the best option for horses, which may eat some of it and get colic.
Limestone dust: Limestone dust is a long-lasting floor that packs down as hard as concrete. It is often used in horse barns to fill holes because it helps control bacteria. It should be placed over a base of seven inches of sand, watered down, and packed hard and level. Lots of bedding is important to have since the floor is so hard.
Wood: Rough cut treated hardwood at least 2 inches (5 cm) thick is low maintenance but can be slippery. Boards should be placed over a base of 6 to 8 inches (15 to 20 cm) of sand or gravel with space left between large planks for drainage. Pack the cracks with gravel or clay.
Concrete/asphalt: Concrete is easy to clean and maintain, but it has absolutely no drainage. You will have to use lots of bedding. Horses kept on concrete or asphalt need to be outside for at least 4 hours per day.
Rubber floor mats: Rubber mats are the luxury product that horse owners recommend. They are pricey but easy to clean and add additional softness. They should be level, pushed tightly together, and installed up the stall walls as well. You will still have to use bedding, but the mats do help.
Sawdust: Sawdust is cheap and plentiful and works well, especially if you have wood chips or rubber mats underneath it. If you have horses, never use walnut sawdust or even sawdust milled right after walnut was milled, as it is deadly to horses. It shouldn’t be too fine, or it can cause lung problems.
GRAIN
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bent arm for a pillow—I have still joy in the midst of all these things.
~ Confucius
The Rice Paddy
It has been emphasized throughout this book that soil should not be turned or disturbed much at all. Grain is a staple of most people’s diets, and yet how do we grow it without destroying the soil? Modern grain farming uses monstrous machines to turn and fertilize the earth, and even bigger machines to harvest perfect rows of grain, and then the land is left to sit over the winter. This inefficiency can be easily solved with Masanobu Fukuoka’s no-till method. Many sustainable farms follow a rotational planting schedule that involves planting legumes before and after the grain crop and includes a fallow period, a time when nothing is grown, to let the soil rest. The Fukuoka system, on the other hand, grows grain and legumes together continuously.
Small rice paddy.
Not only is this system very sustainable, even more important is the low energy-input required. Not only is there no mechanization, the energy used in human labor is also very low. The farmer can eat an average 2,000-calorie per day diet and still produce 1,300 pounds (590 kg) of rice (or 22 bushels) on a quarter acre. Using animals for labor in the traditional manner uses at least 5 times as many calories with the same results. Using a tractor uses at least 10 times as much.
The other benefit of this system is the small space required. Many self-sufficient homesteads and small farms avoid growing grains because they have seen large commercial grain fields and assume that it must take vast expanses of land to get any amount of grain. So they grow potatoes and keep a cow instead. But the reality is, to keep one human alive entirely on one food would take:
• 1,800 square feet of just grain
• 5,400 square feet of potatoes alone
• 13,500 square feet of just dairy farming
• 36,000 square feet of pigs alone
• 90,000 square feet of just beef
This is the greatest argument for a plant-based diet.
On the outer perimeter of your grain fields, a band of weed-control plants should be grown, such as comfrey, lemongrass, or citrus. These should be mulched with sawdust for even more protection. The grain strategy outlined here centers around rice and the construction of a paddy. If you can’t have a paddy that fills with water, dry rice species exist that just need to be watered and have the additional benefit of being able to survive on monsoon rains alone.
First, level the ground and build a low mud retaining wall around the plot that can hold 2 inches (5 cm) of water. You may need to use a chisel plow the first year if the soil is extremely compacted. Spread lime or dolomite and a thin layer of chicken manure over the area and water it in. This soil disturbance and fertilizing needs to be done only once.
Cold Climates
In some areas it is too cold to grow rice, and you will have to use a system with shorter cycles. Spring wheat can be planted in the spring with oats or barley or wheat as the winter crop. You can also experiment with squash, melons, tomato, cotton, vetch, or sunflowers as a no-till crop.
No-Till Grain Strategy
This section should be more properly called the no-work method. The four principles of natural farming are no cultivation, no fertilizer, no weeding, and no pesticides. We already covered the why behind no-till methods when we talked about pioneer plants and the disturbance of the soil. It is important to understand here that we are not talking about soil that is never touched, but rather about soil that is aerated and loosened by natural means only. With this mindset we have to question weeding as well. What are the weeds doing for the soil? If the plant you want to grow is not being harmed in any way by the weed, then why pull it?
1. A variety of plants can be grown together. You may want to have several plots with different combinations, but each plot will always grow rice and white clover. Then you can add rye, barley, millet, winter wheat, or oats.
| Type | Seed quantity per acre |
| Clover | 1 pound (0.5 kg) |
| Grains | 6–14 pounds (2.7–6.3 kg) |
| Rice | 5–10 pounds (2.3–4.5 kg) |
2. Rice seed is sown in early fall. It can be broadcast and covered with straw or made into seed balls. Seed balls can be made in two ways: You can mix the seeds with mud and press them through a wire mesh, or you can wet the seeds down and roll them in fine clay dust until they form a ball shape. This clay mixture can be made from a combination of potter’s clay, compost, and sometimes paper mush.
3. In mid-fall, harvest last year’s rice and lay it out on rice racks to dry for a couple of weeks. Thresh off the husks and straw and save it.
4. Within a month of the rice harvest, sow unhusked rice in the field and spread the husks and straw that you saved over it.
5. In the winter, if the rice has grown to 6 inches (15 cm), you can allow 40 ducks per acre (0.4 hectares) to graze in the field. If you notice any spots that are growing in thin, plant more seed quickly. You don’t want water accumulating during this time of year or it will freeze, so keep the rice drained.
6. In spring, check again for thin spots and sow more seed if you need to.
7. In late spring it is time to harvest the rye or barley or other grain. You will have to walk on the rice to do this, but don’t worry about it. Stack the grain to dry for about a week and then thresh it.
8. Spread the threshed straw and husks on the field. If you have more than one plot, don’t spread it in the same plot in which it was grown. If you grew rye in one plot and oats in another, spread the oat straw in the rye field and vice versa.
9. By early summer only rice and weeds are growing. Now is the time to flood the paddy for about a week until the clover turns yellow (without killing it).
10. Over the summer the field should always be at least half rice. Prepare the seeds of the grains for sowing, and pick a different grain to plant in the fall than you did the year before.
Ducks in a winter rice field.
When to Harvest
Grain goes through various stages before it is ready to harvest. It starts out as a seed, sprouts, and becomes a seedling with a few short leaves. Then it becomes a tiller by sending out a couple of thicker shoots. The stem grows until it begins booting, or forming a head, at which point it is heading. Heading continues until the head is completely formed, right up until it starts to flower. Flowering completes the pollination process, and that’s when the grain enters the milk phase. This is when the kernel starts forming and you can squeeze out a milky fluid. Eventually the kernel will dry out and will become mature during the dough stage. Ideally grain should be harvested when it is in the late dough stage, when it is far past the milk stage but still able to be dented. When you let it dry, it will become dead ripe.
Harvesting the Old Way
1. You will need a scythe, sickle, or horse-drawn mower. A horse is the fastest and easiest method, but requires the care and maintenance of a horse. A sickle is for very small areas. Larger areas require a scythe. The scythe is large blade that is swung low to the ground with a long wooden handle called a snath. Holding on to the nibs (handgrips) of the snath and keeping your arms straight, twist at the waist while stepping forward. That way you move forward and cut at the same time. Keep the top of the snath down so that the tip of your blade won’t go into the ground. Try not to cut the weeds and grass. A cradle attached the snath will collect what you cut, so it can be dumped into piles. There is a certain art to scything smoothly and efficiently, but with practice the movements become second nature. A windrow is a long row of grain; a pile is a small heap of grain. The mower will make windrows, while a scythe will make a pile or windrows. Make a pile if the grain is dead ripe, so it can be shocked. If it is not dead ripe, make windrows.
Milk stage.
2. Sheave and shock the grain and let dry in the field in the fall. A sheave is a large handful of stalks, which is tied near the top with barren tillers (the secondary stalks that grow from a grain plant’s base) into a binder’s knot. To tie it, twist the stalks together, then tuck under the band going around the sheave. Several sheaves are leaned against each other in the field, and another sheave is set on top of them, making a shock big enough for your hands to meet on the other side.
Dead ripe.
Scythe.
3. You may have to harvest early and let the grain dry. You can let it dry in the field as it is, or bring it into the barn, if the barn is large and dry. When there are no green stems at all and the corn stalks sound hollow when you tap on them, it is dry.
4. Oats and barley cannot be hulled by flailing, or whacking with a tool called a flail. They must be steamed and ground in a mill. To thresh (remove the hulls of) other grains, use a hand flail to whack the grain while it is spread on the barn floor. Pile the straw separately. A flail has a wood handle attached to another piece of wood that looks similar to the handle, called a swingle because it swings around. A loose ring attaches the swingle to the handle. To use a flail, swing the flail back and forth quickly, hitting the grain on the barn floor. When you do all of it, flip the grain all over with pitchforks and flail it again. Do your flailing in the winter. When done, winnow it. For oats use a heavy swingle, for beans a light swingle.
Sheaf of wheat.
Large shocks.
5. To winnow (separate the chaff from the grain), toss the grain up with a basket and catch it again outside on a windy day. Alternatively, you can toss it in the air with a pitchfork, or use a winnowing tray, which has a frame with a screen. To winnow beans, wait for a windy day and pour them back and forth between two tubs. Save the chaff for livestock feed, and save the straw or pile it in the field for the animals to eat.
Flail.
6. Make sure the grain is as dry as possible. Sun dry it if you need to. Then store it.
7. You can save seed from your second crop of grain (unless you’re using a hybrid). Your seed should be the best seed heads, unbroken and healthy. Let it dry in the shock for at least a month until it is totally dry. Then thresh it and make sure it doesn’t have any leaves or twigs.
8. All grains, whether for seed or eating, must be stored in rodent-proof containers in the house (not the shed), with cats around to keep the mice away. The grain must be very dry before packing it and free of any other material except for bay leaves, which can help. Keep the containers in a cool, dry place. Grain will keep for a year or more, until you grind it. It should be checked now and then for mold, bugs, or signs of rodents. Once you grind the grain, it must be used immediately.
9. Grain can sometimes get ergot fungus, although it is rare. It happens if your grain gets damp and turns the grain hard, black, and purple on the inside. Don’t ever eat moldy grain or feed it to your animals, because you can die and your animals can get sick. If your seed grain gets moldy, you should throw it out, but if you are very desperate, soak the grain in really salty water. The sclerotia (ergot masses) will float to the top where they can be skimmed off.
Solutions for Bugs in the Grain
Dry ice: You will need 1 tablespoon of dry ice per 5 gallons (19 liters) of grain. Get an airtight container, put the ice on the bottom, pour the grain on top, wait an hour, then seal the container. The grain produces carbon dioxide and kills the bugs.
Heat: You can’t use this method for seed grain, but it works for edible grain. Spread a quarter inch (0.6 cm) on a pan and heat it in the oven at 140°F (60°C) for 30 minutes.
Processing grains:
Cracking: breaking the kernel in two or more pieces, usually for corn.
Marble hand grinder.
Crimping: flattening the kernel slightly, usually for oats.
Flaking: treating with heat and/or moisture, then flattening.
Grinding: forcing through rollers and screens.
Rolling: smashing between rollers at different speeds with or without steaming.
Grain can be ground at home with a mortar and pestle, a hand grinder, or an electric mill. The quickest, easiest option is the electric mill because you only have to put it through once. A hand grinder must be cranked for a long time: Each pass through you have to sift the flour and then put it through several more times depending on the texture you want. The coarsest setting on an electric mill makes grits, which can be used to make cereal and animal feed. The finest setting is to make cake flour, which is very fine flour. Generally, 1 cup of grain makes 1.5 cups of flour.
CASH CROPS
The way to become rich is to put all your eggs in one basket and then watch that basket.
~ Andrew Carnegie
Berries
While berries grow in almost every climate, they are most suited to cool and temperate zones, where they grow everywhere naturally. Cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries are all pioneers, but unlike most pioneer species, they also offer a valuable edible product. They improve the soil and shelter seedlings from invading deer. They also grow prolifically in soil that isn’t very good and need little care except frequent picking. They should be provided with liquid manure and thick mulch to keep the grass from growing. They also need to be protected from birds, which will quickly eat 30% of your cash crop. Berries must be picked every day, and so if you are within reasonable driving distance of a city, you can offer them as a U-pick product.
Berry cash crop.
Bird protection can be done with a mesh cage, which will also house a polyculture system. The raspberries or boysenberries grow on trellises to save space, and blueberries can be intercropped on raised beds 2 feet (0.6 meter) high and 5 feet (1.5 meters) wide with drainage at the base, preferably with piping. Strawberries are grown as a groundcover. Lizards, frogs, and quail are released into the cage to control insects (and the quail can provide food). This type of system must be somewhat small, but because there is very little crop loss, it may be more profitable.
If you decide you want to grow a bigger cash crop and go the U-pick route, bird-deterrent kites are available, which look like hawks and are simply tethered around the field. Their effectiveness is questionable, but if the kites are removed after the harvest, the birds will hopefully not get used to them. The advantage of having a bigger field is that people will do the work for you, but you must build wider, grassy paths between the 3 feet (1 meter) raised beds. You will also need buckets, scales, and bags for packaging.
Both of these systems use drip lines for irrigation. It is quite common in North America for berries to be watered with sprinklers, which are much easier to install, and possibly cheaper, but during the summer you will be watering twice a day. Sprinklers must be left on for hours, letting much of the water evaporate in the sun, and some of it won’t even make its way down to the soil. Drip line uses less water and conserves it by depositing it directly near the roots.
Blackberries are tasty but also very likely to get out of control. It is probable that there are some blackberries on your property already, which you may want to utilize as a hedge or barrier somewhere, but you will have to form a strategy in keeping them under control. Removing them takes years, so it’s a good idea to start right away. In a very small area it is possible to cut them back and cover them with a strong mulch of tough plastic weighed down with rocks or other material. Once they have rotted there for 2 years, you can dig the roots up. An area of blackberries a quarter acre or more can be fenced off and used as a pig field at a ratio of 20 pigs per acre (0.4 hectare). The next year 12 goats per acre (0.4 hectare) are grazed there, followed by pigs again the next. The blackberries won’t return as long as you keep something in there, like sheep or goats, or plant trees or a hay cash crop. Another strategy is to plant apple, fig, pear, and plum trees in the middle of the blackberries 40 feet (12 meters) from the edge. In about 5 years these trees will have grown enough that you can let cattle in to graze. The cattle will eat the windfall fruit and trample down all the blackberries.
Hay
Alfalfa makes one of the best choices for hay, especially when mixed with bromegrass. It produces at least 5 tons (4.5 metric tons) of hay per acre (0.4 hectare) for 3 cuttings a year, and is susceptible to alfalfa weevil that makes it a bit trickier to grow but is still worth it. This is the most popular hay and in rural areas is in demand by horse and livestock owners.
Red clover and timothy mixed hay is the second best kind. They produce 2.5 tons (2.2 metric tons) per yearly harvest. It grows slower so you can’t do three cuttings, but it doesn’t get alfalfa weevil.
Millet grows very quickly, can be fed 30 days after planting, and gets 5 tons (4.5 metric tons) per acre. It must be fed with buckwheat for full nutrition, so it’s a good idea to sell it together. Millet has recently become more popular as a grain for making bread.
Oat straw makes the most nutritious hay of all and likes cooler weather.
To plant hay, you can broadcast (toss the seeds evenly by hand) on snow in February or on frozen ground in March. Cut the clovers with a scythe or mower just as they begin to blossom. You have to let the hay dry in the field before putting it in the barn. Rain destroys hay. It will probably take 2 days after cutting for it to dry, unless the weather is very hot and windy. When the hay is almost dry, rake it into windrows with a hand rake or a horse-drawn hay rake. To test if it’s dry enough, take a 2-inch (5-cm) thick bunch and twist it. It should break on the third twist. Use a pitchfork to load into a hay wagon, and take it to the barn.
Eggs
The general consensus among free-range chicken owners is that you need at least 100 chickens to make any kind of money selling eggs. A hundred chickens that lay a decent number of eggs, up to 300 a year, will give you 3,000 eggs. These are usually sold for a couple of dollars (US) per dozen in rural area and slightly more in a suburban location. If you take away your own share, you could make a couple of thousand dollars per year on them. This kind of profit is only possible if they are free range; otherwise, the revenues will be eaten up in feed costs.
Check your local laws regarding selling eggs. Usually, law requires that the eggs be clean, and if you are selling over a certain amount, then they must be graded, or given a letter grade based on their quality. They don’t usually have to be actually washed or put in a new container, but they do have to be refrigerated.
Selling eggs in a free-range setting isn’t an endeavor that will pay your mortgage, but it will provide some extra income, especially since your chickens will be producing more eggs than you can use, and you have the infrastructure anyway.
ZONE 4: PASTURE MANAGEMENT
The investigation of nature is an infinite pasture-ground where all may graze, and where the more bite, the longer the grass grows, the sweeter is its flavor, and the more it nourishes.
~ Aldous Huxley
Forage System for Cattle and Sheep
In most temperate climates, 20 acres (8 hectares) is usually enough land to raise enough livestock to produce a small income. The quality of your pasture is the key to this. The pasture should be able to feed your animals through a drought, protect them from storms and sun, restore the soil, and prevent erosion. The pasture provides grasses and legumes, seedpods, sprouted grain, silage, and tree leaves. However, it is a tricky process to feed animals the entire year in this way. The herd must be culled, or thinned out by selling or butchering the young males, but even then there will still be a food shortage in the winter. To cover that shortage, tree crops are used.
It takes at least 5 to 10 years to switch to a forage system with the right proportion of trees, but the benefits are enormous. Not only does it save tremendous amounts of energy on the part of the farmer, but also the cattle are healthier and happier, which means higher yields. The first year, about 10% of the land should be trees and bushes, planted in the same community planting method used with all the other gardens in the other zones. By the fifth year, the proportion should be 40%, and sheep can be allowed to forage, perhaps along with a few young cows. They can be allowed to browse for a short while and then removed. As the years go on, you can allow them longer and longer periods of grazing time.
Forage trees include fig, poplar, willow, chestnut, oak, and pine. Bamboo can be either a forage or a timber crop.
Large Grazing Pasture
Even on a property with a very large grazing area, the fenced perimeter can provide protection and forage. A second fence should be built inside the first, and the space between should be planted with trees, hedges, and spiny shrubs. This will provide protection, windbreak, fruit, nuts, wood, and forage for sheep as well as bees and birds.
An area of 50 acres or more can also still be developed into a forage system:
1. Fence off a small area you want to develop. You will probably have to use an electric fence.
2. Go through the process of rehabilitating the soil with a chisel plow and lime, as described earlier in this book.
3. Plant a small group of windbreak and forage trees in the very center. Mulch and fertilize them well. Initially, small seedlings may need to be protected with shelter, such as a tire with mulch in it.
4. Introduce ducks and geese into the area and make sure they don’t do any damage.
5. After time, when the area has established itself, move the fences to the area next to it and go through the same process.
6. Go back and cut out trees that are doing badly, leaving only the strongest and highest yielding trees and shrubs.
Timber in the Pasture
To save space and create shelter and windbreaks, not only are trees planted for the animals to eat from, but for firewood and building materials as well. These should be planted to fit the contours of the land and allowed to mature enough that animals won’t damage them, which can take 30 years. Animals can be allowed in to graze before the grass is harvested for hay or whatever cover crop you are growing there.
Can I fatten them up?
Traditional farming has typically used the strategy of cramming animals with concentrated foods (like grain) to make them gain weight as quickly as possible. You will have to use concentrated foods in a permaculture system, but not for weight gain. They are for fattening up animals just before butchering, for maintaining milk and egg production, and for keeping animals going during times when forage is lacking. The feed shouldn’t be bought, however—it should come from the land. This is so everything from the soil can eventually cycle back to where it came from.
These feeds include acorns, chestnuts, wheat, buckwheat, oats, barley, peas, chickpeas, pumpkins, sunflower seeds, and rye. Most of these can and should be sprouted before being fed to animals, the same way they should be for people.
WOODLOT
He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful.
~ Charles Dickens
Coppicing
Fallen branches, thinned trees, and old wood will provide the bulk of your fuel when you first start using your woodlot for firewood. This supply would soon be exhausted, however, if you do not plant new trees frequently, since you will be cutting down around a quarter of the trees every year, and none of them will last longer than 7 years. Choose species based on their ability to grow quickly. This type of woodland is known as a coppice, an area that is periodically cut back to ground level to stimulate growth and provide firewood. These species are also chosen for their ability to regrow from a stump. The tree is cut down close to the ground and sprouts up again quickly the next year out of the stump, providing new wood in a relatively short amount of time (7 years instead of 40 or more).
Coppicing promotes the diversity of species because it lets in light to the forest, creates microclimates, and surprisingly makes the trees live longer. Species used for this purpose include maple, pawpaw, birch, beech, ash, oak, alder, willow, hawthorn, persimmon, ginkgo, honey locust, and black locust.
Coppicing isn’t especially difficult to do, and in fact because the tree is smaller than a large piece of timber, it is easier to cut down. The tree must be cut as close as possible to the part where the trunk begins to widen out to the roots. Each of the tree sections (usually there’s not just one trunk) must be cut at an angle of 30° facing out of the trunk so that the rainwater runs off onto the ground.
You will want to plant a mixture of polewood, high-quality timber, and hedges. The polewood will be used for fencing, outbuildings, and carpentry, and the timber can provide food and possible cash crops, such as walnut or bamboo. The hedges and shrubs keep grass at bay and establish a microclimate for trees to flourish.
Although the timber trees won’t necessarily be coppiced, you can use the forest space to grow sugars for food and alcohol production (and possibly for biodiesel as well). Species of trees that provide fruit or sugary sap are also planted amongst your other trees. Sugar cane or beets can also serve this purpose as well, but trees are particularly valuable for the little care that they need. This sap or fruit juice could also be distilled into alcohol. Any waste product from this process should be returned to the forest as mulch.
The trees are cut when you need them, at a minimum of 7 years and usually no greater than 25 years old. The longer you wait, the larger the timber.
In wilderness is the preservation of the world.
~ Henry David Thoreau
When land is so precious and food production so vital, it may seem nonsensical to leave an area of your property untended and allowed to fall into so-called disarray. This natural state is exactly what is needed for wild creatures to live comfortably, and it is the best possible solution to erosion. If you are on a slope and have situated your zones properly, Zone 5 will be likely near the top of the slope, where soil is at the greatest risk of erosion. Wild forest is the source of most of your air, clean water, medicinal breakthroughs, building materials, and diversity.
Zone 5 is also the location of your wildlife corridor, and it might cross some other zones of your property if you find that deer are constantly walking across a certain spot. Rather than always being at odds with animals eating your gardens, fence off their path separate from the rest and leave it wild with natural forage for them to eat, like an animal highway through your property.
There’s really not much to say about Zone 5 other than it will be very tempting to mess with it. It must be left alone.
This area is left relatively undisturbed.
