Developing the grass in your yard for increasing free ranging nutrition

[Beekissed]

Imagine away, because what is given away in my town IS compost. Yes, rich, dark, composted material. I go there on a regular basis to pick it up. The town has an area where residents are encouraged to go and drop off compostable materials - christmas trees, leaves, lawn clippings etc - rather than send them to the landfill. The town then organizes the materials into long rows, which it turns on a regular basis. As you drive down the rows, you can easily see where some are still in the process of composting while towards the end, the compost is "finished" and ready to load. Residents are offered free compost (there is a separate area where free mulch) can be obtained for the taking. One has to load it oneself - which means remembering to take a shovel - but if willing to put in a little effort to load, there is no charge for the product itself.

How cool! Then you guys are growing up a storm! No such thing around these parts...not even remotely. The closest you can get is if someone will let you haul off their old horse manure..if you are real lucky.

Here they have mulch and compost places that sell the stuff by the truckloads or bags and it ain't cheap. Like black gold.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Speaking of Compost ... I think we posted about this in this thread before. It is a video about the Vermont Compost Company where they use chickens to make compost and compost piles to make eggs without additional feed. It is a wonderful symbiotic manufacturing process!

http://vermontcompost.com/2014/01/geoff-lawton-comes-to-vermont-compost/

This has inspired me to devote a big chunk of my existing poultry pasture to a composting enterprise. I put "HUGE pile of manure" on my Christmas list, and am still awaiting delivery, but have been told it's on its way.

 

[Beekissed]

That would be so cool to get loads of chipped trees dumped, then loads of manure, then old produce, deep litter, etc. until you had a huge, steaming pile of rotting goodness...what a self-sustaining buffet for chickens that would be!!! Just think of the food you could grow with that pile and also if you borrowed from it to use in the garden....of course, one couldn't have any close neighbors when that thing starts to gas off in the summer months.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

That would be so cool to get loads of chipped trees dumped, then loads of manure, then old produce, deep litter, etc. until you had a huge, steaming pile of rotting goodness...what a self-sustaining buffet for chickens that would be!!! Just think of the food you could grow with that pile and also if you borrowed from it to use in the garden....of course, one couldn't have any close neighbors when that thing starts to gas off in the summer months.

It's going outside my kitchen door.

In the foundation for the detached garage we never built (poured the foundation when we were doing other stuff here, but then didn't do the rest). No neighbors very close ... Just us! I'm kinda looking forward to finding out how bad it smells. I'm weird. And if it gets too rank I can move it to over by the barns in the "new" pasture space and everyone can tell me "I told you so!" which will be a pleasant reversal for them.

 

[lazy gardener]

Sounds like this book and it's author has inflamed a hornets nest of conflicting ideas and opinions. For that, I apologize. I have only one thing to add, then I will cease and hope this subject will be allowed to die a natural death. We are all doing the best we can do with the land and resources that God has blessed us with. In my opinion, and we are all entitled to opinions, I would hate to be judged harshly because I have had various products trucked onto my property over the years, both by using my own truck, and at other times, having these products delivered. These products have included Valley Hemlock mulch purchased by the yard, tree trimmings deposited by local road maintenance crews, free fill deposited from road ditching operations, pea stone for building walkways and improving drainage in various locations, railroad ties for building retaining walls, multiple dump truck loads of cow manure delivered 6 cu. yds. at a time, multiple loads of mulch hay, gravel and top soil to build gardens and lawns where there was nothing but bony glacial poorly forested land with poor drainage and minimal top soil. In every instance, the products received have either been free, or purchased after doing a lot of comparison shopping, and I have been grateful for the final outcome, put a lot of sweat equity into all projects, and felt that I have gotten good value for my investment. I don't think that anyone who has any product brought onto their property to help with their homesteading is a "wanna be farmer." Regardless of the amount of space we have to work with, or the other projects/animals we bring to the table, we all have one thing in common: It's a love of poultry, and being the best educated keepers of those birds. Please, let's not pass judgement on how we work to steward our land and our homes. I apologize in advance if this note has caused offense, PM me if I have offended you. Thank you.

 

[Clay Mudd]

That would be so cool to get loads of chipped trees dumped, then loads of manure, then old produce, deep litter, etc. until you had a huge, steaming pile of rotting goodness...what a self-sustaining buffet for chickens that would be!!! Just think of the food you could grow with that pile and also if you borrowed from it to use in the garden....of course, one couldn't have any close neighbors when that thing starts to gas off in the summer months.

Couple years ago, I happened to be home when the power company guys were clearing trees on my road. I talked them out of a load of chips -- for a year or so, the chickens had a mountain to dig in, until I eventually used it all up in garden beds and so forth. About 5 yards of free mulch. I moved a lot of it with a skid steer that I got to use for free for a week. I think hunting up deals and freebies is a major survival skill.

There's a horse ranch down the road that gives away manure/bedding; when I get around to it, I'll get a couple loads of that. I'd love to be able to mix a truckload of tree shavings with a couple loads of manure. That would get me a lot closer to my long-term goals for this soil.

Sounds like this book and it's author has inflamed a hornets nest of conflicting ideas and opinions. For that, I apologize. I have only one thing to add, then I will cease and hope this subject will be allowed to die a natural death. We are all doing the best we can do with the land and resources that God has blessed us with. In my opinion, and we are all entitled to opinions, I would hate to be judged harshly because I have had various products trucked onto my property over the years, both by using my own truck, and at other times, having these products delivered. These products have included Valley Hemlock mulch purchased by the yard, tree trimmings deposited by local road maintenance crews, free fill deposited from road ditching operations, pea stone for building walkways and improving drainage in various locations, railroad ties for building retaining walls, multiple dump truck loads of cow manure delivered 6 cu. yds. at a time, multiple loads of mulch hay, gravel and top soil to build gardens and lawns where there was nothing but bony glacial poorly forested land with poor drainage and minimal top soil. In every instance, the products received have either been free, or purchased after doing a lot of comparison shopping, and I have been grateful for the final outcome, put a lot of sweat equity into all projects, and felt that I have gotten good value for my investment. I don't think that anyone who has any product brought onto their property to help with their homesteading is a "wanna be farmer." Regardless of the amount of space we have to work with, or the other projects/animals we bring to the table, we all have one thing in common: It's a love of poultry, and being the best educated keepers of those birds. Please, let's not pass judgement on how we work to steward our land and our homes. I apologize in advance if this note has caused offense, PM me if I have offended you. Thank you.

The way I look at it, we almost certainly are facing hard times in the forseeable future. Long term, I want to bring my property to the point that we don't need any outside inputs, because I think those inputs just might become unobtainable in the future. But for now, I'll gratefully accept whatever inputs are free, and cheerfully pay for those I can afford.

 

[Beekissed]

No offense taken!

And no harshness was intended or conveyed in my statements about said author, nor were those statements meant to include those who use soil amendments on their land, which is a rather broad spectrum~including myself. One has to realize that everyone has a perspective on things that is individual to their own experiences in life. When someone asks for my opinion on a topic I will venture it....I was asked or I would not have elaborated~and this discussion is why...folks are not going to agree unless they've actually had first hand experience with homesteading and very few out there have.

That the opinion was not to your liking cannot be helped as I cannot speak other than what I truly feel and couldn't have tempered that opinion to suit everyone's sensibilities without lying about it. Which I will not do.

Be careful when asking someone to expound on a sentence such as "I'm not a fan" when, clearly, the mere fact they aren't a fan will lead to a discussion that may have a negative outcome.

 

[crazyaboutchickens]

I think what we've got here is a vocabulary issue. (I could be wrong, but this will be useful anyway as it will discuss various options for people hoping to improve their "back yards," either for chicken pleasures or for gardening, etc., most of which most of you probably already know, but it is easier to communicate if we're all using the same nouns and verbs in the same way)

If I'm understanding Beekissed right, what it sounds like the author in question had delivered in vast quantities was this stuff ...

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Miracle-...t-Garden-Soil-72859650/100665135#.Ut1OYCitsy4

not this stuff ...

http://www.wikihow.com/Find-Inexpensive-Mulch

(for those of you not wanting to follow the links, the top one is a link to a bag of organic top soil on Home Depot's website @ $7.47 for 1.5 cu. ft.), and the second link is a wikihow article on how to find "inexpensive" garden mulch). 

We run a landscape business, and if you're buying top soil in bulk, it is sold by the "yard," and here it costs approximately $25/yd (and then of course we get to charge for delivery and distribution, too). BUT ... if you want special soils for potting or amending they are between $30 and $40 per yard ... and if you want "Certified Organic," I'm not sure what the options are ... 

Another way to get to the super rich top soil Beekissed was describing she observed in the photo in question ... if it isn't native to the property and one does not wish to spend the years of time building it "naturally," ... is to amend the soil (either existing or trucked in) with a lot of compost. We do this a lot when landscaping, usually in combination with bringing in top soil (this is especially a good idea in new construction where often any existing top soil was "disturbed" beyond usefulness by the various builders involved and everyone wants immediate results) ... install good top soil, then add a nice thick layer of compost, and then put the landscaping on top of that. When I called around looking for "Certified Organic" compost in the area I did find a source, and if I remember correctly it was competitively priced, but I don't remember off the top of my head what the price was. 

Sometimes we add layers of drainage stuff under the soil ... that's a whole extra discussion, I think.

How much a "yard" (that's American yard, or 324 sq ft) of soil or mulch will cover depends entirely on how deep you want to spread it. If you want a good 3", you'll get 10 sq ft of coverage out of your yard of soil. 

This, of course, is ALL directly applicable to the notion of improving garden/pasture conditions for the birds. If a person has a "spent" area where the chickens have been for a while so have it looking like the surface of the moon, then it is possible to bring the area back with time & rest & pampering, or the "fast" way with the importation of lovely rich top soils and garden composts.

A good way to protect the soil, I think, is to cover it with mulch that can help retain moisture, retain soil, slow down weeds, and give the kids several inches of something to scratch around in besides the actual soil. 

Top soil, compost, mulch. 

:/ IMO that's a ridiculous price for soil... It might pass if it were 1.5 cubic yards, but in feet would barely make a good mole hill. And if that's indeed what Bee was talking about, then I totally agree.

Yep. What I saw in those pics was not chipped trees...it was dark, rich, composted material and I can't imagine anyone giving that away for free....if they are, they are missing a way to make some money and I don't imagine, even in the city, that folks are giving away money.

[quote url="[URL]https://freemulch.abouttrees.com/#%21/home[/URL]"]
You may have miss the part about how the mulch acquired is usually free, as it is a byproduct trimming companies usually pay to send to a landfill. There's even a website for it. https://freemulch.abouttrees.com/#!/home They're just chipped tree branches. Not finely composted materials, yet.



1,400 eggs is about 5 hens laying 265 eggs a year, which is less than some leghorns on light....with 10 sqf per hen = 50 square feet... She does not mention the money required for feeding them, but any of FF, fodder, worms, black soldier fly larvae, or mealworms will suffice.

50lbs wheat requires about 250 square feet.

A dwarf apple tree provides 3 to 6 bushels of fruit, one bushel being 42 pounds, taking up about a 10ft radius(314sqf).

Say two almond trees(40sqf per tree)...18 feet radius, 453 sqf total...

A nice pig pen... 16x16, 256sqf.... looks a bit of an overkill for 280lbs, but it seems pigs dislike being alone, so I made it space for 2....totaling that meat amount at, conservatively, 500lbs.

Upon first look, you would need a great garden for 2,000lbs of vegetables. But taking a random crop that first comes to mind, tomatoes... the average yield according to ISU, 16,000 per acre, or 2,000 pounds for 1/8th of it... That's 5,445 sqf.


50+250+314+453+256+5,445=6,768 10,890=1/4acre. That's 4,122square feet left over for house, lawn, and feed crop. I'll admit, there's nothing like real experience, but everything adds up.

Again....THEORY. It works out grand on paper and as a supposed scenario....show me someone who is actually doing this. And to say that this quarter acre is producing all this food is a misnomer as a lot of that "food" has be fed from outside sources, such as the hogs, chickens and even the vegetables....I don't know of any soil that is currently producing 2,000 lbs of tomatoes per quarter acre unless it's a commercial farm that is irrigated, fertilized and worked by immigrant labor. If that. I'd still be skeptical if they are producing 2000 lbs of tomatoes on that amount of land. Maybe in California? Not around here, surely...I've visited the commercial tomato farms around here and it just ain't happenin'.

A dwarf apple tree COULD produce that much fruit...theoretically...and in some areas of the country...on any given year, but most likely not consistently as fruit trees produce in cycles. Two almond trees throw off a goodly amount of shade when mature...can't garden those spaces so those must be shadowing pens?

Maybe in California these things are happening? I've yet to read anywhere that this is in actuality happening for anyone...but would be willing to read about it if you could point me to the article.

Homesteading is about self-sustainable living....there is no such thing as self-sustainable on just a quarter acre...it's impossible. Even for one person, to produce all they would eat for a whole year would be hard pressed to provide it~and I doubt they would want to eat all tomatoes, wheat, eggs, and pork for a full year.. And they would have to be in the right climate for it...maybe a tropical place, which isn't the best place to grow wheat.

You see..I've homesteaded. I've actually been in on growing enough food to feed a family of 5-9 people for an entire year....it takes way more than a quarter acre to achieve it~even for one person~ and it takes more variety of foods to do it well. Oh, a person could live off of apples, almonds, wheat, pork, tomatoes and eggs and survive...but it's not exactly a diet that anyone would want to subsist on.

It's a lovely idea and I love reading about the possibilities as much as the next person and far be it from me to rain on the possibilities parade...I'm a dreamer and love the possibilities. I love thinking outside the box about most things....but what this lady is proposing is just nigh impossible when put into practice. I apologize and will eat humble crow if anyone can show me anyone who is actually putting this theory into practice and getting consistent, accurate results as outlined by this theory.....but I'd have to see that one to believe it.

That dog won't hunt.
[/quote]
I'm rather skeptical as well when it comes to commercial farm numbers as well. People manage to get much higher yields on land that is not eroded, containing petroleum fertilizers, and killed of much beneficial life by pesticides. Like I said, you will find differences by variety, climate, and method. Mittleider, no-till, aquaponics, permaculture, square foot and conventional gardening all have their points and environments where they work or don't. I won't even mention double-dug gardens as turning the pre-existing layer of topsoil, worms, and microbes, underground simply doesn't make sense. Many people claim high yields with all these, as well with weeding techniques, fertilizer recipes, watering methods, and more. Even though those figures were from commercial farm sources, smaller farmers who do claim those high crop numbers do have the time to experiment and perfect techniques. Ones that would otherwise be completely uneconomical for large farms, as that would require a revamp of the whole industry.

Well, I did calculate an 18foot radius around the tree, both for root and limb growth, but there are many shade crops that can do well there too. It's all about making the most economical use of space without wasting anything.

I totally agree with that, and one number or formula simply doesn't work for all areas. I'm just saying, even if you did pay for fertilizers or like the article, soil, it wouldn't take vary much to grow food. Not the amount of self-sufficiency though. That would require so many facets, gardening only providing one small side of it. Furthermore, Carleen's book was only an example, as she also has plans for 1/2 acre, and 1 acre homestead plots. Not to long ago I saw there was an infographic that said 2 acres would be sufficient for 4 people or so. Many other sources claim you can have homesteads on such small areas. Apparently the problem is homesteading doesn't always equal self-sufficiency anymore. More of just a farm, where you do the most you can with your land, but not to the degree where you never have to see a grocery store again. I recall seeing several examples of this, 400 people on island off the coast of Canada, people in Alaska, Colorado mountains, another man in South America(sorry for the general area, but I don't remember the exact country.) Either way, such is practically impossible to do in most areas in America, due to everything from the high population count, to taxes. Nevertheless, I'm sure there are some fairly good crow recipes online... They seem tough to shoot though. Why go through all the trouble?

 

[Fentress]

Speaking of compost, to and from work I pick up bags of leaves put out by residents ( I have a pick up). During the summer I pick up the grass. I can make quite the mound of material, that the chickens of course love. I rarely touch it and let the chickens do the work. Is this text book composting? No, but it worked last year, such that I have a winter cover crop on it now, will put the chickens back in it this spring and then plant another cover crop (sorgrum, maybe millet) for the summer. It also raises the elevation, something I need on my property and will be a future garden location within a few years (hopefully). I'm a little worried about what chemicals may be in the grass that I pick up, but I spoke with some Master Gardeners in my area who do the same thing and they have not had any problems. It is so easy, just wanted to share with you all.

 

[Fentress]

By the way, no free compost in my world! You guys who have that are lucky!