Here are all the animals peacefully grazing away. We now have our electric fence set up for mob intensive grazing. We have kept the two herds, cows and alpacas, separate for now until they get used to being close to one another. We'll try combining them this week to see how it goes. The cow thinks the alpacas are a threat to its calf, but she will soon figure out that the worst these fuzzy creatures dish out is regurgitated cud.

Fence is ready for the cows

Our four strand eclectic poly-wire fence by Shore Road

We have completed a four strand poly-wire electric fence around the southern perimeter of the farm property. It seems this type of fence is new. It was definitely easy to install compared to traditional high tensile wire fences. It is also easy to tension; the entire length of fence can be tightened from a single point. Pretty slick. The cows arrive today so we'll see how it all works. 

Stay tuned for news of the cows - ETA: Today at 11am. 

Fall harvest begins . . .

Up goes the fence

The fence is going up this week. We got a good start thanks to many helping hands from family and friends. We started by harvesting some tamarack timber from the farm.

We peeled the timber the next day. It is an easy tree to peel if you do it right away. Tamarack is reputed to last over 30 years. Hopefully they will last in our rainy climate. 

Dan, Zach, Jamie and Lakshmi  helped out by auguring holes for the posts. This saved us a lot of digging. Thank you! 

A lot of work remains to be done. Putting in the posts is the hardest part. After that stringing the electric fence will be relatively facile. The electric fence will arrive any day now. We'll let you know how installing that goes. 

Alpaca Walking

Building a compost toilet on a dime

     We have been working on a composting toilet system here on the farm these past few weeks. After consulting several designs we decided on a system that drops solids to a 55 gallon barrel in the basement and diverts urine to another barrel in the basement which we can pump out as necessary. 

Composting toilets are very popular in many places around the world. Surprisingly, they see little use here in Canada where the preference is to use expensive septic systems which dump raw sewage directly  into the ground contaminating precious ground water (i.e drinking water). 

     In our situation, the existing septic system is poorly constructed and situated about 20 metres from our well; not a sustainable arrangement. Moreover, the cost of installing a new septic system is high, upwards of ten thousand dollars; this composting system cost us less then one hundred and does not pollute our drinking water. The main obstacles are mental and cultural; we in Canada are used to flushing away our wastes leaving someone else to deal with it and paying high taxes to maintain municipal sewage treatment systems.

A tube made from folded and glued counter top laminate is used for the poop chute.   The indentation at the front is for the urinal to sit into where it drains to a separate tank. 

This tube sits over a 55 gallon plastic barrel in the basement.  The urinal is not installed yet but the drain hole is visible at the bottom of the photo. 

A box covers the tube. 

     We wanted something that was cheap, NOT smelly, aesthetically pleasing and easy to maintain. So far it has met these criteria. I think separating urine is an essential part of keeping the system non-smelly and easy to maintain. It means less dry organic material is needed to absorb the extra water. The urine can be used directly on the garden as fertilizer when diluted and need not take up space in the composting barrels. This is our first experience with this design so we will see how it holds up over time.

Stay tuned.

Back to the future tools

http://www.antiquefarmtools.info/index.htm

The Manure Tea Barrel

Here is our new manure tea barrel. The recipe is simple.  Fill the barrel about a quarter full of fresh manure from your animal of choice. We use alpaca dung. It is allegedly a 'cool' fertilizer; i.e. it will not burn plants when applied. Here it is very diluted so there is even less chance of harm. If you use another hot manure, like chicken poop some caution may be required. In our case,  the fresher the manure the less dung beetles will be crawling around inside the manure. We like the dung beetles because they bury the manure in the ground for you so we don't like to drown them.

55 gallon manure tea pot

Any barrel will do; we use a lot of the stuff so this 55 gallon drum is nice. We filter it once through a screen, then through cheesecloth into our sprayer - Then we just spray the stuff around the garden.

Garden after several fertilizer treatments

This is what one of our edible back door gardens looks like after several applications of the manure tea. Before everything was struggling in our heavy clay soil. 

The tomatoes after feeding on manure tea

 The tomatoes like the tea too. This plant here is over four feet tall after a few weeks of manure tea.

Potatoes love manure tea

I'm having a hard time keeping up with piling hay on the potatoes after fertilizing them with the manure tea. The stuff is truly magical; especially if you have marginal soil to begin with. It feels like cheating. Over time as the soil improves less fertilizing will be necessary. But for now, this stuff is really handy.

Attack of the horseflies!

Hoards of blood sucking demon horse flies abound in these parts. They flood in droves from the forests like orcs and goblins out of the gates of Mordor. Thus we have resorted to taking up arms, in self-defense, against these ghastly flying demons. The first solution to this emergent crisis is the state of the art contraption you see below. 

Fly Trapper-Zapper Mark I

We don't take credit for the design, just the construction. It is commonly available as the 'Horse Pal'. The main difference is price. Theirs costs $265 while ours cost us about $0.25.

The fly death chamber gets up-cycled from it's previous status as a peanut butter container.

It works by mimicking the movement of a warm blooded animal. The black exterior mimics the body and the black milk jug hanging below mimics the head movement of an animal. The flies are attracted to the swinging 'head' of the animal. When they realize they've been had, they instinctively fly for the sky, i.e. straight up into the trap. Eventually they make their way up the cone into the peanut butter/death container where the sun zaps them. We are peaceful folks, but when you mess with our animals, you're messin' with family, and we are gonna mess back.  Flies - leave us in peace please!

Next year we're are calling in the swallows for aerial support by building many garrisons bird houses around our property. We WILL be ready.

How to make manure tea (For Plants)

Here's a quick and easy recipe to make your own probiotic fertilizer.

Step 1.

 Find a beastie with a gut full of microbes and grass.

Step 2. 

Find some poop from said beastie. 

Step 3. 

Mix the poop with some water. We do about 4 parts water to 1 part poop. There's no firm rule.  Once it is mixed let is sit for 1 to 3 days. The long the better I suppose. 

Step 5. 

That's it. Water you plants and watch your plants shoot skyward ecstatically. The microbes in the manure will colonize your soil and boost it's vitality and productivity; the organic matter will be digested by worms and other critters who will build your soil with their castings. 

Taking back our food system

Mob Grazing Alpacas

These are the results of our mob grazing alpaca experiment so far. The principle of mob grazing is that the animals eat the energy rich parts of the plants and trample the rest into the soil. This may seem like a waste but the trampled grass will feed the soil and worms and make the soil more productive in the long run. 

Lal's Marsh

     Below is the proposed site for Lal's Marsh created by a project developer from Ducks Unlimited. The marsh would increase the bird habitat on the property and help to drain the fields. 

Proposal for the marsh. 

     Last week we were taken on a tour of the bog by Jonathan from Ducks Unlimited. 

Gord scampers through the undulating squishy bog. Lal wasn't so sure this was a prudent action. 

The bog is quite lovely once you get into it.  

     A bog is basically a pond covered by a surface layer of moss and hydrophilic grasses and shrubs. It feels like walking on a water bed. Jonathan demonstrated the structure of the bog as we watched with growing concern. "Sometimes there's no bottom" he exclaimed non-chalantly as he plunged his leg into the sludgy abyss.

This is the proposed site for the marsh. The trees in the centre will become an island for duck nesting.

     This proposed site for the pond and bird habitat is next to the bog. We can't build it too close to the bog due to environmental regulations. Bogs are best left alone anyways as they serve more a more important purpose as a natural water filter.

The type of grass indicates the hydrological properties of the ground. Here sedge grasses indicate a high water table; perhaps a small spring flows from here.

    We hope that this marsh will attract and harbour bird and amphibian species.  This is part of our longer term goal to increase the vitality and biodiversity of this land. We believe that healthy land leads to healthy people and communities.

A tour of the greenhouse

Here is the greenhouse on the south side of the house. It was built for $32 and has since provided us with several months of daily greens. You don't have to spend a lot or travel to the supermarket to get fresh greens. Our salads are astonishing!

It is also used as a place to start seeds in planting trays. 

Here we have some radishes ready to go into salads.

Our tomatoes are starting to flower. 

Greenhouses are an excellent way to extend your growing season. They can be build with loose change and will reward you with months of fresh greens and veggies.

The basics of mob grazing in under two minutes

Moving the alpaca tractor

Until we acquire the cows these alpacas are cutting the grass. We want to try out the principles of mob grazing, i.e. high density herd formations with frequent moving, with these alpacas on our pasture. It certainly can't hurt. They are putting out good fertilizer and they seem happy.

Steering the tractor into position. The alpacas were little confused, trying to figure out how the earth could move while their fence remained stationary.

A proprietary alpaca tractor steering system. 

The alpacas are eager to gorge on the new grass. 

The alpacas have landed . . .

Herding the alpacas was interesting. 

Once you get one in the truck the others follow more willingly.

Once we got on our way they embraced their fate and enjoyed the air breezing through their hair.

Here they are in their new home - the world's first known alpaca tractor.

They quickly forgot the trauma of a forced shaving and kidnapping and got to business eating grass.

Looks like a happy alpaca.

Alapaca taxi done

Gord finished putting together a livestock box for the alpacas today. This is an up-cycled livestock box made from rubbish lumber. It gives the truck a nice hill-billy look we think. 

Tomorrow we pick up the alpacas. We'll keep you posted on how it turns out . . .

Intro to making raised beds

Start with some soil cleared of previous vegetation. In this case a grassy field was ploughed over. Start by loosening the soil with a pitchfork or shovel.  Ply the soil with the tool. The objective here is to loosen the subsoil to prepare the way for adventurous vegetable roots.

We dug ditches around our beds for several reasons. First, we have very high clay content in our soil which causes the soil to drain very slowly. Digging ditches lowers the water table allowing the beds to drain more effectively. Second, the excavated soil is piled loosely on top of the beds creating a loose soil medium for plants to root into. Finally, it exposes more surface area to the sun to warm them up faster. 

We break up the chunky soil further with a rake or three pronged hoe and add equal parts of lime and compost to ameliorate this sticky clay soil. Despite being farmed organically the past several years the soil has little organic material in it. A few years of permaculture and mob grazing cows should fix that. However this first year we have to do the cows job ourselves and suffer the back aches.

This is one of our beds planted with strawberries. It's best to plant your prepared beds as soon as possible before the soil compacts under the pressures of wind, water and wellies. It is also best to cover the soil with compostable material. This hampers weed growth, slows evaporation, and creates a hospitable environment for worms and other critters who will feed on this organic litter and build your soil for you while you're sleeping. 

We built a hoop house to cover the tomatoes planted in one of our beds. 

That's it. We are gardening students so please share any thoughts or suggestions with us. 

How to build a simple solar water heater

http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/files/large-area-solar-heating-system.pdf

These successful dairy farmers are mob grazing

http://newfarm.rodaleinstitute.org/features/0103/california/mcafee/index.shtml

http://www.agrinews.com/dairy/farmer/says/mob/grazing/works/great/for/his/herd/story-2792.html

Govinda's Farm is now a cruise ship destination!

Pedal Power - We could run our farm with old bikes

Pedal powered farms and factories

How to make an enviro-pot

1 Find a small container to shape your pot.

2 Wrap a newspaper, folded at the pot bottom, around your container.

3 Roll up the bottom toward the container to form the base of your enviro-pot.

Remove your container from the newly formed newspaper.

Voila! The finished product. 

Make lots. Give them away as gifts.

Put soil and seeds in them and give them warmth, light and water.