Forest gardening avoids animals
Although
Edible
Forest Gardens
inspired me to think about gardening in a different way, I have to say
that I am disappointed by the book's suburban focus. If we're
really mimicking a forest ecosystem, shouldn't we move to a farm
where animals would be present?
Some day, we'd like to
be more meat independent, expanding past chickens
and deer to sheep, goats, and pigs. The problem is that livestock
require well developed pastures, and I can't wrap my head around
chopping down a lot of trees to create them. Is it possible to
combine the idea of forest gardening with the needs of animals to
create a pasture that is more than a solid expanse of grass?
| This post is part of our Forest Pasturing lunchtime series.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Forest Gardens vs. Pastures
Actually goats are technically browsers and don't need a cleared pasture for grazing. They will potentially eat anything they can reach though, so double check if something is poisonous or a food you're planning on. If you have any kind of orchard space, that could be goat friendly with all the fallow fruit, but sometimes they manage to climb the trees, so it depends.
Comment by
Sena
— Mon Nov 30 15:56:17 2009
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comment 2
Very good point! Stay tuned --- we delve into goats a bit more in a later post.
Comment by
anna
— Mon Nov 30 16:16:03 2009
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comment 3
Forest gardening animals? Well, deer, turkeys, rabbits, squirrels come to mind. Of course goats, by all means, though I've watched one climb up a sapling to eat its highest leaves.
Comment by
Errol
— Mon Nov 30 16:18:29 2009
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comment 4
I'm hoping to come up with ways to run domesticated animals in the forest without causing total decimation. From what I've seen at other people's farms, it seems like goats really do a number on forest in short order...
Comment by
anna
— Mon Nov 30 18:38:05 2009
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