Animal lessons
We've learned a lot about
animals this year too. Strider joined our
menagerie and has since become an indispensible purrer. Now
that our pet count has reached three, we've gotten a bit more serious
about bad behavior. Last year, it seemed like Lucy picked a
couple of garden beds and lay on them every day or so, crushing all of
the vegetables there. Huckleberry would also pick favorite beds
and tear up young seedlings in the loose soil.
This year, we've pretty much nipped that behavior in the bud.
When I see the first signs of pet damage in the garden, I loosely stack
branches on the bed to keep all animals out. The branch technique
seems to be 100% effective, and branches can be safely removed once the
veggies get tall enough to make a scratchy bed.
We've also added two new types of livestock to our farm this year --- earthworms
and honeybees.
We're still learning how to make the best use of them, but I'm thrilled
to learn that both are relatively easy and that honeybees aren't
scary. Probably by this time next year, I'll have something more
to say about bees and worms.
| This post is part of our Third Year of Homesteading lunchtime series.
Read all of the entries: |
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
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.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.