The girls definitely aren't thinking about winter anymore! They're doing there jobs quite well. Another job the chickens do for me on the farm, besides laying eggs, is prep the ground so I can plant.
We use our animals highly honed skills to our favor. I've been using the pigs and the chickens to clear ground for me so I can plant into it. We don't own a tractor on HOP Farm or a gas powered tiller. I'm testing to see if animal power and a little man power can do the work instead.
First we send in the pigs to have them eat and root out all the grass and plants not wanted in an area. Pigs have plows for noses and they love to dig up fresh grass. Plus they're getting more of a balanced diet and we don't have to spend as much on feed! They also drop fertilizer out the back end.
After the pigs have left I will send in the chickens. The chickens will do a more detailed job. Eating the grass and weeds the pigs may have missed while doing a finer till by scratching. They will spread the pig manure when scratching through it to find larvey. This spreads the manure and helps break pest Cycles. The chickens also leave fertilizer as they go.
After the chickens have been moved out I will go behind them and plant. I'm trying two different ways of planting seeds. In the picture above there's a traditional row method.
The way I made the row was by breaking up just the top inch or two with a hand twist tiller. Then planted green beans, the bush variety, 3-4 inches apart. Toped the row with a little compost and was good to go.
The second way I'm trying is by poking holes in the ground that animal power prepared for me and planting a seed in the hole. If this way works it will save a lot of time and energy. We do plan on mulching. Just going to wait until the seeds sprout so they don't have trouble pushing through the mulch.
Here's a video showing the process that we are trying.
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