A hive of local Bees courtesy of Nathan,
The bees will help pollinate the flowers on the plants in the garden (and produce honey too of course).And four Hereford/Angus steers.
Grazing our lush pasture in full bloom. A pipe from our spring brings fresh cool water to the steers. Bees and grass fed cattle are pretty maintenance free systems on the farm, only needing a daily checking and (in the case of the cattle) opening a gate to move them to the next paddock of grass. That's important when there is so much work to do watering and weeding in the gardens.Because we are a small scale organic farm, weeding is mostly done by hand, either with a hoe ,wheel hoe, flame weeder or (mostly) just pulling them up. With 3 acres to weed, there is never enough time in the day.
5 comments:
That's a whole lot of weeding-- to think, I thought my tiny backyard garden was a lot to weed. Fortunately, your intensive efforts are very much appreciated. Justin and I have really enjoyed our first two shares, and we can't wait to see what comes next. Thanks for everything!
Cheers,
Jill & Justin
That's a lot of ground to weed, diligent weeding usually pays off for us around mid July when the weeds slow down and any we miss are shaded out by the real garden crops.
I'm curious, what type of system do you use to water your acreage?
Bees!?! That's SO great! Does this mean you may produce honey one day? Or is it mostly to facilitate pollination?
Can't wait for this week's share!
Thanks again, to both of you, for all your hard work and dedication. Much appreciated!
Laura
Thanks Jill and Justin, we really appreciate hearing from you. Glad to hear your liking things so far!
Mr H,
Irrigating is the weakest link in our farming system as yet. One acre is in black starch mulch (looks like plastic) with drip tape underneath. We can water whatever row we need to by plugging a regular 1/2 inch hose into the drip line. This works great, getting the water right to the root zone of the plants and the mulch keeps it from evaporating. Otherwise its a lawn sprinkler and steadily moving it to cover as much area as possible. It takes 4 days of dilligently moving the sprinkler 5 time a day to cover an acre. This keeps the plants from wilting, but its far from ideal.
Laura,
Thanks, we really appreciate it when we hear positive feedback from our members. The bees do produce honey, we tried some the other day and it was really good, but Nathan says it takes a whole season for the bees to build up the numbers in their colony, and store enough honey to help them survive the winter, before any honey can be extracted. So most likely honey will happen next year.
Those are the happiest steers I have ever seen!
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