Fresh and tasty food grown with love on the Saugeen/Bruce Peninsula
It’s that time of year again.
Everything needs to be done. Yesterday.
Warm weather and sunshine have made everything pop. Believe me, I am not complaining. We are loving the weather here at Bird’s Nest Garden Farm.
It’s hard to believe that less than a month ago things looked like this:
Now we are full steam ahead on ALL of the projects. Continue reading “Manic May”
Bees, butterflies and birds are welcome partners in the gardens.
We create and improve habitat for our wild neighbours through the use of pollinator gardens and the planting of native tree and shrubs.
We use no synthetic fertilizer, herbicides or insecticides on the farm.
Our growing methods encourage soil health. We rely on compost, minerals and no-till growing methods to feed our soil biology.
Each summer sees a different group of livestock moving across the pasture to enhance the soil biology and diversity.
We ordered a load of topsoil for the hoop house in spring. We used part of it right away inside the new structure. The rest of it went to the future site of the hoop house – where we will move the hoop house when the time comes. Don’t ask when that will be. But we will be ready.
Spring was rainy. It didn’t take long for that beautiful top soil to green up with wild mustard, shepherd’s purse and a few other characters I’d rather not have in my prime growing areas. It’s not that I am anti-weeds across the board. The only things I remove immediately are bindweed and ragweed. All plants have their roles to fill in the ecosystem. I’d just rather not be spending time and energy removing their progeny in the years to come.
Enter the chickens.
With their scratching, pecking and dust-bathing the chickens reduced the green forest to bare soil in short order. They really seemed to have fun doing it too. At first it was like a big game of hide and seek as the plants were as tall or taller than the birds. As things thinned out, some plants continued to grow taller but had no lower leaves; almost looking like palm trees. The only plants left at the end of their session were goldenrod and chicory; perennial plants that were there before the topsoil delivery.
Then it was time to move the chickens to new pasture. To keep the bare soil from growing more of what we didn’t want, we laid a tarp over the area. A BIG tarp. That was a family bonding experience that was not so fun. Dusk, everyone tired from a long day, bugs… But we managed.
So here we are on the verge of Thanksgiving. We have so many things to be thankful for, even though we can get caught up in the day-to-day whirlwind of life: school, chickens, garden work, cleaning up to host family for the holiday.
I’ve slowed down enough for a quick reflection here, just before I dash to meet the bus. If a picture is worth a thousand words, here are a few thousand words of gratitude from our homestead to yours.
Wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving this weekend…or in November…or both!