Homestead mailing list

[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On Mar 9, 2008, at 4:05 PM, Clansgian AT wmconnect.com wrote:

> First, I find the prospects of an animal-less homestead to be grim.   
> Animals
> are walking, high efficiency composters.   I could not maintain the  
> current
> fertility of my gradens an grain plots without the animals.  I could  
> still have
> gardens, of course, but they would be drastically different.  So  
> more and more
> I see the 'circle of life' on the farmstead.

Excellent. The ideal homestead operates as a closed loop of nutrients  
becoming waste and waste becoming nutrients, a complete and endless  
natural circle so long as the homesteader maintains the balance. If  
only I could persuade that septic tanks are a waste of the finest  
manure in the world.

I buy my wheat from a biodynamic farmer. Nothing to feed the soil  
comes from off his farm. He raises grains and cattle. He operates a  
closed loop. I have been especially sensitive to that design ever  
since I brought home some spoiled hay for compost. Twenty or more  
years later I almost have the Johnson Grass eliminated.

A well-designed homestead not only requires fewer purchases, it is  
easier to operate. My ideal has a gravity water system. Gravity also  
moves waste toward compost piles. Trees feed people and the soil.

My design is to grow only what I consume. Chris and I eat very little  
beef or pork. I buy a bit of ham occasionally to put in a bean pot,  
insufficient reason to raise a pig. Of all manures I wish I had access  
to horse. We don't ride or plow, so we don't keep horses. Were I to  
keep a horse or a mule I would have to create greater justification  
than garden fertilizer. Thus far, chickens have fulfilled the need.  
One day we will have rabbits.

It is possible to feed garden soil with only plant materials. Most of  
the nutrients in the Heartwood gardens are in the form of grasses,  
weeds and leaves and most of that is created with a riding mower. That  
uses gasoline, so I am dependent on that outside energy source. Surely  
someone will develop an electric mower that can be charged with solar.  
The greatest weakness of my design is that I must mow and gather  
leaves from several acres to feed a few hundred square feet of garden  
soil.

We here on this list will get along just fine, gradually improving our  
plots and working toward our ideal designs. But what will we say to  
those millions of urbanites and suburbanites that we urge home food  
production upon? To feed themselves, gardeners must feed the soil. How  
shall they do that on postage-stamp lots?