The Blessings of Poo

The really great thing about the word "Poo?"  It got you to read past the title, didn't it?!?  Ha!  I knew it!

I'm going to start putting "poo" into every blog title to get people to read more of our blog posts.  I can see that this is a fool-proof plan.  This is especially true if I'm the fool and a single post with "poo" in the title constitutes "proof."  And, now that I have your attention, let me bring you back to the topic at hand.

Really, the topic IS at least partially about poo.  Seriously.  Well, ok.  Since I am supposed to be a professional farmer, I should use the word "manure."  If you want to sound professional and evasive at the same time, you can refer to it as "soil amendments" or "added fertility."  But, since I am ALSO a person who is amused by wordplay and general silliness, we're still going to use the word "poo" just because... it's our blog and I CAN.

Portable Poo Factories on the job.

For a couple of seasons, we used an area just East of the permanent hen pasture to start the henlets (our next flock of hens) and/or some of our broiler chickens.  As evidenced above, the area was cordoned off by electric poultry netting and a portable building was provided for shelter.  Meanwhile, several Carbon-based Portable Poo Factories roamed freely in this area.  This section of land on our farm had not been anything other than pasture since we'd moved here.  Well, ok, the first several years it was mostly ragweed and foxtail, so I don't think that really counts.

We tried to include pastured poultry in our rotation as often as we are able, but this was the first time we turned a pasture area into a growing area.  Frankly, it would have been nice if we had a bit more tillable space to do this more often (put things into and take them out of pasture).  But, we worked with what we had.

The irony of that statement is that, now that we've scaled back, we could probably do more of this sort of thing (move land to pasture and move land out of pasture).  It's just going to take some thought and planning to figure out how to make it work from a labor perspective.

Going back to the topic at hand, in 2016 - 2018, we were realizing that we needed to try and get more growing space moved to the interior of the farm (because of chemical drift issues among other things). So, we purposely started putting chickens in this area to build up fertility using the Portable Poo Factories.  After all, if they'll spread it for us AND give us eggs?  

Well, it sounds like a good deal to me.

early March 2018

This area actually had a bit more history since we had to dig a fairly deep trench in the Spring of 2015 to run frost-free water lines out to Valhalla (the high tunnel on the right in this picture).  You might actually be able to see some of the path this trench took if you look carefully and you can definitely still see the remnants of a dirt pile that has yet to be redistributed to better locations in the center.  We were actually gearing up to do some work in this area in March until...

Late March 2018

 

We did manage to put some plastic down roughly where we wanted to add a new growing plot before the white stuff started to fall on the farm.  If you don't recall, we got most of our snow from March 20 to April 20 in 2017/2018.  

April 2018

This really put us a bit in doubt as to whether we would have time to work up the new plot.  First of all, the plot did have a bit of a dip in the middle that was wetter than the rest.  We were thinking we might try to raise that up a bit.  Second, we are encroaching a bit on "old farmstead" area where old foundations (among other things) might be encountered.  We knew there was good soil there as well, but any time you try to work new ground, you have to expect some surprises (both good and bad).

June 2018

Our old approach to work this ground would have been to use the two-bottom plow and follow up with the tandem disk to smooth it out.  But, we had put plastic down, so we pulled it and mowed things as close as we could.  Then, we used Vince (our power harrow) because we were curious as to what it could do AND we were running short on time.  At issue is that we do not want to overwork the soil and lose all the good Poo Byproduct (aka added fertility) that should be in this area.  The result was what you see above. 

We did find more rocks than we usually do on the farm, but things worked up pretty well.  Unfortunately, the delays put us into the period of time where everything was wet.  So, we ended up having to work the field before we should have and the soil structure is now a bit rough and pebbly for the season.

late July

 

Even though these tomato plants went in later than we wanted, they were catching up to the normal schedule fairly quickly.  It was be interesting to see how they compared to similar plants put into another area of the farm in plots that have been worked for a few years (and are closer to the edges of the farm).

 

The net result was that we had much better health and production from these plants.  Part of it had to do with the Portable Poo Factories.  Part of it might have been a bit more protection from some of the chemicals flying around.  This plot became one of our more productive areas from 2018 to 2021 - and we let it rest in 2022.  And, perhaps, I'll move the hens on to this plot for a little while again this Fall?  

All I can say is that it's all good because of the poo.  You're welcome and come back again soon! 

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Much of this post was originally written in August 2018 and is part of our Throwback series.  It has been edited and expanded on in places to bring it to the current day.