What is Permaculture? Our Farm Goals

I've always been interested in homesteading. I'm sure it is partly the result of reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's books over and over as a child. Milk a cow? Preserve jam? Make cheese? Yep, that sounded like fun to me from a young age. I clipped articles out of magazines on growing citrus trees in pots and sighed over the descriptions of the heady scent of old-fashioned roses that I read about in library books.

And now that I am an adult with a few acres of my own to play with, I've already made quite a few of those childhood fantasies come true. The plan our permaculture designer (Steve Moring of Vajra Land Management) came up with will take us to the next level.

Some readers might be unfamiliar with permaculture and I think the easiest way for me to explain it will be to list the farm goals Lee and I gave Steve as we started the design process. Permaculture will make all of these possible.

GUST FRONT FARM'S GOALS: 

- To create a resilient, food productive landscape. We know that through good design it is possible to work smarter, not harder. We want to use our land to the utmost, especially from the standpoint of water conservation. With the climate growing hotter and drier, we believe this is critical.

Our current kitchen garden is composed of raised beds surrounded by chicken runs. The chickens
really help keep bugs down and they benefit by the close proximity by getting lots of garden goodies. 

 - To create a more sustainable system that utilizes our poultry. Currently we are buying lots of inputs (poultry feed, fertilizers, compost, etc.) We'd like plants we could use as forage for poultry (and possibly the cattle we are getting in the future). Once we sort out fencing arrangements we plan on allowing our geese to free-range full time and our other birds (ducks and chickens) part-time. Since we breed several rare varieties some birds will unfortunately will not be able to free range (I refuse to allow coyotes to eat expensive birds), but most should get at least some range time.

The barn we built in 2014. The breeding pen fencing will also serve as a trellis for
grapes. The grapevines will provide summer shade and of course food.  

 -To create pond area for the waterfowl.

There will be a small pond that will be fed via a swale system through the orchard.

 - Going along with the idea of working smarter, not harder: to create areas for perennial vegetables as well as more areas for annual vegetables, compost crops, etc.

Geese in the garden eating weeds

 - To continue to develop our orchard, adding both more of the types of trees we have now as well as new varieties. I have been following the spray protocol established in The Holistic Orchardby Michael Phillips.

Spring-time cherry blossoms

 -While we'd like to have a long harvest season, I'd prefer plants that yield their harvest all at once. For example, everbearing strawberries drive me crazy; a summer of harvesting a handful of strawberries every week is not my idea of fun. I much prefer June bearing strawberries. I can, freeze, and dehydrate the surplus before moving on to the next berry, fruit, etc. that is ripe.

Cucumbers, carrots, zucchini, and cabbage from our kitchen garden

 -To provide habitat for beneficial/predatory insects and pollinators. We hope to keep bees in the next year or two.

We had five of these spiders take up residence in our raspberry patch last year. They definitely kept bug damage to the
fruit to a minimum and helped me work through my arachnophobia. 

-To minimize the effects of wind and our colder microclimate. We don't have the time or desire to cosset plants that are not hardy.

- We confess that we both like plants in straight lines and everything looking neat and tidy and that sometimes permaculture landscapes look rather unkempt to us. I would like the plantings to be neater and with a bit of an eye towards ornamentals close up to the house and driveway.

Borage planted with tomatoes is beautiful and useful. Bees love it and it is a truly effective
repellent for tomato hornworms.

Our farm goals encompass the ethos of permaculture: using land in a way that is productive, good for the earth, and good for the inhabitants.

A gorgeous summer evening

I will share the plan Steve Moring came up with in detail in a future blog post. In the meantime, here are some resources that I have found helpful as we go through this process:



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Why do our eggs taste so good? It's all in the feed.

Our family recently made a trip to the National Agriculture Hall of Fame. The highlight of the visit for me was the National Poultry Museum  located on the Hall of Fame grounds.

The National Poultry Museum was opened in 2009

I don't think the museum is worth going out of your way to visit, but if you are a poultry-fancier and happen to be in Bonner Springs, KS, it has some cool things to look at.

A Jamesway Mammoth Incubator from the 1920s

A collection of chicken catchers. At our house, we call these children.  :)
My 6 year old is the champion chicken catcher of the bunch.

One of the rooms is filled with paintings of many different poultry breeds. I was able to show the family some of the new birds we will have next year.

"See honey, they will look like this!"
We are adding pure-bred Ameraucanas to our flock next year for their blue eggs.

I wasn't surprised but I was definitely disappointed at the pro-Big Ag position the exhibits took. One display discussed the prevalence of battery cages in the US without mentioning the ethical concerns associated with the practice.

And then there was this little gem that made me roll my eyes:

Is the modern poultry industry progressive or regressive?  

Without a doubt, poultry feeds today are much more scientific. They have been formulated to give the exact amount of protein, fat, vitamins, and carbohydrates that a chicken needs to grow at a maximum rate. But does fast growth and pushing your hens to lay the maximum number of eggs mean you'll also get great taste?

We don't think so. If you want happy, healthy poultry and delicious eggs, your birds need green feeds. A customer once told me that she was surprised at how dark the yolks and how delicious our eggs are compared to what she had been buying at the grocery store.

An egg from one of our Ancona ducks. Look at that yolk! 

Our chickens do have access to a top-of-the-line natural chicken feed. They have NEVER been fed antibiotics and are given an Omega 3 supplement to enhance the nutritional value of their eggs. But that's not why they taste so good. The real difference between our eggs and those from the store is because our birds are happy chickens and ducks that eat grass and bugs, scratch in the dirt, loll in the sun, and have plenty of homegrown, organic green feed.

This bucket of rainbow chard will make for some very happy chickens, turkeys, and ducks

In addition to our poultry, our homestead also has an organic vegetable garden, orchard, and berries. Our birds benefit from the culled produce from our garden as well as from the crops we planted just for them.

Black oil sunflower seeds are a wonderful poultry treat.

Fresh food does matter! The better the chickens eat, the better the eggs taste. Period.