[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thanks Tim, Our biggest concern with the water runoff is that we are losing fertility every time it happens. The water is channeled until it hits our field and then it becomes a big sheet spread out over most of the field. As it begins to leave it starts to channel again. The channels are getting worse from season to season. We would also like to have a holding pond before the water leaves our property, so we would like to funnel all the water towards it. I don’t know what your rainfall amounts are in Central Michigan, but in Albany, VT from April-November we get about an average of 44″ of rain and then a little less than that for the winter. Spring time can be quite brutal depending on how much snow we get. Memorial Day this year we got 4″ in about an hour and last year during Hurricane Irene we got about 8″ in an afternoon. So harnessing as much as that as possible is critical for us. I can’t wait until our permaculture design happens. It will be interesting if it matches up with my intuition about what we should do. We also want to make this field a giant suntrap with many hugelbeds in the design. Thanks, Jeffrey

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thanks for the tips Andy! We intended to make a 3 sided structure without a floor. We probably wouldn’t move it until thaw, but we want to be able to rotate it once a year around our greenhouses. Our laying hen flock stays in one of our unheated greenhouses all winter, so we will be going out there twice a day. We don’t have electricity out there, so we need to figure out a frost free trough. Maybe a passive solar one? He will be getting out a fair amount this winter. We want to use him for logging and snow moving, so he shouldn’t get too idle. We will think about a permanent structure and rotate his paddocks. Do you all think if we didn’t electrify his fence in the winter that he would test it? It seems like you should have the fence electrified. We would have to invest in a solar charger or possibly run a distance of insulated wire from a plug in charger.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thanks for the links to those plans. I didn’t think about the cross contamination issue. Maybe our hay storage pole barn that we need to build could be used for veggie curing and and hay storage as well. Maybe it could have a third function as long as it doesn’t involve bodily fluids.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Hey Andy, We follow our ox paddocks with chickens about a week or so later to take advantage of the fly larvae. The pigs follow the chickens about 2 weeks later and they can really plow up a space(and fertilize at the same time). We have 2 pigs every year and we move them through about an acre in about 6 months. Then you could use your oxen to harrow the pig paddocks and then seed. It has been mostly working for us, but we haven’t tried harrowing yet. In the past we have raked the pig paddocks smooth (which is a lot of work by the way), seed, and cover with hay mulch. I don’t think just the oxen could graze and act as a plow, it seems you would need at least pigs in the mix to plow the land without an actual plow. Good luck, Jeffrey

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thanks for the low tech ideas Andy. We can’t wait until the permaculture design happens, because it should clarify a lot of our uncertainty. He has keyline design and coppicing knowledge. It would be nice to grow willow as a coppice on the edges of the berms or possibly some kind of fruit crop. We try to maximize our space as much as possible, plus having multiple functions for crops and animals.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Great ideas Erika and Vicki. We will probably need to use some kind of harrow (spring tooth or disc?) with the log behind it. I like the idea of using salvaged material, like a pallet or old hog panel. I’ve heard of some folks using old bed springs.
Andy, We haven’t used turnips as a cover crop yet, but I know the pigs would love to get into a paddock full of it. High protein feeds are very important for the chickens. We grow sunflower and pea shoots year round for sale. The chickens love the spent sunflower trays, but not the peas. We are now using the spent pea trays to top off our hugelkuture terraces to build up organic matter. We have had good luck with amaranth and alfalfa for the chickens. After the amaranth seed is mature, harvest it and hang upside down in grain bags in a cool dry place. We’ve tried to feed comfrey to our animals (not the ox yet) and the ducks seem the most interested. Comfrey is very high in protein and incredibly easy to grow. Just don’t let it go to seed or it will be everywhere. Apparently you can make silage from comfrey and then the pigs might be more interested, but haven’t tried that yet.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

I’ll try to post some photos when we get a chance. We intended the log to have stubble to help from rolling and act as a harrow. There are no hills where we will be working. We have been seeding the old pig paddocks with experimental crops to feed our chickens and pigs later in the fall. We have been trying japanese millet, sorghum, sunflower, red clover, mangel beets, buckwheat, and oat/pea mix. We sow the seed, rake, and mulch. The clover and oat/pea mix seems to be able to compete with the grasses and bedstraw the best. These paddocks will be for grazing one more year and then will sheet mulch them for our commercial operation. We will eventually have 2-3 acres in no-till for annuals and perennial fruits and veggies. We are currently a little over a half acre. It’s a slow process, but worth not tilling.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thank you all for your ideas and links to the videos, they have been very helpful. Especially when you go down the You Tube rabbit hole.
Tim, We are in Albany, VT and our grade is relatively flat , maybe a 2-3% grade. It would be a 400-500′ grass-lined berm. We have sandy soil with mostly grasses in that field. There are quite a few soft wood stumps from overgrown Christmas trees that we have been clearing. We don’t pull stumps, instead we cut them flush and sheet mulch for gardens. They slowly rot, which we consider long term nutrient management. We like to mimic the forest for our no-till farm. If we get more than an inch of rain then the field will flood, but most of the year it doesn’t flood. We would like to seed the berm with grass species that can handle occasional flooding. Does anyone recommend any grasses that could work, so we could graze our ox on? Up slope from us needs to be dealt with. It’s mostly before our property and the neighbor isn’t wanting to do anything about it. We are having a permaculture designer help us with this water issue. We will probably have to do some kind of mitigation on our property to slow down the water flow. In the field, I am envisioning a network of canals to divert water to our garden beds, which many of them will be Hugelkulture beds. So when the water leaves our property, it will be a trickle and not a raging stream. We’ll keep you posted.
Sickle hocks, The berm is similar to a swale, but a berm is more of a canal than swale. We will probably have swales branch off from the berm feeding into our garden beds.
Countymouse, That is a great idea. I wonder if a v-plow type thing would work for a single ox or their might be a ditcher for a single animal. Our friends suggested plowing first to remove the sod and then trench it somehow. We thought about having our pigs remove the sod by moving their paddock where we intend to build the berm.
Take care, Jeffrey

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback. Lucky arrived at our farm last week and seems to be adjusting well. We have never had cattle before and it’s amazing how fast they can eat through a pasture. We have him behind a single line and we move him every 3 days or so. His paddock is about 45’x65′ and he will be followed by chickens (we hope to have him move the mobile chicken structure!) and pigs. We will use him to smooth over the old pig paddocks with spruce logs. Has anyone tried this technique? We have heard it works, but not sure of the set-up. We are going to borrow a single tree and just need to figure out to set up the spruce log. I look forward to many more post and future dialogue with all you great folks. Peace, Jeffrey

[Peace of Earth Farm]

That’s good to hear and we’ve heard the same from some other farmers. The owner of the ox feels comfortable that he is going to a good home even though he might be the only ruminant. Thanks for the feedback Andrew.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

We definitely will be rotational grazing. They will be followed by chickens and then pigs. We have an old Christmas tree farm and the chickens and pigs have been great. Adding one or two ruminants to the mix will help convert our land to more productive crop land faster. A goat shelter on sleds could probably be pretty basic and perhaps the ox could move it from paddock to paddock. Thanks again and we’ll keep you posted.

[Peace of Earth Farm]

Thanks Andy, Will goats get along with an ox? Could we use the same type of fencing? We like the idea of a single line, but I am not sure if that would keep goats contained. We only have about an acre of grazing area and could have more in the future when we do some more clearing and have the pigs run through for a few years. Thanks for the feedback. Jeffrey Ellis

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