Transcript from video:

Courtney Brooke: Hey Uncle Zev. What are you doing?

Zev: Oh, hey! I’m  emptying out this liquid duck gold.

Courtney Brooke: Duck gold?

Zev: Yes.

Courtney Brooke: What does that mean?

Zev: An unspoken treasure. This is our duck water from the sweet ducks. The ancona ducks have been swimming in here the last week About once a week we empty this out and spread this water around to different plants that need it, with its beautiful phosphorus and all the nitrogen and nutrients in there and the duck oils which make this cool rainbow colored oily skim on the top and feed all the plants with it. It’s one of the amazing yields of the ducks. Along with the eggs, and their manure, and their beauty and companionship, and bug eating, we get fertigation water. So that’s what I’m doing. Fertigation…. fertilize your irrigation. It’s like saying wave irrigating in ways that are also fertilizing the plants because of everything i just said.

Courtney Brooke: So do you recommend having ducks?

Zev: Definitely yeah

Courtney Brooke: Who do you recommend having ducks? Why? who should have ducks?

Zev: Well probably people who have a few other companions, a few other crew to do it with. Once I had ducks by myself, when I lived in someone’s backyard in a salvaged metal and earthen building I built. That meant that if I ever went away for the night or was just really tired or something then it was always like “oh god, I gotta go deal with the ducks” or get someone to duck sit the ducks. But if you got a few compadres and comadres then somebody can take care of them when somebody else goes.

So, people who have a little crew, and who have a little diversified landscape. Especially where you can rotate them through different areas. Different paddocks, kind of mini paddocks and rotate them through the garden at the right time when they’re not going to trample teensy plants. Rotate them through the forest garden and around the mushroom logs when the mushrooms are coming out so that they eat the slugs before they damage the mushrooms and around the house to eat the termites. So a diversified landscape, home scale is one of the ways ducks fit really good.

Also, people in traditional Asian cultures use them in big large scale rice paddies. So they’re all manner of things. The trick is, that we didn’t do here yet, is to have the water they swim and be high in the landscape so you can use gravity to get fertigation water to other points. So, this is currently down here for convenience and that’s a little inconvenient.

Courtney Brooke: Hey ducks!

Zev: There’s six of them but there’s only five here because one of them’s in there right now sitting on eggs breeding. They’re hopefully going to hatch out into a new round little ducklings.

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Transcript from video:

Courtney Brooke: Why have a lawn when you can have this….?

There are so many pollinators out here. Honeybees and I see three different kinds of butterflies. I mean I’m just seeing hundreds of pollinators around me right now.

I’m sitting in this patch of these little ….what is this this is veronica? No this is ground ivy

I think it’s ground ivy.

This beautiful purple little flower, which I’m pretty sure it’s ground ivy, it’s just making food for so many bees. It’s probably only like 30 foot by 30 foot section not even right here.

Anyway, I highly recommend.

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Transcript from video:

Courtney Brooke: Good morning! Happy Beltane!

Remember all that rye? It was like taller than my head. This is all it there in the background. It got mowed down.

The awesome thing about this rye is that it’ a cover crop. So the cover crop here is rye and vetch and they grow together. And the rye is you know making a lot of biomass. You can see there’s just tons and tons and tons of this mulch. Now here this is enough mulch to not have to buy any mulch or import it from somewhere else.

So, it’s growing all the mulch that is needed for this garden and it’s feeding the soil. We’re composting and these other ways that we feed the soil, but also the plants that are growing in the soil are making sugars on their roots. The more that there are plants growing that are making a lot of sugars the more it feeds the soil food web that’s alive in the soil. That’s also another thing that’s happening with the rye and the vetch.

This this kind of rye you have to wait until it’s flowering. If you were to cut it down before it was flowering it would just grow back kind of like your lawn. But, when it puts all of its energy into making this seed head you cut it down then it won’t come back. Now you just have all this beautiful mulch laid right in place. Been feeding the soil all winter, preventing the weeds from growing. This man who grows this rye, Leon, he says something like “you just have to take up all the parking spaces with cover crop.” In other words, you plant the cover crop so thickly that the weeds don’t have anywhere to be and they don’t have any access to the light.

It’s Beltane right now, officially getting into the heat of summer. This cover crop was planted in the fall, after the winter or fall crops came out of the garden. It’s a sight to behold. When I look at it, it just feels so good in my eyeballs.
So, thank you, rye.
Thank you, vetch.
Thank you, Leon, for taking good care of it like that.

The post Take up all the parking spaces with Cover Crop: Rye & Vetch at Earthaven Ecovillage appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

(Transcript from video)

Courtney Brooke:  Good Morning Leon. What are you doing?

Leon: We are mulching. You take the cover crop and we’re spreading it out so no weeds will grow through. And no sun will hit the ground. And we’re gonna move this greenhouse onto it. Then plant some ginger.

Courtney Brooke:  Wow.

Leon: It will get nice and hot in there and it will get watered everyday by a little spray system. Hopefully grow pretty fast.

Courtney Brooke:  Wow that’s really thick mulch, huh?

Leon: Yeah, it’s thick mulch and it grew right in this spot. Take a closeup. Here’s where it grew. Take a closup!

Courtney Brooke:  You know what, hold on a sec. Yeah, this is amazing. It’s such a feeling in the body of wealth.

Leon: Of which?

Courtney Brooke:  Wealth?

Leon: Wealth.

Courtney Brooke:  When there’s this much mulch. It’s just so clear that we are rich. What’s he doing? What’s he doing?

Leon: Oh.I think you’re just feeling the diverse life that is here.

Courtney Brooke:  That’s the wealth feeling?

Leon: Maybe that’s what you mean when you are wealthy. Ok, perfect. This is the soil. Get a closeup.

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(Transcript from Video)

Courtney Brooke: Well, we’re not at Earthaven, but you know I’m still on planet earth and just seeing this.

I’m on the side of the highway in north Georgia. I’m like driving by and I’m like:  Wow! look at those trees blooming. Then I realized that it’s a tiny little agroforestry situation. There’s all these cows underneath the trees eating the grass. Hello baby cow.

I just wanted to stop and admire it because it’s such a place where we have room for improvement.

There’s a huge field that this is attached to and only a few of these trees.  I think they look like apple or pear trees. Yay for agroforestry!

I mean, you know, I’m not saying this is the most shiny example. But I am just saying “ Yay, agroforestry!”

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Transcript from Video:

Starting with Clay, Working with Cover Crop

Courtney Brooke:  Okay Leon what’s happening?

Leon: We’re gonna just show you what this is doing to the soil. What this cover crop method is…..Yeah, think of it as a massage. This is massaging the soil and all of the organisms in it and here….you have to see it when it comes out. You have to see all of the crumbly texture of the soil.

This is a clay soil but you could never tell. This was red clay. There you can see well that’s actually off my shovel, but there are little bits of clay way down here that is the mother soil but it is not sandy soil. I just want to see here. See if I can go deeper here. Look at how deep we can go. This is what we’re creating here. Here’s the clay base. See the clay mixed in the soil? Yes and it can go down 18 inches of black top soil and it has been all been  created in about well….20 years it’s been done about 20 years. See here, see when are we going to get down to that black place or to that clay soil here we’re gonna get down to it.

Courtney Brooke:  It was all clay when you started farming here?

Leon: Yes this was clay soil. Totally clay. Matter of fact we’re gonna take you…. Oh there’s some. Yeah a little bit. Look how far down that goes. Now this has not been grazed or had any manure put on it. This is all from this kind of method of growing of cover crop letting it grow up really long to maturity after synapsing. You let it grow and do a lot to the soil and then cut it down when it has lots of carbon in its body and it takes a long time to fall apart. It has a lot of cellulose.

Courtney Brooke:  Come on kitty. The kitty love top soil.

Leon: Yeah look at this, I’m still digging. I want…I’m gonna take you down to what it was. Do you want to go take a film, a picture of?

Courtney Brooke:  Yeah of course.

Leon: Oh we’re just gonna go to a road cut. See I haven’t even gotten down to the clay yet!  Geez. I know it’s crazy.

Courtney Brooke:  I could get in that hole that’s a big hole.

Leon: Here there you go. Okay. I think it’s… you see the clay down here here’s some clay pieces and it’s really sticky clay, really sticky. Here it is down there.

Micro Heart, Mychorizal Community

Courtney Brooke:  20 years of farming. Vegan farming huh?

Leon: No, no I wouldn’t call it that.

Courtney Brooke:  There’s no animals though right?

Leon: No, this is all animals, this is called the micro heart. The micro heart. Absolutely yeah this is all animals. Matter of fact animals are mostly, it would be the opposite. Thinking opposite because animals are mostly bacteria and they’re just little vessels to hold and hold the bacteria you know and all the microorganisms and that’s what the soil does. It’s also a vessel to hold the bacteria and microorganisms and all yeasts and all that kind of different stuff.

Now let’s go do a road cut.

Courtney Brooke:  Okay here we go. let’s do the road cut.

Leon: Actually we could just dig up a hole right here. All right. But a road cut is easier.

Geni: Good morning.

Courtney Brooke:  Good morning Geni.

Leon:  Actually, I should have brought my shovel but…..This is a road cut. This is very close. Of course, it’s got bamboo on it. I want to go to a really clear road cut. Right over here. Let’s just go….. Ok, here we go.  And I wish I brought my shovel again. Maybe I’ll go, just let me go get it.
Ok this is what that was. Right here. Although this has got bamboo on it. But basically right to the surface it’s all red clay. Although this is bamboo. But this is not as defined as you can go. No, it’s good or here you can see it here. It doesn’t make any top soil really. That’s it. That was this thin. It was just a duff layer of laurels.

Courtney Brooke:  Up there it was mostly laurels in the garden, where we just went?

Leon: Uh-huh and it was just red clay like that sticky red clay.

Courtney Brooke:  Wow

Leon: And it’s very specific, the community that is growing there. The community of microorganisms and the plants that are feeding them, it’s very specific. These obviously grows but does not sequester carbon like that. There’s a specific mycorrhizals and it’s not like I’m the one having to create that community I have to kind of just spin the wheel and get it going.

Courtney Brooke:  Right. Thanks for doing that.

Leon: Yeah the grass is the winter feeding of the soil. It’s kind of like that. The winter feeding so that cover crop grew all through the winter and sequestered sunlight and co2 and sugars all through the winter. It’s sort of kind of speeding up the cycle, but it’s also making a place for lots of mycorrhizals.
Cool and it’s different. Different than large animal livestock because that’s really warm, so I’m sure that that makes lots of microorganisms but it’s not the same as sequestering the carbon in there. Whereas mycorrhizals have glomulates and they actually sequester carbon into this black form. Into a more indestructible humus long-lasting. However if I left that black soil uncovered for a long enough time it actually starts retaining the red redness and it and that means that the carbon that’s in there the black graphites and graphenes and all the carbon chains going into the air., oxidizing. So that that’s a system that has to be has to be put in motion and kept in motion.

Courtney Brooke:  Right. Thanks Leon.

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Transcript from Video:

Courtney Brooke:  Who have we got here? Sweet potatoes. Hello different kind of sweet potatoes!
Hello another kind of sweet potatoes. We must love sweet potatoes! Oh and what is this? sweet potatoes. What is this?

Saawwwwheat potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato, sweet potato all the way to the end.

And over here this is the promise of turmeric and ginger.

Just cut off a little piece of the root, plant it in the tray, and it’ll grow.

These are all that turmeric and ginger. It’s quite a special thing Appalachian turmeric and ginger grown in the greenhouse.

And who do we have over here? Some kind of cucurbit maybe a cucumber.

And who do we have over here? Baby tomatoes hello.

More cucurbits. Some basil and a stand of peppers.

This is our greenhouse walking towards summer. These are all the summer starts and summer plants. We still have this celery growing here. We still have some of these brassicas growing here that we’re still getting some broccoli off of and some leaves off of.

And we got a little green bean patch going over there.

So that’s what our greenhouse at Full Circle Farm is looking like on the cusp of spring and summer.

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(Transcript from video)

Courtney Brooke: What are you doing, Uncle Zev?

Zev: I’m admiring this cover crop that Eli put down with veggie ladies. And Daikon’s flowering with all of their, so many insects, bumblebees and honeybees and little parasitic wasps and stuff, into their flowers.

Courtney Brooke: These are the daikon’s!

Zev: And these Austrian winter peas that are yummy. In fact I think I’ll have one right now. Mmmm.

Courtney Brooke: What’s it taste?

Zev: It tastes like nutty sweet freshness. And um and then rye in there. It’s a nice mix.

Courtney Brooke: This is the rye.

Zev: Daikons dig deep down and create channels of organic matter and air and water getting down into the soil and make a food source the daikon radishes.

Courtney Brooke: It’s probably hard to see but I can see just hundreds of pollinators on here right now.

Zev: Yeah it’s amazing. And the grass makes a bunch of biomass, that rye does. And the peas fix nitrogen and improve the soil that way. Yeah really nice.

Courtney Brooke: Hallelujah for cover crop!

Zev: Hallelujah for cover crop!

The post Tour of the Cover Crop Mix with Zev at Earthaven Ecovillage appeared first on Earthaven Ecovillage.

Courtney Brooke: Hey Andy!

Andy: Hey!

Courtney Brooke: What are you doing?

Andy: Well I’m moving the chickens to a fresh spot.

Courtney Brooke: Oh; good morning chickens! Well, that’s quite a lot of chickens. How many chickens is that?

Andy: Well, we started with a little over a hundred we’ve lost a handful of them so we’re probably around 96.

Courtney Brooke: Wow; fancy chicken house!

Design

Andy: Yeah, this came from a design from Rrobert Plummenden. He’s got a book on chicken shelters and raising pastured poultry.

I did some modifications to it, but the frame is a pretty basic wooden box. It’s a 8×8 wooden square with two cattle panels that you can get from tractor supply -or somewhere like that; bent over a hoop. This one’s maybe a little easier to see…bent over in a hoop and stapled to the side. Then we also took another cattle panel and cut it in half. So, three cattle panels makes this whole chicken shelter closable.

Then four or five 2 x4’s to make the frame. Next, you round the angle braces and all that. Then, the moving part of it, and this is a recent modification, we’ve got some wheels on the end of some metal pieces that then hook on. So it picks it up off the ground now. Leverages it so that then you’re able to lower it once you get it into place. The chickens, theoretically, can’t get out. This was in an uneven spot.

Moving the Coops

Courtney Brooke: So, then one person can move this ?

Andy: Yes, one person mostly can move it. If you have to go uphill (we usually like to start them like that)  get everybody on board to move them uphill. Then, pull them down. But mostly one person can do it.

Courtney Brooke: Wow…

Andy: First, we got to get the feeders and the water. It’s a little bit different than the Joel Salatin style pens. The main thing that I like better about it is that his pens are like ….they stop here.

Courtney Brooke: Right.

Andy: They’re low pens and this one I can get in and out, especially when the chickens get bigger. We actually won’t close it up at night once they get bigger. When they get bigger and we pen them in there before slaughter it’s it just feels better than having them all penned into a low shelter. They got more space in there.

Courtney Brooke: Good morning chickens

Andy: Slowly pull it because there’s always one or two that like to peck at the wheel and see what’s going on. Not quite yet with the program. I haven’t electrified the netting yet either so they’re all getting out.

Courtney Brooke:  So how often do you move it?

Andy: When they’re this small ideally we move it once a day. Once a day or else you get manure build up in one area. We’re trying to spread the manure across the entire field.

<Dog barking>

Courtney Brooke: That’s how you protect the chickens…with the dog.

Andy: All right so then we lower it and the wheels. Old lawn mower wheels really work the best and then you got to be a little crafty to figure out some piece of metal..something that’s laying around the farm. This one I call the ultra light… it’s not necessarily designed to keep them in. It’s more designed for shade and keeping feed dry. So that one is really easy to move.

Raising Broiler Chickens since 2006

Courtney Brooke:  How long have you been farming chickens?

Andy: I’ve been farming chickens…hmm…I actually did our first batch in this field in one of these shelters 15 years ag. I’ve been raising broiler chickens as few as 50 a year, as many as 150 a year, since 2006. I went to a workshop down the road on raising pastured poultry. I picked up this book that had a design in it. Then, I ran with it ….

Courtney Brooke:   All right, thanks for showing it to us!

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Part 1

(Transcript from video)

Courtney Brooke: Here we are in the greenhouse at Full Circle Farm. It’s raining and it’s cold; it’s early spring and here we are planting this brassica bed. Me and Jonathan.
Hey Jonathan!
We’re putting in cabbages and cauliflower and lettuce and broccoli. Jonathan, are you willing to tell us what the plan is here?

Jonathan: Well, this is precious space here that’s protected, and so the soil is a lot warmer. We’ve dug out the turmeric in the middle here and it’s a perfect time to plant these brassicas. They are not quite as hardy as kale so could have done it a little bit earlier but they’re just gonna hit the ground running because the soils all ready and warmed up for them. If you planted them outside they’d probably survive but they go a lot slower. They may get hit by a hard freeze and it stunt their growth.

Courtney Brooke: So we’re going to plant like 120 brassica plants in this space right?

Jonathan: Yeah, actually it might be a little less but, yeah. You can see already the ones that were planted …the kind of spacing… these are squeezed in a little bit more than maybe it’s optimal for a maximum size. But I have extra plants and so you might get smaller individual yields but hopefully the total yield will be great. They’re spaced 18 inches apart but the rows are a little tighter. I’m squeezing in seven, six, or five rows. They would grow a lot bigger…

Courtney Brooke: So the idea is that first the lettuce will come out …and then the cabbage and cauliflower will come out …and then the broccoli will be the last one standing.

Jonathan: Yes.

Part 2

Courtney Brooke: So here we are after it’s planted out. That was just bare soil this morning. We turned it with the forks and then got all these plants in the ground. May they grow.

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