Erin Blegen

I've always understood rabbit, sheep, and goat manure to be "green" manures and can be used right away. I raise both rabbits and sheep and use both immediately (the only issue at times is when it's mixed with hay, which typically then heads straight to the compost pile).

Chicken manure I compost and use after 6 months. But to be on the safe side, 1 year is a good time frame for most manures. I'm a little more careful with my pig manure, however, and be sure to hot compost that well before use....stemming back to when I was a child and a friend of mine got pig manure one year for her garden...her son (who always ate carrots plucked straight from the garden) ended up with worms. Yuck.

I use straw to mulch my hugel beds (which is actually recycled duck bedding that has been dried out). When it comes time to plant, I pull the straw away from the row that I'm planting, but not from the entire bed. Once the plants have sprouted, I move the mulch back around the plant.

With fall planted garlic, I mulch heavily with leaves for the winter and the garlic finds its way through in the spring. Same with asparagus and strawberries.

I guess I haven't noticed the straw keeping the beds too cool...but I don't have overly thick layers of it either. Maintaining a more thin layer for moisture does allow for some weeds, but even then the weeds aren't that bad.

When mulching the beds in the fall with leaves, I gather them up in a wheel barrow and break them down (basically by grinding them with my hands) as much as possible. I often mix in some rabbit manure too. Then I wet them completely, mixing by hand, before adding to the beds. This seems to help keep them from blowing away.

I hope this helps a little!

I use mostly straw on my hugel beds- dried out bedding from my ducks. It breaks down nicely and I always have a lot of it! And I like to put my beds to rest in the fall with a good blanket of leaves

We recently brought a small flock of hair sheep home and are keeping them in the same area as the pigs. They have their own shelters and sleep separately, but trying to keep the sheep out of the pigs' feed is my greatest concern. I know you can build a creep area in which to put the pigs' feed that is only accessible to them- but wondering if anyone has done this successfully? Or has other ideas on how to keep the sheep out of the pig's feed? The pigs are feeder pigs about 2 months old. I would need to build something that could be adjusted as the pigs grow. Thanks in advance for any help!

Monica Eger wrote:Erin, if you want your squash to grow in a certain direction, it might be helpful to know that they will usually grow in the opposite direction of the first two real leaves. So, if you want them to grow north, place them in the ground so that the first two leaves point south.

I did not know that, Monica. Thank-you so much for that advice!

Diluted vinegar and coffee grounds are what immediately come to mind. Pine needles and sulphur work as well, but take longer to break down. I've also known peat moss to be a recommendation, but I recently read that peat is no longer recommended...but I can't remember why. Perhaps someone else can chime in there.

Ash Harper wrote:You could try putting a small light inside the coop. The light should draw them inside.

Yep. I always have the light on in the evening and my free rangers never fail to come inside...except the broody ladies who make their nests in secret places

Avalon Laux wrote:But also, even with a Rabbit Tractor, it is still a chance of them digging out. At least with a bigger area, the fence line can be dug deeper into the ground to prevent escape and/or predators.

This was a lesson I had to learn when using a rabbit tractor. First, I had nothing on the bottom and just lined the outside with bricks (rabbits escaped). So I then flipped the tractor over (the top had been covered with chicken wire)- they chewed a hole through the chicken wire bottom. So I had to go to more durable fencing on the bottom, but not so small that they couldn't get the grass and so that their waste wouldn't clog up the fence holes. This worked great- especially with something mobile like a tractor- you want it to be easy to move (my husband and I would each take an end, pick up the tractor rabbits and all, and move to the next spot).

chip sanft wrote:A permaculture system doesn't match the neat and clean commonplace ideal. It's a fuzzy system, just like nature

All I can say is this is 100% true. It took me a while to understand and embrace this. Permaculture forces us to welcome and work with the unexpected...and weeds

Thanks so much to both of you. I'm posting some photos below to show what we went ahead and did. This stuff is really broken down, as you can see. What I'd like to do for this year is plant a cover crop in the mulched area and not go ahead with planting anything else until next year. The curved bed closest to the tree has been planted with blackberries, currants, rhubarb, blueberries, asparagus, and soon strawberries. This area has been fenced in along with the rest of my garden.

Ellen, I would just love a class with Dave Jacke! I have his Edible Forest Gardens books and have been slowly making my way through them. I've learned so much and yet have so far to go.

I've been using hugelkultur for the past three years, but food foresting is new to me this year.