Jan Neels

Thanks for the tips.
That's really interesting about using pigs to make ponds!
I'm thinking the compaction would only happen if the pigs were directly on the dirt and it was kept quite wet. My plan is to add enough carbon materials like sawdust or wood chips so the pigs wouldn't be directly packing the soil. I've been testing this for a while now just in a small area and the pigs don't seem to root very deep once all the weeds are gone. As long as there is about 6 inches of sawdust on top of the soil the pigs just stay on top and eat the food scraps. It's actually the chickens that do most of the mixing work by scratching and dust bathing. This idea actually was inspired by Joel Salatin's model. I was at his field day this summer and learned all sorts of amazing things. It also borrows ideas from the Back to Eden Film and Charles Dowdings No-dig gardening as well as Geoff Lawton's chicken tractor on steroids http://www.geofflawton.com/fe/64322-chicken-tractor-on-steroids and Ben Falks idea of feeding chickens without grain http://www.geofflawton.com/fe/59960-feed-chickens-without-grain . The main purpose is to grow vegetables in a no till system without spending too much on trucking in expensive compost or all the money, work and time involved with mixing, processing and hauling compost; and get breakfast as an added bonus. I could also charge a dumping fee for people to bring their waste, the local green waste depot charges about $60 per tonne.

This is my plan: I’m trying to build up organic matter on my vegetable growing land by dumping any compostable materials (food waste, yard waste, manure, sawdust, straw bedding, wood chips) right out on the field and letting it compost in place. I will rotate pigs through the plot and let chickens free run at the same time. I will leave the animals out on the plot throughout the summer and move them into a hoophouse for the winter where they do the same thing. The pigs and chickens will mix and aerate the compost and eat whatever they can from the food waste and chickens can eat any bugs that are attracted to the compost. I hope to build up about 20 cm of compost mulch. After letting the land sit through the winter I plan to plant veg and move the whole composting procedure to the next plot. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Cj Verde wrote:Sorry, you did say that you hoed.

Here's a few threads to look thu:
https://permies.com/t/4329/permaculture/raspberry-guild
https://permies.com/t/8339/plants/Permaculture-Pete-Raspberry-Guide

A lot of the advice and ideas is for homesteaders or gardeners which doesn't always apply in a commercial setting, but a good idea should work at any scale. Lots of food for thought anyway.
Thanks for the help.

Right now I have lawn grass growing between the rows and I hoe around the plants to keep the weeds down. I'd like to find a plant to grow within the raspberry row that will cover the ground without affecting the raspberries. Or maybe I could replace the grass with some other kind of perennial that I could cut with a side discharge mower and side discharge the mulch around the plants.

I've considered comfrey but...
- our climate is fairly damp and airflow around the plants is important to prevent fungal problems
- I'm afraid the comfrey would smother the raspberries and compete for nutrients.

I should give it a try.

I am looking for a suitable low-growing plant that could be grown around the base of raspberry plants primarily to keep out weeds. I have about 4 acres of raspberries planted in rows 10 feet apart with mowed grass growing between the rows. (I intend to use a chicken tractor to make the best use of this grass and eliminate mowing eventually) At the moment we are using a hoe to control the weeds around the plants but this is too labour intensive and could be avoided by the use of some kind of intentional ground cover plant. The plant should not harm the raspberries by using to much nutrition or growing too tall. It should be able to accommodate commercial raspberry growing equipment and procedures such shoot cutting/pruning and picking. An other option I've considered is growing something that will yield enough mulch between the rows and side discharging it around the plants to block out weeds. Any suggestions?