Polyface Farm Field Day

Yesterday I participated in a field day at Polyface Farms in Virginia.  The Salatins have become adept at marketing their version of sustainable meat production through books that Joel Salatin writes, speaking tours, and events on farm.  During yesterday's visit, the animals seemed content, living in a low-stress environment, doing what they liked to do, with access to light and fresh air.

The trick is, the Salatins raise animals in an ethical way and still turn a good profit, by using their land to "stack functions".  They also lease land to run animals on, they don't own all the land they use.  An example of stacking functions is running broiler chickens on the same land that cows just came through, since different bugs and parasites affect these species...the birds are able to glean protien from the cow patties and "clean up" after the cows.  

The weather was lovely and the rain held off til the end of the day.  All in all, great to see the things I have read about this farm in person.

Turkeys

Small apiary with electric netting for bears

The Raken House: Chickens stir the deep bedding under the rabbits to mix in the manure and keep it fresh until the young rabbits go out to pasture.

Rabbits on Pasture.  Daniel Salatin has bred a very hardy line of rabbits.

Burly Ass Trellis

Cornish Cross Broiler Shelters moving across pasture, cleaning up after the cows (eating parasites and bugs in the cow patties).  

Cornish Cross shelter with simple gravity watering system

Chick Brooder

Khaki Campbell Ducks under Paw Paw Trees.

Hoop House 30' x 120'

Kitchen Garden

Eggmobile

Cattle

Garfield Community Farm Visit

After visiting with folks from Garfield Community Farm on Monday up in Mercer County, I decided it was a shame I hadn't visited them on site in Garfield sooner.  So, this evening I remedied that.   From Wilkinsburg, they are just a few neighborhoods over so I popped over and John, Cornelius and crew showed me around their lovely garden lots.  The farm hosts a farm stand, runs a CSA, and supplies both the community of Garfield and Salt of the Earth restaurant with abundant produce.  Neat.  Check out their website and facebook site here.

Farm time

Fish hot pepper.  Aside from Hinklehatz, one of my favorite peppers.
They know what's up at Garfield.

Herb spiral garden.

Huglekultur beds.
Rotting wood with dirt on top = eventual rich composty growing beds.

Folks work on prepping fall beds.  

Tomatoes under protection.  

3 Sisters Bioshelter Tour

Today Bob and I drove up to Mercer County PA to Three Sisters Farm to check out their Bioshelter and market gardens during a PASA field day.  Three sisters grows mainly herbs and beautiful salad mixes of unusual greens and edible flowers.  They also teach permaculture design courses.  Darrell Frey talked with us about designing a "shelter for life" - basically a greenhouse environment that supports an entire ecosystem.  Support of a diverse crew of beneficial insects to manage pests was one of my main hopes of learning for the day.

Maintaining a growing temperature year-round is one of the main challenges of running the bioshelter.  In the winter, it is heated by both active and passive solar. The thermal mass from black barrels of water and concrete blocks of the growing beds within the structure absorb and then release heat.  Fans also pump in heat generated by compost into a pebble layer underneath the growing beds and a woodstove burned for a few hours is a backup heating source for the coldest nights.

Bioshelter

Goatster

Goldenrod and New England Aster

Tiny beneficial parasitic wasp on a flowering mustard plant

Dried out Queen Ann's Lace

Tansy.  If you plant it, they (the beneficials) will come!  It wily though, so contain it like mint,

Filberts

Darrell discusses the cold frames at the base of the bioshelter

A little mini-greenhouse

Mini salad greens planters

Sun coming in the acrylic glazing on the roof of the bioshelter

Micro Greens grown in a thin layer of soil on newspaper in bread trays

First floor of the bioshelter. Herbs abound.

Potting station

Awesome farmstand on our way back to Pittsburgh

Farm stand goodness

Magic farmstand pumpkins

A Visit to Blackberry Meadows Farm

Today we had super nice fall day for a drive up to Natrona Heights, just about 30 minutes from Wilkinsburg/Pittsburgh, to visit our friends at Blackberry Meadows Farm. Here are some photos of what Jen, Greg, Lynn, Nate, and Kristen have been up to.

A colorful flock of many chicken breeds, many of them dual-purpose heavy breeds such as Black Australorp and Rhode Island Red.

Eggmobile exterior.

Quail.

Quail tractor.

Turkies in their cattle panel welded tractor.

And More Blackberry Meadows...

Eggmobile interior

An eggmobile resident resting in a nest box.

Gravity fed chicken waterer.

Nate distributes treats in the form of kitchen waste.

Moving the turkey tractor to fresh grass.

More Blackberry Meadows...

Nate works on the brick oven, adding more concrete so 3 batches of bread will hopefully be able to be baked without having to rebuild the fire. CSA members that pick up on-farm will get treated to homemade pizza. Yum!

Closer view of the beauty.

Planting garlic.

Maggie surveys the fields.

Lynn's sweet new (old) Allis-Chalmers G tractor.