Gardening & Farming

Livestock Guardian Dogs: Deter Predators on Your Farm or Homestead

Livestock Guardian Dogs: Deter Predators on Your Farm or Homestead

by | Mar 9, 2024 | ,

Livestock guardian dogs protect homesteads and farms from predators with their loyal and protective nature. Image by Don DeBold, Flickr. Homesteads and farms face the constant challenge of protecting their livestock from predators like coyotes, wolves, bears, and other opportunistic creatures that threaten the well-being of their animals. Livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) offer a tried and tested solution, safeguarding herds with their protective instincts. For centuries, LGDs have stood as the ultimate farm watchdogs, their presence alone serving as a powerful deterrent to would-be attackers. Bred for their unwavering loyalty, keen instincts, and impressive size, these capable canines have become an increasingly popular choice among homesteaders seeking an eco-friendly, long-term solution to safeguarding their herds. LGDs actively protect livestock by patrolling the perimeter, marking territory, and fearlessly confronting intruders....

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The Permaculture Book of DIY

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Water Management For Every Permaculture Property

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email When I was a kid, my brother and I used to enjoy the winter weather at my grandparents’ farm in the mountains. In a beautiful interplay of natural forces, throughout the winter and early spring we would play in half a meter of snow, walk on frozen lakes and then run from the floodwaters once the snow had thawed.We always looked forward to wintertime and knew what to expect. Now that we’ve grown, however, these natural cycles of snow, ice, and floodwater have changed significantly. It’s not like there are not they no longer exist, but everything has become so much less predictable, and so much more extreme.This weird weather is the new normal for many of us. It is beyond doubt that we all are experiencing more extreme and erratic weather cycles, with huge downpours and flash floods on the one hand and extreme…

How to design a Food Forest in 20 minutes

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email Tall order? Read on and watch me *demo* it. Earlier this week, I showed you what designing the whole farm layout looks like, and now I’ll zoom in on one aspect: designing a food forest with swales. 5 minutes for Part I, 15 minutes for Part II, and DONE! Part I: Determine if swales are a viable water management option for your terrain (5 min) Part II: Design the layout for your food forest (15 min) Food forests, in the context of the current and coming world events, are of pivotal importance for any permaculture farm or homestead. They supply us with an abundance of fruits, nuts, medicinal plants, and other resources so we can be more self-reliant and have peace of mind that no matter what, we’ll eat plenty and healthy. They also provide us with a beautiful, non-toxic, natural environment, a sort of…
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How to Create an Endless Supply of Free “Woodchips”

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email In this post, I’ll outline a cost-effective and sustainable method of obtaining woody mulch for your food forest. For this ‘workflow’ to work, you need to have a source of woody material on your land. This can be a forest or other (unwanted) woody vegetation growing on your property that you can then selectively clear and, after a period of “maturation,” use as mulch. By sourcing this woody material from your local biome and incorporating it into your food forest as a mulch, you do several things: Save money on bringing in woodchips and/or compost Build soil fertility and increase organic matter Smother the weeds Inoculate the area and the food forest system with microbes and decomposing fungi from the local biome Plus, all the other good things a mulch layer does: insulation, soil protection, temperature modulation… I gather this material annually in September (pushing…
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Behind-The-Scenes: Creating a 12-month Permaculture Plan for a 5-acre retirement property

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email The Story Today we want to take you behind the scenes and show you something cool we created for our client Shree: it's a 12-month permaculture implementation plan for her property.The idea here is to prevent overwhelm by answering questions like:where do you start?which projects should you do this year?if you run out of time to do all of those projects, which ones should you prioritise?what's the best time of the year to do each project in your climate?Let’s walk you through the “masterplan” for those 5 acres and the logic that went into each decision: The Problem"I want to 'permaculturise' my property, but I'm overwhelmed by all the possibilities, and frankly a little burnt out. Also I'm not confident that I'm doing this correctly - I don't want to make a huge mistake that I'll later regret!" The Solution Hire our services Want us…
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How I simplify garden planning each year (free calculator included)

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email The Story I like to start each garden growing season by zooming out and thinking about the veggies I'll be growing.I'm not talking about the varieties I'll order and then plant, but the big picture—my desired crops, grouped by categories: staple, nutrient, and supplemental.Staple crops are the ones from which we'll derive most of our calories. They are reliable, easy to grow (low labor), and storable crops such as potatoes, squash, beans, cabbages, and onions. 60% of the garden should be dedicated to these crops. The Problem"I need to know how much of which crop to plant to be self-sufficient, but I don't have the time or capacity to plan my garden in this much detail." Nutrient crops, as the name suggests, provide us with nutrients in addition to calories; these are greens such as kale, chard, spinach, arugula, etc. We'll mainly harvest them fresh,…
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How I plan the year for my own permaculture farm/homestead (diagram)

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email The Story Today I want to give you a behind-the-scenes at how I'm planning my year.Here is the framework I use to map my permaculture projects: The Problem"How do I make progress on my permaculture projects without getting overwhelmed?" The Solution Hire our services Want us to create a Permaculture Design and/or a 12-Month Implementation Plan for your property? Explore the details here Related Posts:Done-For-You Permaculture Design +12-month…Behind-The-Scenes: Creating a 12-month Permaculture…How I simplify garden planning each year (free…(Visited 493 times, 1 visits today) Share Post Pinterest reddit Email
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Food forest cover crop update

Share Post Pinterest reddit Email Somewhere up the family tree, my forebears must have offended a hag coven or something… Behold our ancestral curse: The limestone bedrock. My land is in the mountainous part of Croatia, a region characterized by this particularly challenging landscape feature that has determined the destinies of many generations of farmers before me. On the one hand, it’s the best type of rock for storing water in underground aquifers because it is very porous. On the other hand, due to its porous nature, rainfall far too quickly drains away underground through various cracks in the rock. Also, in addition to its high pH and lack of mineral diversity, the soil that forms on it tends to be shallow: a foot or so (0.5m) deep. That’s why the primary agricultural activity in the region has always been livestock. The conventional wisdom is that you can’t grow fruit…
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Get This Right or Your Plants Could Die

Why Fall Is The Best Time To Fertilize Your Garden (& What To Use)

As the leaves change color and fall from the trees, most of us are busy closing up our gardens for the season. But don’t put your garden tools away just yet. There’s a common spring gardening chore that is best done in the fall. I’d like to make a case for fertilizing your garden in the fall rather than the spring. It’s accepted wisdom in the gardening community to fertilize in the spring when you’re getting started for the season. But in recent years, we’ve discovered that all of this fertilizing can negatively impact the world beyond our gardens. It’s time to look at fertilizing in a different way, hopefully, a better way. What’s the Problem with Spring Fertilizing? Before I tell you why I think fertilizing in the spring is a problem, I’d like to tell you about my summer vacation. I promise it’s relevant. This year, my family…
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