EYG Landscapes home base is Artemis Fields Farm, in Barnardsville, NC. We currently raise cows for meat production and greenhouses for leafy-greens-in-the-winter production. We are currently planning to expand our production with 100 ducks for eggs, starting in the spring, with production estimated to begin in the fall. The ducks will be an understory for an orchard of 22 fruit and 5 nut trees that will ultimately occupy the space, with production both for personal consumption as well as for sale to the general public.
We want to manage our ducks with a rotational pasture, as that is the best way to foster duck health and land health at the same time. We plan to seed the duck pastures, or paddocks, with a mix of red and white clover, which is like candy to the ducks, and also increases fertility of soil by fixing nitrogen and creating a healthy dose of organic material.
When we moved to the property in 2011, we milled a bunch of dying trees, and have a massive pile of mill scraps that has been sitting in our pasture for 4 years. We don't want to burn that material, because that just releases C02 into the atmosphere, and we also don't want to move it far, because there is probably 30,000 pounds of junk wood, and that is heavy.
Our plan is to combine the power of cows, moisture, bacteria, fungi and time, to create the perfect storm to take advantage of all of these materials in the way that is the least amount of effort on our part, and we get the greatest return on investment possible. That's always the goal, right?
The plan is as follows.
1. Spread the mill scraps on the ground in the area where the ducks are going to love, I mean live.
2. Feed our cows their hay in the feeder over the mill scraps.
3. The left over 10% of hay stays that stays over the mill scraps provides a decent refuge for...
4. Fungi take over and devour the wood, and bacteria that live in the cow shit devour the fungi...
5. Seed a combination of red and white clover seed into the mess of organic material that covers our red clay soil and...
Boom.
Ducks eat the clover, and are rotated thru paddocks so that the clover has time to recover... and once again...
Boom.
We made something out of nothing. Land becomes more fertile, while we sell duck eggs, and provide food for the masses of people that tend to be hungry for healthfully produced farm products 2 or 3 times a day.
Doing our best to do our part.
We want to manage our ducks with a rotational pasture, as that is the best way to foster duck health and land health at the same time. We plan to seed the duck pastures, or paddocks, with a mix of red and white clover, which is like candy to the ducks, and also increases fertility of soil by fixing nitrogen and creating a healthy dose of organic material.
When we moved to the property in 2011, we milled a bunch of dying trees, and have a massive pile of mill scraps that has been sitting in our pasture for 4 years. We don't want to burn that material, because that just releases C02 into the atmosphere, and we also don't want to move it far, because there is probably 30,000 pounds of junk wood, and that is heavy.
Our plan is to combine the power of cows, moisture, bacteria, fungi and time, to create the perfect storm to take advantage of all of these materials in the way that is the least amount of effort on our part, and we get the greatest return on investment possible. That's always the goal, right?
The plan is as follows.
1. Spread the mill scraps on the ground in the area where the ducks are going to love, I mean live.
2. Feed our cows their hay in the feeder over the mill scraps.
3. The left over 10% of hay stays that stays over the mill scraps provides a decent refuge for...
4. Fungi take over and devour the wood, and bacteria that live in the cow shit devour the fungi...
5. Seed a combination of red and white clover seed into the mess of organic material that covers our red clay soil and...
Boom.
Ducks eat the clover, and are rotated thru paddocks so that the clover has time to recover... and once again...
Boom.
We made something out of nothing. Land becomes more fertile, while we sell duck eggs, and provide food for the masses of people that tend to be hungry for healthfully produced farm products 2 or 3 times a day.
Doing our best to do our part.