EMERGING PATTERNS AND GOALS

Serena CrosinaMay 22, 2015

L. Silva – Integrated Backyard Homesteading

I am currently in the final stages of building a home in Concord, MA. I will be moving from my suburban, lead-ridden, ¼ acre lot to a large property in the countryside, with 6 acres of hayfield and roughly 1 acre of useable farming/garden space. The house has a greenhouse attached to its south side and there is a big barn on the north side of the plot. The only other elements currently present are a retaining wall separating the garden from the driveway and the woods surrounding the septic leach field.

Current Status of the Homestead

MUD

First PassA quick first pass yielded three main categories; food, structures, and wildlife.

Food covers both animal products and fruits and vegetables. Structures are mainly in service of food production and the functioning of the homestead. Wildlife is an attempt at including elements that will not only sustain my family and I, but the ecosystem that surrounds us as well.

Food includes an orchard, a vegetable garden, a berry patch, climbers (grapes/hardy kiwi), herbs, chickens, rabbits, honeybees, and dairy goats.

Structures include a very necessary deer fence, the greenhouse and work kitchen, cold frames, compost and vermi-compost, solar panels, rainwater collection, and a swing set, pergola and lawn.

Wildlife includes the forest, the meadow, hedges, native plantings (both existing and added), and green manure.

Second PassThe next step was adding two new categories; fertility and sustainability.

Fertility deals with improving the soil and yield of the homestead. Rabbits and chickens provide manure, the mulched or tilled in cover crops provide nitrogen and humus, the compost and the vermi-compost return nutrients to the soil and minimize waste, while the honeybees pollinate both crops and native plantings.

Sustainability moves both solar panels and rainwater collection to a separate category, though, in truth, fertility is sustainability of the soil. Energy production and energy savings matter from both a practical and a philosophical perspective.

Third Pass The third pass adds pleasure as a category. The criteria to categorize items as such was that they had to have no other purpose but pleasure: a lawn, a pergola, a swing set. A reminder that this homestead is not simply functional and aspirational, but a home to be enjoyed.

Honestly, though, LAWN should have had its own separate category named “compromises” or “pick-your-battles”, since it’s a point of contention between my husband and I. He loves lawns, I think they’re a waste of space, water, and resources, especially when one has access to 6 acres of meadow. If agreeing to the lawn eventually gets me dairy goats, though, it’ll be worth it.

I was getting frustrated with trying to sort the index cards into separate categories because, to me, all the elements are more interconnected than is immediately apparent and it feels reductive to separate them.

There are inputs and outputs: adding manure to the soil increases yield, which increases fodder for the animals, which in turn increases food production and manure. Chickens and rabbits are both food and fertility. Bees are food and necessary pollinators. Their label is a matter of prioritization. In fact, one could legitimately choose fertility over food production and simply keep animals to turn nutrients inedible to humans (like insects and fodder) into manure and, eventually, produce. Compost and vermicomposting turn scraps back into humus, leaving nothing from the garden to waste. If it comes out of the homestead it can go back into the homestead.

Along the same vein, wildlife and food overlap. Protecting wildlife supports pollinators and beneficial insects, which increase yields and minimizes the need for pest control. Increasing and preserving wildlife habitat has a net positive effect on crops. Underplanting the orchard with green manure (like clover, or vetch, or oats) will give pollinators a food source and then improve soil fertility.

Structures are a means to an end: greenhouse and cold frames extend the growing season (which in NE is much too short and unsatisfying), rainwater and solar collection conserve energy and cash but also, in the long run, help preserve wildlife and habitat. The deer fence will hopefully stop my vegetable garden and orchard from being a buffet. The work kitchen is a luxury which provides convenient access to a sink, canned goods storage, an extra fridge, and a deep freezer for storing extra produce/meat over the winter.

And then there is pleasure. Everything on this list brings me pleasure. The very idea of bees working away, of chickens eating grubs in the orchard, of squash growing in the sun, of having a beautiful garden, makes me happy. The swingset, though unproductive, will be ready in time for my daughter to appreciate it, while I hopefully sip a cold beverage in the shade of the pergola while watching my husband regret the hours he’ll spend mowing the lawn.

The Rough Plan

After jotting down all the elements I wanted in our homestead, I tried to sketch out a possible layout that would incorporate most of them. It became apparent that my desire to protect the native habitat means that it needs to be incorporated into the plans for the garden and not just live at the outskirts. Unfortunately, the property lies in mosquito heaven so the idea of standing water is very unappealing. There is a vernal pool in the north west corner, which is wonderful wildlife habitat, though suffering because of the drought this spring. The water table is very high so the ground in the woods stays damp almost year round. Both the meadow and the perennial plantings surrounding the lawn will be planted with natives, to increase their usefulness to insects and birds, which in turn will make the vegetable garden and orchard healthier and allow me to appreciate the wildlife in the process.Limiting herbicides and pesticides is part and parcel of protecting wildlife and my family, but it also means that the orchard needs to be set up to maximize its chances of needing only minimal intervention: choosing disease resistant varieties wherever possible and underplanting the orchard with plants that encourage the presence of beneficial insects, allow the chickens to free range and eat pests and dropped fruit, aerate and improve the soil by scratching and droppings. The bee hives will help with pollination. It all seems to come back to nurturing a healthy environment, though. I would love this microcosm to work well as a “closed system,” with the chickens and the rabbits and the green manure providing most of the soil amendments necessary with minimal need for fodder. I would love for the wildlife to enjoy this as much as I do (the deer from beyond the fence, thank you kindly).

What doesn’t work, for now, is dairy goats. They need too much “input” both in terms of fodder and of man hours. There is a fine line, I think, between this homesteading adventure bringing me pleasure and it turning into a stressful second job. Animals that are easy to care for (or reliant on processes that can be somewhat automated, like solar powered chicken coop door openers) will bring us the most satisfaction, especially when seeing firsthand how interconnected they will become to the health of the garden. In fact, it’ll be the emergence of a new micro-environment, the Homestead, with its secrets and its strengths, that will make this worthwhile.

I do not strive to live off the grid, or to feed my family all summer, or even to never buy another egg again (winter will happen and I’m not keen on culling older hens to maintain higher egg production); I strive to bring my family closer to nature, to help preserve the environment, and to eat tastier tomatoes.