Everything has a Use

One of the aspects I love about farming is that everything has a use. The city slicker's rotten fruit, stale bread, or sour milk most often wind up in the trash--which then goes to a landfill, etc. Here, fruit does not "spoil," no, it becomes suitable for the chickens or, later, for the worm bin. Here, bread does not get "stale," it, too, goes out to the animals--all of whom clamor for and love it, with the exception of the alpacas who have yet to develop a taste for the stuff. And here, milk does not "go bad."

After reading an article about using milk as fertilizer with which to build the soil, and recalling how my mother used to use rinsed milk bottle residue on her house plants, I had a "new" use for excess, leftover, or spoiled milk. No longer is it limited to dog or chicken food. (The cats sit by the milking stand and get fresh-from-the-goat milk daily, and so they are not in line for old milk.) I found some transplants that I had barely set in the soil then abandoned; plants that were struggling to survive; plants that were hanging on by a leaf, or so it seemed. I poured about a quarter-cup of milk around their bases, then left them alone. What I should have done was take a photo of them in their struggling state, but I failed to do that.

Young daylily plants with bee balm behind them

Not a week later, the plants had perked up and had taken on a stronger green color. Soon after, the little daylilies had "baby" shoots popping out around them. The bee balm that had been barely recognizable looked healthy and additional plants began to emerge. And the gangling, spare, two-leafed canna-lily shot up as well.

Canna lilies beginning to thrive, Sept. 8th

As the photos show, the plants sit in just a bit of barely-composted soil. Their soil is but the beginnings of a "lasagna" bed begun last fall and as-yet-unfinished, which suffered in the May flooding such that their very base--their cardboard and newsprint underpinnings surfaced. Even so, with a shot of milk to their roots, they've overcome their scanty foundation.

Canna lilies, Sept 27th, note condition of middle plant from before milk application

Watch for more about the benefits of raw milk in another post. For now, allow me to return to the topic at hand.

Moving from the "waste" products from the household kitchen to the waste products produced in the pastures, I must say that I still enjoy watching the chickens rooting through manure for sustenance. The chickens turn large clumps of horse manure into flecks fit to fertilize the soil. Just this week I've been watching Miss Kimberly, our Buff Orpington hen, teaching her newest brood the ins and outs of pasture nutrition.

Kimberly herding her newest brood in search of food

She'll take them across and around the pastures, pausing to scratch and peck at interesting spots, watching that her chicks model her actions. Eventually she'll abandon the hunt-and-peck method and head straight for the fresh manure. With the alpacas that's simple because they defecate in a central location; the goats are the animals that scatter turds wherever they wander. I guess that makes the goats more suited to pasture fertilization without human interference, but the alpaca piles make it easy for me to gather 'paca poop (sometimes referred to as "beans" in alpaca circle) for placing around the base of plants. Being that said "beans" are not "hot," they can safely be used in the garden without the requisite cooling-off period composting (in piles or in the field).

Alpaca Hamilton observes the hen Kimberly with her chicks

Apologies for the emphasis on manure in this entry. My point is that one person's animal waste or manure is another person's fertilizer; and the byproducts of one animal may serve to feed other animals well.