Category Archives: Soil

by | July 31, 2026 · 1:43 am

Fertilizer on the Homestead (Principle 6)

I was recently asked if the fertilizer shortage caused by the closing of the Strait of Hormuz was going to cause problems for our homestead. There are many reasons that I am against this war, but I am glad to say that needing fertilizer from across the globe is not one of them.

Rattlesnake Pole Beans Climbing

The main reason for that is that we do not use synthetic chemicals on our land. Commercial nitrogen was invented about 100 years ago while plants have thrived on land for about 500 million years. So, I am quite convinced that chemical fertilizer is not a necessity. (See the pictures in this post of our gardens and judge for yourself if plants can do without it.)

2026 has been our best cauliflower year

In fact, fertilizers are not only unnecessary, they are a huge problem. Pollution is one major effect. About 80% of applied nitrogen is lost to the environment polluting land, water systems and the air and atmosphere. They also negatively impact soil ecosystems by decreasing soil life and reducing organic matter. Thus, our soil releases more carbon into the atmosphere, plants are not as healthy, and our food is not as nutritious.

Beets need phosphorus and potassium more than nitrogen to get this big

Permaculture principle 6 teaches us to Produce No Waste, to instead value the byproducts of one system as inputs into another. This is entirely how natural systems work – like the way plants breath out what we need to breath in and vice versa. Humans have managed to create a few products that defy this rule – plastic and nuclear waste top the list – but it’s otherwise easy to notice around us and apply the principle ourselves. We do this by reusing, repurposing, recycling, composting and more.  We can approach fertilizing this way, too, with nitrogen fixing plants, and animal waste – including human animals.

Leafy greens need lots of nitrogen

Maybe people are unaware that urea, the common nitrogen fertilizer, is from mammalian urine. A synthetic kind is made industrially to sell to farmers. So, on the one hand we are using clean water to flush our own urine to expensive and often ineffective factories to be processed into less of an environmental hazard. Meanwhile, we are going through another expensive technological process to make synthetic urine and use further scarce resources to ship it around the world.

Tomatoes also need plenty of nitrogen

The easier, cheaper, safer way is simply to use our (and livestock) urine on our pastures and fields. This puts the power back in the hands of food growers and cuts out so many resource-intensive steps. The Rich Earth Institute in Vermont has done extensive research into the safety and efficacy of using urine. Their findings are very encouraging. They are working to educate and implement systems in this country. Other countries are ahead of us on this.

Maybe the biggest obstacle is the social taboo about even talking about human excreta. But I think we can overcome that. 

This is an opportunity to turn a problem into a solution and to create a more circular economy at home. Urine diversion has worked extremely well for us here over the past few years.  Let’s practice principle 6 – there’s no such thing as waste!

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by | April 30, 2026 · 5:22 am

Raised Beds for Vole Control (Principle 4 Revisited)

Last March I delved into Permaculture Principle 4: apply self-regulation and accept feedback. One of the topics discussed was vole control. One reader asked for more details about our techniques to deal with them, especially how we construct our raised beds. This post will delve further into how we have approached it, presented through the lens of accepting feedback to make positive changes.

Beets and Carrots, Saved from Voles

Our first few years at Living Land there weren’t that many voles. Our very first potato planting yielded about 15 pounds of potatoes for everyone one pound we planted! Carrots and beets were similarly successful. However, we had also set up something of a vole haven so it was only a matter of time. First of all, we were planting things they loved to eat, both the root crops and young fruit trees with delicious inner bark. I was also creating deep soil and covering it with mulch. Lastly, we have a lot of fencing set up to protect our garden from herbivores and our poultry from carnivores. So, the foxes and coyotes and bobcats can’t get in to help us keep the vole population in check. This resulted in a plummeting number of intact root vegetables at harvest time. Our last potatoes planted directly into the garden yielded 1/2 a pound for every pound we had planted. I’m willing to share, but this was ridiculous!

For a start, we do have two cats who we let out to patrol for rodents.  We do put bell collars on them which in our experience makes it nearly impossible for them to catch birds. It probably also makes it harder for them to catch rodents but we feel this is a reasonable compromise between competing ideals. One of our cats is a much better hunter than the other for some reason. Tabitha, now 18 years old, killed and delivered five voles to me this week alone. Still, that has not been enough to keep our veggies safe.

I tried moving the root vegetables to various parts of the gardens and orchards, but the voles always found them. This is when we decided to try to make special beds to protect our harvest from voles.

Standing Bed with Carrots

For Root Crops: Carrots and Beets

A friend gave us two standing beds made mostly for ergonomic reasons. These are high up off the ground, incredibly easy to work with, and definitely vole proof. However, we’ve also found them difficult to keep watered and in these times of drought that is a real issue. So, we have come up with a design of on-ground, vole-resistant raised beds.

We create them using as many found materials as possible. Steve brings home a lot of discarded pallets that we can use as an initial structure or take apart for the wood. We also had some small pieces of metal roofing that work great for sides.  On the very bottom we staple metal mesh / hardware cloth with a tight weave, usually ¼ inch.  (See below for photos of the process.)  It will eventually rust and rot, we know, but we hope it will take a while and give us maybe a decade of growing. The size of the bed is mostly dictated by the materials we have on hand the space we’re putting it into and we want it small enough that we can move it around to get it started. We put them straight on the ground and then sheet mulch into them, layering manures, seaweed, leaves, etc. The bigger ones we started with some big hunks of wood at the bottom like a hugelkultur bed.

We have been using these for a few years, making new ones each season. Early on a few were just about a foot tall and if grass grew up around them voles would access them from the top. We could tell because the bottom part of the beets and carrots that they usually decimate was fine but the shoulders were gnawed on. We extended the height and made sure to cut back the grass for these and now they are working.

Carrots from Protected Bed

For Potatoes

Plastic barrels have made their way to us over the years, mostly intended as rain barrels. Now that we have invested in much larger containers for rain catchment, we cut these in half, drilled some holes in the bottom and have been using them for potato growing. We are having mixed results. I think that keeping them watered is the biggest issue. Potatoes are very sensitive to getting enough water and it has not been easy to keep these moist. Last year before I planted the potatoes I put a wooden stake into the middle of the barrel. I left it there and would wiggle it around and water into that middle hole, throughout the season. This did seem to work better as less of the water simply ran off

Potato Barrels, Harvest on Top

around the edges. As a bonus, the barrels are somewhat easier to harvest. We can put down a tarp tip over the barrel and pull out the potatoes in the fall. We get nowhere near those original fabulous yields, but it actually felt worth doing this last time with about a 5 to 1 harvest.

 

We will continue to observe, interact, accept feedback and adjust but we are glad to have made some progress in learning to live with these furry, competitive neighbors of ours.

Bottom of be with stapled on wire mesh

Attaching supports to hold sides in place

With sides added

Wood added on top for further structure. Beds placed and planted, now growing well.

Four raised beds, plus a sheet mulched mound ready to plant.

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by | December 31, 2021 · 3:51 am

2021 On the Homestead

Our Best Peach Year So Far

As 2021 ends, I’m taking a moment to reflect and share about our year – to “observe and interact” as we permaculturists say.

Globally, it was another tumultuous and historic year. While the scary moments are what tend to be reported on, there were positive developments as well. I believe in facing problems in order to deal with them, but more and more I see the value in noting progress made, too, as it inspires me to continue working hard in the world and on the homestead (which is in the world, of course!).

Locally, in our homesteading adventures it was a solid year of growing for plants and animals here, details coming up. For consistency and building knowledge, I will comment on the same subjects as in previous year-end reviews, plus add new developments.

Starting Seedlings

I continue to have great results using the peat-free seed starting mix from Organic Mechanics. I mixed in some of our worm castings as well, so I have to buy less of the bagged product and to help with feeding the baby plants. I have also improved my ability to let go of old seed packets so, indoor or outdoors, my seeds are coming up more reliably.

One of our new “rain barrels”

Water / Weather

The 2020 drought continued through spring 2021, finally breaking in July. The rain was a welcome relief and great help, decreasing our work load and helping our plants thrive. Not all crops bounced back from the spring drought, though. We did get a much bigger water catchment system installed, with four 275 gallon totes. The rain water is also better for the animals to drink (especially goats), whether we are having a water shortage or not.

Rodents, Pests and Diseases

Sunflower Before Chipmunks

Rodents were back in force this year. Specifically, we had voles who took more than their fair share of our root crops – carrots, beets, parsnips and potatoes. There were also extra chipmunks eating in the garden (they loved the sunflowers, climbing up the big stalks to hang off the flower heads), and mice or rats going after the poultry feed. Two mild winters in a row and two oak mast years may have created a population boom. Likely there will be a rise in rodent-eaters to help balance this out. 2021 was not a mast year, so fewer acorns should curb populations, too. That’s the normal, healthy cycle at work!

We didn’t have many other pest or disease issues. There were squash bugs, potato beetles, cabbage worms… but not enough to take down yields significantly. I expect as the drought eased the plants were able to keep up their defenses to coexist with these other organisms.

Labor

Every year my belief in community land management grows as I experience how the individual, private property systems are so hard to manage and so much less fun. I miss the days of working on a farm crew that talked, laughed, and helped each other as we accomplished so much. But, as we figure out how to move back towards more commons-based living with land trusts, cooperatives and more, and while a pandemic limits group activities, we keep at it here, sometimes tiring myself out in the growing season. I have gotten smarter about what to focus on and what to let go, but in a good year, there is a lot of harvest to process.

On this issue, the pandemic has been a teacher. I now see that I was doing too much off-farm work in harvest season. Being able to attend meetings and offer classes on Zoom, thus eliminating all the driving around, is a great help.

Animals: Bees

As I had feared, I did lose many hives over the winter. I’m sure there are various reasons, but I continue to see a pattern of heavy losses in drought years. I did keep a couple hives going that look strong and healthy and I hope will live through this winter and get back to making us some honey.

Animals: Goats & Pasture

Diana with her Mom, Luna

We had a great year with the goats. After Honey’s difficult birth in spring 2020, I worried as our three bred does approached their due dates. Happily, all three kidded with twins when expected with no problems. Phew! We are keeping one of the doelings for our herd: Diana, daughter of Luna who is proving to be an exceptional animal with a calm personality, excellent health, easy breeding and birthing, and strong milk production.

This year we got more serious about rotational grazing. As we have removed trees to open up our land to more sun, we have grasses springing up creating actual pasture that needs management for the health of the plants and animals. Our electric fencing was in full use finally, and we saw serious improvement in keeping the pasture plants alive and covering the soil. This was especially important with the torrential rain storms we had, which caused erosion problems in any ground not protected, highlighting the benefits of perennial plantings, and appropriate animal management. This is a huge topic I plan to say more about in a future post.

Animals: Poultry

The New Rooster

We had a slow start to our chicken flock expansion in the spring as our rooster was getting older and less fertile. Between other local chicken keepers and an order to a hatchery (something we try to avoid) we were able to raise new stock, including a new rooster.

A friend of ours had amazing results incubating some of our Indian Runner duck eggs (15 out of 16 hatched!) and we welcomed back two girls to take the place of a couple older females. I am more seriously managing the duck breeding with two males here, so I will be able to keep this flock going with less in-breeding or need for outside animal genetics for quite awhile.

Harvest totals

Here’s what we recorded (note that this is what came into the house to be weighed, so misses what we directly fed to the animals or what Steve ate in the field), with some comments:

One bed of Leeks

Alliums – garlic – 35.25 pounds(#) (173 heads); garlic tops – 150; leeks – 41.75# (and more leeks still in the ground for winter harvesting), perennial onions – 10#

Beans & Peas – 45# snap beans; 12.5# dry beans; sugar snap peas – 7#

Brassicas – broccoli – 8#; brussels sprouts – 17#; kale/collard – 18# (there are at least 10# of brussels sprouts still outside for us to pick)

Popcorn, drying in the living room

Corn, popcorn – 7#

Cucumber – 30.73# (many, maybe more, went straight to the animals – the chickens LOVE overgrown cukes!)

Eggplant – 17.5#

Greens – lettuce – 7.75#; nettles – 3#

Herbs – basil – 6#; dill – 1# (it was an excellent basil

Wine Cap mushroom (Stropharia rugosoannulata)

year)

Mushrooms, winecap – 5.75#

Potatoes – 129# (which broke down to 6# per 1# planted – it would have been much better if the voles hadn’t taken so many)

Roots – beets – 21.5#; carrots – 20#; parsnips – 14#; radishes – 87 (the carrots were especially decimated by voles, and parsnip seed germination was poor)

Squash – summer – 36.25#; winter – 712# (butternut, delicata, long pie and Seminole)

Tomato – 42#

Fruit: crabapples – 10#; currants – 6.5#; elderberry – 1.75#; grapes – 18#; honeyberry – 1#; mulberry – 1#; peaches – 347.5# (from 4 trees); rhubarb – 27#; strawberry – 2#; 100s of # of gleaned apples which we didn’t weigh

We brought in 104 gallons of goat milk and 117# goat meat.

Our poultry harvest came to: 1,549 (129 dozen) chicken eggs from 12 hens; 840 (70 dozen) duck eggs from 7 ducks; chicken meat – 74#; duck meat – 15#

Food Preserving

Dehydrated Foods

Some of the food we ate when it was ready, but preserving for the off-season is important to me. Here’s a summary of what I put up:

Canned: 87.5 quarts peaches, 7 pints pickled beets, 21 pints of strawberries & 12 pints strawberry jelly from berries picked at East Wind Farm

Dried: 7 gallon bags kale/collards, 2 pounds nettles, 1 pound wine cap mushrooms, 1 pound raisins, 1 pound tomatoes

Refrigerated: 10 quarts lactofermented cucumber pickles

Frozen: 5 pints peach juice, 5 pints tomatoes, 10 pounds of snap beans, 10 pounds of eggplant, 12 pints basil/garlic pesto, 8 gallon bags of other fruits I will pull out of the freezer to can soon, 10 pints chevre cheese, a few pounds of mozzarella cheese and most of the meat.

Butternuts spend a couple weeks in a warm place before coming in to our house

Also, there are many crops we are storing that didn’t need to be preserved exactly, just handled and stored properly: garlic, potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, winter squash and apples.

Looking Ahead

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but I do make plans. Given the high demand the past couple years, I have already put in my seed and tree orders, a commitment to next year’s gardens.

We have a new area where we have worked on soil improvement for a few years which I will plant this spring when my Fedco order comes in: fruit trees & bushes, perennial veggies like asparagus, and grapes.

In an effort to bring down the vole numbers I am going to try planting fewer root crops and moving them completely out of my annual garden up to the orchard area by the house. I hope they will have trouble finding them and that our huntress cat will have a better chance of catching them closer to her regular patrol area.

The bell on her collar protects birds from becoming her prey so she focuses on rodents

I plan to keep writing, too, a challenging task for me to find time for, but staying connected to folks beyond our borders is important. Many thanks to you for being one of those people!

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