Goats, like all other animals, produce large quantities of manure & urine. This beneficial by-product of animal husbandry is commonly known as ‘waste’. This  is true only if it is wasted! But this abundant product is truly the back bone of natural, organic agriculture. Our composted Goat manure and barn yard litter, mixed, with the acid neutralizing oyster shell flour (a source of calcium carbonate) we use to keep odors down in the barn yard, with fallen leaves, pond weeds, and what ever garden trimming the goats don’t eat first, quickly transforms into dark, nutrient rich soil, with the help of insects, microorganisms, and earthworms. The worm population explodes seasonally, creating a ‘chocolate worm cake’ look. Leaving the pile with a high percentage of valuable worm castings.

We stack the compostable material in long mounds as high as we can, wetting it if is too dry, at the high side of the compost area, and cover it with scrap roofing or plastic to minimize evaporation of water and ammonia gasses. With this arrangement, when it is time to make a new mound, a couple of months later, it is easy to break it apart with a digging fork and pull the mound down hill to the next slot with a hoe or Macleod to make room on the uphill side, with minimal lifting. This move adds oxygen, and with more moisture added if needed, the compost is finished in a few weeks, and applied generously to every new planting project. Mixed with Bio-Char and massaged into a finer texture with some leaf mold and aged, previously composted soils, and this becomes a seed starting blend, that is then incorporated in planting beds.

Our abundant growth and harvest is testimony to the efficacy of this system. With only the occasional application of kelp meal or water soluble seaweed, and the use of a gallon or two a year of locally produced liquid fish scraps to give a boost to young plants, our enriched soils produce.