August marks the end of summer. It is time to prepare the farm for fall! This means a lot of work, all to prepare for next spring’s planting.
We will spend the next several weeks:
- Pulling out the summer’s garden plants, composting them
- Possibly planting a fall crop, or cover crop to replace nutrients (has yet to be decided)
- Cleaning up the corral area where the goats and cows currently live
- Deep cleaning the barn, feed room, and feeding containers
- Cutting firewood for winter
- And putting in some new berry patch beds (we are adding grapes to the orchard!)
As far as the animals go, I need to:
- copper bolus my 4 Nubian goats
- prepare the older 2 does for breeding in the next 4 weeks by upping nutrition and herbs
- slowly increase the Dexter steers’ alfalfa intake
- Treat chickens with DE as preventative, up their nutrition to prepare for egg production slow down in the fall (which has already begun)
I will pull up the summer flowers in pots, and replace with mums and pansies ? we need to cut back some of the flower bed shrubs, and re-weed part of the beds. The weeds go back to the goats. They love it!