Eatwell Farm

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Taking a Goosey Risk

Just before she left, Connie and I walked the farm.  We were looking at a row Nigel put in a few years ago, one of his Permaculture experiments.  He planted a row of stone fruit, then a couple of rows of herbs - mint, lavender and sage, followed by another row of stone fruit.  This past year the mint did not do well, maybe because of the longer rainy season?  Don’t know.  The weeds, however, loved the extra rain, and had completely taken over the area.  So I thought I would take a gamble and move the geese on in, and see what they do with it all.  The setup we have for the geese allows us to move them into smaller, more targeted areas.  With the geese, we don’t have to mow taller grasses, because they eat most of them.  The risk was would they eat all of the mint? The lavender?  Or the sage?  Walking out there the other day I was very happy to see they don’t like mint, lavender or sage!  The weeds are just about all eaten down to the ground, and the geese are fertilizing along the way.  A bit of a risk, but so far it seems to have paid off.