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Farm Practices
Several approaches to farming allow us to grow our produce and manage our livestock in a manner that is good for the environment, the animals we keep, and our customers:
Nutrient
Cycling is vital to the health of our farm and is used to minimize
external nutrient inputs to the farm and avoid nutrient loss into surface
and ground water. Pictured is one of our steers grazing a rye-crimson
clover cover crop on the market garden area.
Biodiversity
and natural ecosystem processes are conserved through Agroforestry.
The farm benefits through enhanced beauty and by maintaining trees that
are good for honey production, shading our chickens and livestock, eliminating
erosion, and minimizing our need for grid power to heat or cool our home.
Pictured is sourwood - a favorite tree of bees.
The
farm is located in the upper reaches of the Cane Creek Reservoir watershed
and Water Conservation is a focus on the farm. We take care to
eliminate erosion and animal waste run-off. This is our farm pond.
We
use Rotational Grazing for all of our animals; Our chickens and
livestock are frequently moved to clean and nutritious paddocks on our
farm. This picture shows how steers are followed by goats which are followed
by laying hens.
We are happy to say that all of our farm vehicles use 100% Biodiesel. Not only is this a renewable, non-polluting alternative to petroleum diesel, but it is produced only 35 miles from Fickle Creek Farm. This is a picture of Piedmont Biofuels' logo onour farm biodiesel tank.
We
believe it is best to participate maximally in the Local Economy
by purchasing and selling as close to home as possible. For example, we
have purchased all our livestock within 30 miles of the farm, our layer
feed is milled in Durham, and our most distant point of sales is 25 miles
from the farm.
As a holistic
system, we focus on Native Plants in our landscape so that the
beings which were here first, from micro-organisms to large mammals, have
the best chance of continuing in a balanced ecosystem. This is the scarlet
hibiscus, one of our favorite southeast natives.
Adhering to Permaculture principles means that each part of our diverse farm benefits from and is a benefit to several other pieces of our overall operation. Pictured is our pigs benefiting from the output from our market garden.