Hello!

[Meaghan]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to this site, but have been floating around on Backyard Chickens and Backyard Herds for a few weeks now. My other half, Nathan, and I recently purchased some property in North Florida and are moving in (hopefully) early next week. We have 4 doe kids, 5 piglets, 45 chickens, 20 ducks, and 15 turkeys on the way, so we're starting out strong. I think, anyways. I've worked with animals my whole life, so none of these creatures are particularly new to me, we've just never owned them before.

At any rate, we also have a menagerie of pets, including your typical cats and dogs, but also including ferrets, rabbits, guinea pigs, and rats. It's a bit chaotic in our house, to say the least.

We were planning on making an extensive garden to feed both us, the farm animals, and our pets this coming year. I've spent most of my upbringing with a home backyard garden that was always quite extensive, but what we have planned is a whole new ballpark (two sections of approximately 20x50ft each). We used the Mother Earth News garden planner to set out our plants visually, and are planning on starting seedlings as soon as we move in.

We have a whole host of plant seeds from Seed Savers Exchange, and I don't have the list with me at the moment. Suffice to say, it included squash, tomatoes, cucumbers, corn, carrots, lettuce, celery, chard, melons, ground cherries, sunflowers, and herbs. I can't remember all of the rest, but it was a LOT of seeds.

I just have a few quick questions so that I don't make any mistakes before we get started. First, we'd like to get things grown organically, so I'm not sure if there are any useful links to organic fertilizers, pest control, etc.?

I'm also curious about organic soil. Our soil here in Florida is really sandy, so I'm thinking that we're going to have to replace at least some of the topsoil for the garden area. However, finding anything organic here seems to be a pain, and what's available tends to be extremely expensive. Are there any good resources for purchasing large quantities of organic soil?

My last question is a funny one. I've googled around a bit for deer control methods, and the one that seems to have worked the best according to a lot of websites is putting two short (3-4ft) fences around the garden, with 3-4ft in between the fences. Does this actually work? Or is there another method that works better to protect the garden from deer that won't be incredibly expensive like a 10ft fence would be?

Thank you for all your help in advance!

 

[ninnymary]

Hi Meaghan, welcome to our group. You will really enjoy it because it has alot of very nice people who are willing to help you. Unfortunately I do not have gardening experience for such a large scale. My garden is very small due to our small city lots. That sure is alot of animals you have there. Looks like you will be very busy. Do you have all of your housing already built for your animals/pets?

I'm sure others will chime in and give you some advise. I just wanted to welcome you.

Mary

 

[journey11]

Welcome, Meaghan! Been awhile since we've had any active FL members. Your season goes nearly year-round doesn't it?

Won't be too long before you're generating plenty of organic matter from your animals. At least you'll have somewhere to put it. A lot of people around here give it away free because it piles up so quickly.

I do hear that the fence method you mentioned will deter deer, although I imagine very hungry deer might try to jump it. They don't have good depth of field to their vision and are afraid of getting caught. I've had years where I was able to keep them out of my garden by running two lines of clear fishing string around the garden, one at about 2' and a couple of feet in another at 4' high. But last year I went ahead a put up electric. I've heard accounts where others were unable to keep them out with even an 8' high fence! I guess it depends on your local situation.

Hope you find lots of help here. Make yourself at home! (BTW...We LOVE pics, especially cute animal pics. )

 

[Nyboy]

Welcome from NY. Make new friends at local hunt club,who have a taste of deer meat.

 

[so lucky]

Hi and welcome! Maybe until your animals arrive and start producing garden gold, you could find a farmer in the area who has chickens, rabbits or cows, and offer to clean out the barn for him. Probably the huge meat productions would have some automated system, but a smallish one wouldn't, necessarily. You could go to "Real Milk.com" and see if there are any small milk producers near you, who sell raw milk. Their barns may need mucking out, as well.

 

[Sprinkler Buddy]

Welcome to the forum, your just a stone throw away from me. Small world, I'm in Williston Sounds like your going to have your hands full very soon!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Welcome Meaghan. Glad you found us.

Where to even start. First, don't try to do too much the first year. With all those animals you are going to be pretty busy building shelters and fences among other things. Get yourself set up or you may burn yourself out from trying to do too much too soon. Kind of get a feel for your ground before you do too much permanent stuff. I know your ground is sand and sand drains pretty well, but try to avoid putting animals or plants in low spots that collect water. That means you need to know where the low spots are. That's not always obvious until a heavy rain.

One of the first things I'd consider is your composting system. Compost is black gold to a gardener whether you have clay or sand. Since you are trying to go organic, it is even more valuable. With all that manure you are going to need a way to get browns. Composting doesn't have to be hard, though it can be if you want it to be, but I think compost is going to be critical to your success. Besides you need to do something with all that manure.

Be flexible. A lot of us plan out a garden early on but by the time mid-summer is here it doesn't always look like we planned it. For some reason not everything gets planted where we planned. I'm sure you have planned to mulch heavily, if not you should. But that takes time and not all crops are readily mulchable. Mulching helps with a lot of things, one huge one is weed control. But I assure you by mid to late summer, if not sooner, most of us have areas where the weeds and grass are totally out of control. Don't fret, you'll handle that when it's time comes.

To me organic is more of a lifestyle that a set of rigid certified rules. Unless you plan on becoming certified organic and marketing your produce, you might consider using regular not-certified-organic soil and treat it as organic after you get it. Most of that stuff isn't too bad to start with and can be a lot less expensive. However, you can contact your county extension agent in the county you are going to and discuss this topic. Not all agents are the same quality but this is the type of stuff they should know.

Deer control. Yeah, we talk a lot about deer on here. I just went ahead and fenced in my 50' x 75 garden with a 10' high fence after a couple of years. I tried various things like Irish Spring soap, dog hair, or a Habanero pepper spray. Some seemed to work for a short time but the deer soon got used to them or they were totally ineffective to start with. Others have better luck with some of those. I've heard of that two fence method, usually with electricity involved. The main reason I didn't try that was with electric you have to keep the grass and weeds cut out from under it or it shorts out. I use electric netting for my chickens and grass and weeds growing in it is a real problem. I've had some people give my 10' fence some strange looks but it works. Deer may or may not turn out to be your worst 4-legged pest. Rabbits, groundhogs, raccoons, or something else may cause you more grief. One year I had rats cutting down my beans as they sprouted. If I had not seen a rat I'd have been sure it was rabbits. If you do build a fence, I'd suggest either using a mesh down low that will keep rabbits and other things like that out or use something like chicken wire down there. If it turns out that you need that chicken wire you can add that later.

One last thought. You might consider using your first year to set out fruit trees and such more than managing a big vegetable garden. I'm not sure you are able to grow citrus trees where you are but fruit trees often take a few years to start bearing fruit. You might want to get that clock ticking.

Good luck and once again, welcome.

 

[bobm]

I echo Ridgrunner's thoughts ... with a new place plus all those livestock mouths to feed and building shelters and fences to contain them ( and not to mention the rest of your managery plus the new household ) shelter, clean and care for them all at once you will have a burn out pretty fast . As for the fence and deer, we have what is called small coast deer . I have 6 ft. tall cyclone fence along all of our front 20 acre property and a doe and her young fawn jump it from a stand still every time they come through. A friend has a 10 acre vinyard so he built an 8 ft. wowen wire fence around it and some deer still manage to jump it. Then he added another 3 ft. of chicken wire on top and it seems to be working to keep the deer out. We bought 20 acres of open range land that only had native grasses , so for our garden / orchard ... I add horse manure at 6" deep rototill it in, then add 6" more, rototill in again. water and let all seeds sprout , then rototill and water again and what weeds sprout ,weed to kill, maim and destroy. Then you can plant the crops that you want. For the trees , when I plant them I also use another 3-6" of more horse manure as a mulch. All will grow HUGE . Good luck !

 

[Meaghan]

Thanks everyone.

As far as animal shelters and fencing go, those where already mostly in place on the property. There is a a short section of fence downed that we are replacing, but it isn't a major problem for the time being.. The only thing we are doing for shelter building is buying some prefab sheds for the poultry and attaching runs. Since its so warm year round here in Florida, animals tend not to need much shelter.

Our growing season is pretty much year round. We have had some frosts lately, but then again we had days like this morning when, just before dawn at the coolest part of the day, it was 61 degrees.

As far as small creatures eating the garden, our perimeter fence around the first acre of our house/garden/coop area is electrified. This is more to keep coins and such out of the coops than the garden, though. But I know deer would have no issue jumping a 4ft fence with electric at the top if they wanted. We have seen rabbits around, but more in the pasture than on our first acre. We were going to use chicken netting for the short inside fence and electric wire for the outer fence. It sounds like it might work, since I haven't seen any deer around our property at all, and neither has our neighbor. I just wanted to be cautious.

The reason we were going organic is not for the produce itself being sold but we may be selling our eggs and such as organic, so our produce would have to be "certified" organic standard as well. We are still waiting to see about that, as it's tricky to find organic stuff around here and our pasture can't be certified for three years. Even bedding has to be organic, I believe.

For trees, we already have three types of apple and a pomegranate. We are getting some other types, but we're waiting to buy those until after our move in as we are not out there every day, and we don't want them to arrive on a day we aren't there. We are planting apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach, orange, lemon, mango, avocado, and pear. We have a good section of land that's bare along one property boundary where we already have the pomegranate in the ground.

I will definitely post pictures of the critters when I can! I'm on my cell phone at the moment but I have pictures of our baby goats at home on my laptop. I'll attach those later, along with some of our property. The doeling in my avatar is one of our four babies.

Thanks for all of the suggestions!

 

[baymule]

Like others said, don't get in over your head the first year. My DH and I are moving to a place with sandy soil, no fences, no barns, start from scratch. So I know where you are coming from.

Chickens are your friend. Build chicken tractors with cow panels, they can be dragged forward after the chickens have pooped and mulched a spot for you.
http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/270088/permanent-hoop-coop-in-progress-update-see-post-34

http://www.plamondon.com/hoop-coop.html

http://www.backyardchickens.com/a/our-hoop-coops

http://www.pathfindersfarm.com/hoophouse.html

And for the nest boxes....

http://www.backyardchickens.com/t/287684/new-rollout-nest-design-picture-heavy-edited-1-21

Anyway, don't use more than 2 cow panels or it gets too heavy to move. I pile my hoop run 3-4 feet deep in leaves and in a few months, I take out black crumbly compost. Since we are moving, I will go to the movable hoop coops. If you don't have leaves, look for rolls of last years hay and roll them out, set hoop coop on top. That will give you organic matter and chicken poop for manure and the chickens will do most of the work for you. Build your own organic soil. I never drive past bags of leaves set out for the garbage man to pick up.

A really good magazine for organic farming is www.acresusa.com Make sure to subscribe to this, it is invaluable.

I am leaving my little garden spot, it started out hard as concrete and wouldn't even grow grass. It took a lot of organic compost and several years to get it to where it is now. Now I get to start over, from city lot to 8 acres, so I am excited to start over!

Another source for hay is places that sell hay, (feed stores, Tractor Supply, etc) will have loose hay that they have to clean up and throw out. Convince them to let you clean it up for them in exchange for the loose hay, and you have hay to toss in the chicken tractor.

welcome to the forum and don't hesitate to ask for help, we love new gardeners!