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| First, keep the Guinea fowls as far away from the house as possible, these are very vocal!
Gathering the manure from the pastures is not practical, it is spread apart too thinly, most will have decomposed unless you gather it daily, and the pasture needs the manure too.
It would be much better to have some kind of chicken house in the middle of the pastures, so you can collect chicken manure (and eggs) from a central point. It is much more concentrated than sheep manure too, so it can (should) be mixed with other vegetal waste to make a great balanced compost. On its own, it "burns" the soil. Add some rabbits for diversity, they make great manure too.
It takes some time for pigs to learn to graze on pasture, they seem to have forgotten all about it, but when they do, you need to have lush grass and legumes, not sure you have the climate for it unless you irrigate. Keep in mind that you may have to keep them in a pigsty and restrict free roaming to a smaller field is pasturing does not work. It's also easier to collect the manure and slurry from a smaller area. I would definitely use the pigs to prepare the land for the garden. Plant grass, legumes and root vegs such as Jerusalem artichokes, the pigs will uproot and fertilize the soil and you'll have the best garden crop. If you have 2 acres for the garden, you can rotate the pigs half an acre each time to prepare the whole garden in the first 4 years.
You seem to have a lot of trees but no underbrush, which is a pity, as they make a great brush compost. It was one way part of Provence was rehabilitated. It's a rather dry place, so composting the underbrush and low branches is a great way to build humus and keep moisture in the soil, and even more importantly, to prevent forest fires from spreading quickly. You need an heavy duty chipper-shredder for branches (standalone or as an attachment to a tractor). It's a great prop for home-made horror movies too! ^-^
If you plan to put the garden in the place where you have all these trees in the picture, I'm afraid you'll have to cut off most of them if you want to harvest your vegs before they go to seed. Check around with your neighbors to see if they grow their garden in shady areas. If you don't want to destroy so many trees, maybe restrict the garden to one acre only, which is plenty enough, unless you plan on feeding an army. Keep a lot of wood areas, it makes a great cool micro-climate and you'll need the wood for winter heating and for summer eating (BBQ)!
Plant some hickory and mesquite for smoking meat; over the years, cut down some of the existing trees and replace them with fruit or nut trees, a linden or two, a few cedar trees for the perfumed wood, whatever is appropriate to the climate, soil or matches your own interests.
Know the places around you, farms, horse ranches, forests and some industries are often a great way to collect waste that's too clumsy for industrial farmers to use, but would bring a fitting external source of nutrients to your organic ranch, especially if you have a shredder. These are not waste, but high quality raw material for your compost (but don't say so!)
Until you master the perfect sustainable cycle, you'll need external nutrients. If the soil is poor, it could also use the extra help. If you farm intensively, you'll need external nutrients anyway (a garden is a form of intensive farming).
Keep a patch of nettles for liquid manure and insecticide, horsetail for anti-fungi treatment (the silicium in a horsetail tea acts as a second skin or barrier between the sap-rich stems and leaves and the fungi) and other plants that speed up and improve composting or have a specific usage in organic farming.
You should have a water point too for the animals and to keep the area cool. Maybe for a few ducks and fishes. Trained ducks are great for weeding the garden too.
Plant enough beans, lentils, chick peas and peas (for splitting) for a winter supply, and enough potatoes for the pigs in winter too, for the final fattening stage.
If you have enough wood space, maybe keep a couple of deers for venison, together with the Guinea fowls.
With your surface, think about a couple of bee hives. Some plants like phacelia and buckwheat make a great honey (and mead?) and make a great green manure or natural herbicide too.
Lastly, organic farming and animal raising is not very sustainable if you have to buy all the expensive grain, so you should probably grow some wheat too and make some hay at the least. You cannot rely on only the pastures for 12 months a year. Hard wheat makes great couscous, bulgur, semolina desserts and pasta, soft wheat for animal feed and bread. Barley is excellent too, a few rows go a long way. More if you make beer...
In the winter, dig your storm cellar, then expand it to make a cool living area for summer, a wine cellar, or grow mushrooms in it. Or brew meth, if it's the local specialty. ^-^
Start reading all Gene Logsdon books, such as The Contrary Farmer, he has a blog too, with a couple of books online for free. And other organic/sustainable farming authors, of course.
Here's a few hundred free manuals and booklets on organic and sustainable farming and activities: http://cd3wd.com/download/index.htm
They were compiled from public domain sources mostly to help develop farming in third world countries.
I never could download any of them, but even a partial download will unzip as several dozens or hundreds of books.
Why people still live in apartments I'll never understand... ^-^
Edited by Chimel 7/12/2012 19:21
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Our Organic Method
