Remember when Barley the Gloucester Old Spot had her Bonhams?
We sold the females and decided to fatten the males. Although they would make good breeding Boars.
Pigs develop incredibly fast and you can easily fatten them in four months.
I planted some Sweetcorn in the new polytunnel and it grew like a beanstalk and it was pushing up against the polythene roof. So I got out my loppers and harvested some of the foliage and stalks and fed it to the lads who devoured it.
There's no waste with anything organic. Today I cut the Fuschia hedges and emptied two wheelbarrows of hedge trimmings on next year's new potatoes 🥔 plot. They will mulch the weeds and feed the soil. I never understand why people take their garden waste to be deposited in landfill sites.
Anyone else keep pigs or thinking of getting some? It's good to have a full freezer of meat.
They should be very tasty, fed on all that good stuff.
ReplyDeleteI have some apples on my tree if you need some for your sauce?
Pigs like the Gloucester Old Spots traditionally foraged on the windfalls of English orchards JayCee. It gave flavour to the meat and very contented well fed livestock.
ReplyDeleteOur prunings, and there are lots thanks to the neighbour's overgrown jungle, go for local authority compost. I wouldn't want holly, elderberry fuchsia and laurel on our soil. As for pigs, we don't eat meat.
ReplyDeleteFair enough Tasker. Bought meat and vegetables are not a patch on homegrown and home reared livestock.
Delete"It's good to have a full freezer of meat..." - Not if you are vegan or vegetarian it's not! Though my personal habits have sometimes been likened to those of a pig, I am not thinking of starting a pig farm in our suburban garden.
ReplyDeleteI am not out for an argument YP and I know where you are coming from with Bosh and their fabulous success. All I would say is what happens to the male animals on a smallholding or farm? But thank you for your comments. They are always appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't want to pick a fight with you Dave as you are ten years younger than me and as strong as an ox.
DeleteAll I am saying is what would we do with the male animals if we didn't eat them YP?
DeleteDress them in suits, vote for them and send them to the Oireachtas.
DeleteOr Westminster.
DeleteGreat meat will come from the pigs on your smallholding Dave. My father fattened pigs for the local butcher.
ReplyDeleteAll my soft prunings go straight on to the garden to eventually become compost. Prunings from the grape vine and bougainvillia are difficult to get rid of. Most go into big black bags and into the rubbish. They could be dried and used on the bbq.
ReplyDeleteWe eat local pork and lamb, from smallholders who grow, fatten and slaughter themselves. Much cheaper
I have compost hedge clippings and fed livestock some of them and I have trench compost them and now I spread them to suppress weeds and feed the ground. We have to pay to butcher them over here Linda.
DeleteIt's good to eat your own raised meat and vegetables Rachel. Far nicer than the stuff wrapped in plastic in the supermarkets. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMy garden waste gets taken away but not to landfill, it goes to a facility that turns it all to mulch which is then sold to the local councils for use in the parks. I don't have much waste anyway, a few trimmings here and there.
ReplyDeleteGreat to read that garden waste is turned into mulches River.
ReplyDeleteI think that some take their lawn waste away because they have no place to compost it. We haul our yard waste away in town. In the sticks, we've got more room to work with.
ReplyDeleteNever thought about people having nowhere to compost their garden waste Debby. If it's organic material waste we recycle and feed it to the livestock or compost it.
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