Grow a Sustainable Diet: Planning and Growing to Feed Ourselves and the Earth (26 page)

Fencing

There are all types of fencing to choose from, depending on what you want to fence in or out. Notice the gauge of the wire on the fencing you find — the higher the number (gauge) the thinner the wire. It might make a difference when you are making comparisons. There are a number of plastic options, often with solar electric chargers involved. You’ll have to look elsewhere for information on those systems and a good place to look is Premier One Supplies.
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The plastic will need disposed of sooner than wire fencing, unless you compare it to chicken wire, which will just rust away. The batteries on the solar chargers will eventually need to be replaced, another disposal problem. We used electric fence (solar charger and aluminum wire) to expand the grazing area when we had the cow. I much prefer the permanent fencing that we have installed as we were able.

Here are some things I’ve experienced over the years with fencing:

Chicken wire
will keep chickens in, but not necessarily keep other animals out. If you are having trouble with rabbits in your garden, a quick and relatively inexpensive fix is to put up 2′ high chicken wire. You can staple it to wood posts, but if you use metal fence posts (the kind for electric fence) you could take it down easier. The metal fence posts have insulators for the electric wire that can adjust to different levels on the post. The chicken wire can hook right to those insulators. You can step over the fence to get in and out. This fence will be effective for maybe two years against rabbits, then they will just hop over it. You could go with a taller fence from the get-go, but you would have to put in a gate. In five years, the chicken wire will be rusting and the grass will be growing up in it. It is hard to trim close to chicken wire with a weed whacker, if that is what you are doing. If you plant a border around the outside, that would keep the grass away. A 2′ high chicken wire fence is what I used as my first fence.

Welded wire fencing
is much stronger than chicken wire. If there is a standard garden fence, I would have to say it is 4′ tall welded wire with 2″ × 4″ spaces. Rabbits won’t be jumping over this fence, but baby rabbits can squeeze through the 2 × 4 openings. You can fix that by attaching 2′ tall chicken wire against the bottom. The way I would do that is by using twist ties, the kind used with plastic bags. I hope you have been saving them. The welded wire fence will keep out dogs and groundhogs, as long as they don’t burrow under. You could dig a trench with your mattock where you want the fence and bury the wire at least four inches when you put it up. Because of the baby rabbit problem, I use 4′ tall welded wire with 1″ × 2″ spacing for my fence.

Livestock panels
are heavy 4 gauge wire fence panels that are 50″ tall and 16′ long. For support they need a metal T-post at each end and one in the middle. They’re sometimes known as cattle panels. Some panels have a closer spacing at the bottom, but otherwise, the spaces between the galvanized rods (4 gauge wires) are 6″ × 8″. They would keep large animals out, but if you wanted to fence out small critters, you would need to put something else with it on the lower part. If you had a large dog in the yard, this might be the fence for you. It will keep the dog out of the garden and the dog will keep the rabbits and groundhogs away.
These panels are relatively easy to put up and take down, which could be useful if you haven’t decided on permanent boundary lines for your garden or pasture. They can be cut with a hack saw or with strong bolt cutters. Livestock panels have many other uses besides fencing. They make a great trellis for tomatoes and cucumbers and are flexible enough to bend to make an arch. I have just such an arch going into my garden that grapevines grow over. Some people make a series of arches with them to make a greenhouse, covering it with heavy plastic. Hog panels are livestock panels that are 34″ tall and have smaller spaces at the bottom.

Woven wire fence
is what you see most often in pastures. It needs strong corner posts with brace posts about 6 feet away on each side. Unlike welded wire, woven wire fence can be pulled tight (stretched) and needs to be nailed with fence staples to wooden posts at the corners and at least every 100 feet. The line posts in between can be metal T-posts. The spaces between the wires are 6″ × 6″. The corner posts need to be strong 6″ posts. The brace posts can be 4″. Set the posts at least 2½’ in the ground, 3′ if possible for the corner posts. You might see Class 1 woven wire fence, but keep looking until you find Class 3 galvanized. It will last much longer.

There is sheep and goat woven wire fence that has 4″ × 4″ spaces. If they have horns, sheep and goats may get their heads caught in regular woven wire fence. We were doing some fencing with the 4″ woven wire and decided to fence our barnyard while we were at it, inspired by the pigs we once had, as I mentioned in
Chapter 10
. Fencing the barnyard would make that grass available if the pasture was low and it is a layer of protection if we were loading animals in a truck or trailer. Not that we do that often, but we have in the past and it’s nice to know that if an animal jumps out of the truck, it won’t run over to the neighbor’s place or into the road. The added bonus to fencing the barnyard is that the full grown chickens can’t get through the 4″ spacing. I hadn’t anticipated that. They hop right through the 6″ woven wire. Since their pen opens into the barnyard, I can let them out and they have access to pretty much everywhere except our yard and gardens. If you used woven wire fence around your garden, you would need smaller fencing to go with it, unless
you only need to keep out large animals. You can find information about other types and sizes of metal fence and fencing for rotational grazing at Kencove Farm Fence Supplies.
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Board fencing
could be used for a garden, but if you are keeping out small animals, you would be using a lot of boards. If it was a picket fence you would want the spaces between the pickets to be only an inch apart. Unless you have a long lasting wood, it tends to rot when in contact with the ground. So, although a picket fence looks great, it would rot from the ground up, letting the little critters slip underneath. Although we have used pressure treated posts in the corners of our pasture fence, for lack of other suitable posts at the time, I stay away from pressure treated wood in my garden because of the chemicals in them. We used round cedar posts for the wood posts in the garden.

Some of the pasture fence we installed in 1986 is made of four rows of oak boards 1″ × 6″ × 16′ that we bought from a sawmill. The boards are spaced 6″ apart, making the fence 4′ high. It keeps in the livestock, but other wildlife, dogs, and chickens slip through it. The same year we put in our fence, someone down the road was putting in a similar fence, except they used pressure treated boards, the kind you would find in a building supply store. They were using the same kind of posts as we were, but they weren’t set as deep in the ground. In not too many years, the boards started to warp and pull away from the posts. Then the posts failed, since they weren’t set deep enough. That fence has long been taken down, but ours only needs occasional repair. I have to admit, it could use a paint job, but structurally, it’s in good shape. It will pay you dividends in the long run to pay attention to details, and spend a little more, if you want a long lasting fence.

Black locust
is something we decided we needed to learn more about so we could avoid using pressure treated posts. I have read accounts of black locust fence posts being dug up after forty years and used again somewhere else. We found the seedlings available from the Virginia Department of Forestry and planted some on the east side of our barnyard. We were not familiar with how they grew and didn’t want to cause a problem with the neighbor’s hayfield to the north of us. Black locust will send out new trees several feet away. We planted them where they could be controlled by mowing by us and the neighbor across the fence. Black locust trees have thorns that you need to watch out for, but they are a wonderful tree to grow for the bees who love the flowers. When the trees are cut, you can let multiple stems grow back from each stump for future cuttings. Growing black locust is a great permaculture element on our very small farm. Black locust provides long lasting wood for fence posts, gives us a nice eastern border to our property, is food for the bees, and fixes nitrogen in the ground, contributing to the health of the soil.

13

Rethink Everything!

B
Y THIS TIME
I
HOPE YOU
have so many thoughts and ideas floating around in your head that you need time to process it all. Good — that shows that you are thinking, which is just what I want you to do. If I have left you wishing I would have written more about certain things, look up the resources I’ve suggested. I learned from so many people, many of them mentoring me from the words in their books. Others I have had a chance to meet and get to know. I’ve suggested a lot of books and I know people have limited budgets, so look to your library for some of these. That’s how I got started. If the book you want is not on the shelf, inquire about getting it through an interlibrary loan or ask the library to buy it. That’s what libraries do. If you never ask for it, they won’t know there is an interest. Making the best use of the library will also make those books available to others. If you find a book you would like to have in your personal library, buy it from the author if you can. It benefits the author and you’ve made a connection. Some books may be out of print, but used copies are easy to find with the wonders of the internet.

Planning a sustainable diet is a different way of looking at both eating and growing. Now you understand what a sustainable diet is — eating in a way that replenishes the earth — and how to work out your own plan.
Making maps of your garden and your whole property (the permaculture map) helps you discern what you have to work with. Post them somewhere so that you can keep them in your mind. Show them to others and talk about them. Get your friends involved.

Try new crops. Since I began studying Biointensive methods, my garden has grown to include grains, compost crops, sweet potatoes, cowpeas and other dried beans, greens (collards, kale, chard) grown all winter, and more Irish potatoes. I still grow tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, snap beans, herbs, and other things that add variety and pleasure to our meals, but the emphasis is on the staple crops and feeding back the soil. Attending my first Ecology Action Three-Day Workshop led by John Jeavons was what made me look at everything I was eating with new eyes. One example, and it doesn’t have to do with staple crops, is that when I was growing up I drank tea with milk and sugar. That’s just what you did. In my college dorm room, I had tea and sugar available, but no milk, so I began drinking tea with only sugar. Over the years, I changed to using honey instead of sugar. At that workshop in October 2000, I learned that it takes the life production of twelve bees to produce one teaspoon of honey!
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I stopped putting honey in my tea. I still sweeten things, but at a more sustainable rate, I hope. Tea itself has taken on a new meaning. I do like black tea, but there are so many things I can grow in my garden that I can also brew into tea. Usually these are the plants that make great companions to the other crops and to the bees. If you need examples, try bee balm, lemon balm, spearmint, sage, and hibiscus. And so it went with the rest of what my family was consuming. Our meals began to change. If we are eating our way through the earth’s resources at an unsustainable rate, we affect everyone and everything on the planet.

I’ve given you some worksheets to use. It is hard to start with a blank slate. Please don’t let these limit your efforts. You are learning to participate in the dance of life. Think of these worksheets as the marks on the floor and the directions for folks learning a new dance. At first they put their feet on the marks and follow the directions. Once they understand how it all goes, and put their heart and soul into it, their dancing changes into something wonderful and completely their own. That’s what I want for you. I want you to join in the dance and make it wonderful.

You could dance alone, but it is a whole lot more fun dancing with others. We are part of communities. You can live miles from anyone, but you are still part of it. Remember the permaculture ethics I mentioned in
Chapter 1
— care for the people, care for the earth, and redistribute the surplus? Some of that surplus is knowledge. Share what you have learned with others. For more information about permaculture, read
The Permaculture Handbook
by Peter Bane. This book gives excellent information about what permaculture is and how to make it a part of your life.

Gandhi said you have to be the change you want to see in the world. Live like you want the world to be and it will become that. It might take longer than you think it should, but it will happen. Meanwhile, you will be living the life you want. I began teaching at the community college as a result of a phone call to the horticulture department suggesting they offer a class in organic gardening. I had recognized a need that I thought I could fill. My classes developed into a whole program, and a Career Studies Certificate in Sustainable Agriculture was proposed in 2003. Bureaucracy is a slow moving machine, but in 2013 that certificate finally became a reality! Meanwhile, we didn’t stand still waiting for it to happen all those years. I kept teaching the classes and my students went out to make their mark in the world in all areas of the food system. They are the movers and shakers in their communities, with or without a Career Studies Certificate. The college library recognized the interest in sustainable agriculture — that’s how I know you can make a difference by visiting the library and taking out books — and as a result, the library at the Goochland (Virginia) Campus of J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College has the best collection of sustainable agriculture and permaculture books of anywhere I know.