Composting and Recycling Old Barn Farm Style

The folks here at Cascadia believe in conservation not only as a means of making a living, but as a lifestyle.  This late winter and spring, some of the weekly blog posts will highlight how Cascadia staff "Walk the Talk." I'm interested to learn more about what kinds of conservation my co-workers are up to outside of the office!

 This week spotlights Amanda Levesque, our Education and Outreach Specialist, and some of the ways she practices conservation on her farm. So without further ado:





 

Photo by A. Levesque

The barn at Old Barn Farm

 

Composting and Recycling Old Barn Farm Style

by Amanda Levesque

  



We bought our 10-acre farm near Leavenworth in 2009. We loved the layout of the farm. Chumstick Creek cuts through the property and we have three acres in front and seven in back. In the front is our house, a pasture and our vegetable garden. In the back is our beautiful old barn that we instantly fell in love with when we first looked at the property, as well as where we keep our chickens, horses and alpacas.   

Photo by A. Levesque

3-year old blueberry bushes, already producing
 a lot of delicious fruit!

Also in back are our 500 blueberry bushes and numerous apple, pear, cherry and other fruit trees we inherited with the property. We plan to continue adding blueberry bushes each year as they sell like crazy! Since we put in the first 500 we have consistently had much more demand than supply. We also plan to continue selling eggs and would love to restore our barn to its former glory someday.

We always have a never-ending list of chores for the farm and it can sometimes be overwhelming, but we love projects, and at least we can never complain about being bored!

At Old Barn Farm we are into reusing and recycling whenever possible. We hate to see something potentially useful go to waste. Below are a few examples of how we reuse and recycle around our farm:



Photo by K. Levesque

Amanda and Julia pressing cider in Fall 2011.

Chickens: We save as many food scraps as we can to feed to our chickens and supplement their diet. It’s great for them to get other grains and greens in addition to their chicken scratch and they get so excited about their extra treats too!

Cider: In the fall we pressed our own cider. We ended up with a lot of apple mash left over. Rather than throwing it away we fed it to our horses, alpacas, and chickens. It was a great addition to their regular diet and such a delicious and nutritious treat!

 

Recycled Fertilizer: Along with our beautiful old barn we inherited half a dozen pigeons. They had made quite a mess in the upstairs of the barn over the years and it was definitely time for a clean-up. In Turkey, they actually cut holes in the cliff sides to attract pigeons then harvest their guano for fertilizer. We thought we’d give it a try too.




Photo by A. Levesque  

The vegetable garden: the lucky recipient
of some good compost!

 

Our barn, built in 1898, was the original dairy barn in our stretch of the Chumstick Valley. However, with all that great history came some less attractive inheritances, including six inches of cow manure covering the entire barn floor. Since we hate to see anything potentially useful go to waste we started shoveling and used this old manure as fertilizer. It actually worked great as it was totally dried out so there was no concern about it burning our plants.

Photo by J. Leach

These aren't actually Amanda's chickens, but they look very similar, and no
blog about a farm would be complete without a chicken photo!

“How do you reuse and recycle at your house? Have any composting tips? Share your stories and advice with us by clicking on the 'comments' link below!”


Thank you for reading!

Your Friends in Conservation,
Julia & Amanda