18 October 2009

It's A Dirty Job, But Someone's Got To Do It

Lindsay and I let the weeds in our vegetable garden get a little out of control this year. I'm amazed at how productive our garden was, given that Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album), Evening Primrose (Oenothera biennis), and Giant Foxtail (Setaria faberi) were more prevalent than the broccoli, corn, tomatoes, etc. that we planted. This is a bit embarrassing, but below is a photo of how our garden looked as of yesterday.


Somebody has got to clean up this mess. That's why we've called on the goats from Prairie Winds Farm to help us out.

Here they are... three Fainting Goats and two Nigerian Dwarf Goats. We are borrowing these gluttonous grazers and plan to keep them for about a month, until the water in their trough begins to freeze. Hopefully by that time they will have devoured our weeds and fertilized the garden so that it's ready to go for next year. They really seem to enjoy broccoli; they arrived yesterday in the late afternoon, and by this morning, only the stems remained.


Be sure to check out the Prairie Winds Farm blog by clicking here.

3 comments:

Ken Riches said...

Hope you have enough to keep the goats busy for a month :o)

Beth said...

Oh, I tell you...by this time, the weeds are almost out of control in the garden! They're starting to die back now, though. We have raised beds with coverings over them, so that really helps keep the weeds down, but they go crazy along the fence and in the walkways. I think we'll try to put down concrete walkways eventually.

Glad to hear the goats are eating their vegetables. :)

Scott Namestnik said...

Well, I'm not sure that there is going to be enough to keep them busy for a month. They're really chowing through the weeds!

What type of coverings do you have over your raised beds?