Growing my own feed?????

[kayzee]

The price of alfalfa is killing me. Plus, I can't get any pesticide-free around here...there's one place that grows it, but it's always reserved and/or sold out.

My backyard homestead is pretty tiny....less, maybe, than a fifth of an acre. I obviously can't be growing my own alfalfa....BUT: lablab (hyacinth bean) and cowpea are both legume VINES that do well in in blazing heat of our Southern Arizona climate when nothing else wants to grow. I have plenty of chain link fence and I could put up things like this:

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vine maypole by Eccentric Aesthetic, on Flickr[/img]

in the open spaces, I think. Drying for hay goes quickly here since we only have humidity a few days a year.

Has anybody tried this? How did it go? Am I potentially creating a lot of work for very little reward?

 

[ksalvagno]

You could certainly do it to supplement but you would be surprised just how much you need to take care of a year.

 

[CAMilkmaid]

That is not much land to grow feed. And the response about it being a LOT of WORK is very correct. I tried growing soybeans & red cowpeas this past year. The peas struggled in my heat, didn't grow well. These were not vines. The beans grew better but keeping just a 50 x 50 plot weeded took more time than I had. Add to that, harvesting and processing the soybeans. Many crops have anti-nutritional factors, and need some sort of processing to be digested properly-look into that. I let the pigs graze the cowpeas and they ate them so fast after taking so much work to grow them. Neither was worth the time & effort. Last year, I grew a plot of triticale. That grew with less effort and the pigs grazed it longer, so that was worth it.
Alfalfa grows like a weed here. I cover crop my unused garden areas and feed it to the cows. There's no way to grow enough of it, here, though.

Your idea of vertical growing is interesting and you might give it a try. Even if it doesn't work, you will appreciate the farmer who does grow the feed all that much more.

Along those lines, I saw a similar idea in a FarmTec catalog. One of those catalogs that sells the hoop house barns. They had a rack with a forage growing system that looked interesting and may be something that you could rig up and do.

Good luck,
Kim

 

[kayzee]

Thanks Kim, I'll definitely check that out.

I'm in full-on nesting mode with kids due today (although the doe doesn't seem to think so) and having exhausted my physical strength, I'm turning all the extra mental energy into planning improvements for our "backyard farmette". ALL I'm thinking about is going vertical, because there's just not that much horizontal to do.

The intensity of the summer heat really kills off a lot of growing time for us here, so finding productive ways to use that time is a priority. The University of Arizona put out a paper on summer cover crops to enrich the soil during these "dead" months, and that's where I learned about lablab (hyacinth bean) and cowpea (unfortunately, they were not specific about varieties) and seeing that they were legumes, I decided to check out their value as feed crops, and voila! a plan was hatched. I found a variety of cowpea that vines up to 5 feet tall, so that's what I'll be growing. I'm not expecting to grow a full year's supply of feed, by any means, but having the feed value, soil nutrient value, and the added shade and cover is a nice package.

Another space-efficient practice I want to give a try is aquaponics. It can also keep production going through our "dead heat" months, it uses far LESS water total (which is great, because water costs a mint here) and it's a closed ecosystem, nothing to buy once it's set up. (The fish waste feeds the plants, the plant waste feeds the fish) FASCINATING local project in aquaponics here: gardenpool.org

 

[andrew6d9]

growing that much feed would be rewarding but it would take time and money.

 

[kayzee]

I may just plant the vines and let them graze them fresh to supplement their alfalfa in the summer, then. We get nine cuttings of alfalfa a year here (maybe more--I saw some in a field last week) so the price varies less by season here than in other parts of the country. Come to think of it, I don't really know where I would have stored very many bales of hay even if I produced them...on pallets covered by tarps, probably, but then that cuts down on my planting space again.

 

[CAMilkmaid]

Another space-efficient practice I want to give a try is aquaponics. It can also keep production going through our "dead heat" months, it uses far LESS water total (which is great, because water costs a mint here) and it's a closed ecosystem, nothing to buy once it's set up. (The fish waste feeds the plants, the plant waste feeds the fish) FASCINATING local project in aquaponics here: gardenpool.org

This is on my wish list of things I'd like to do!

Kim

 

[kayzee]

Lo and behold, I was flipping through the FarmTek catalogue, and what do I come across but their new hydroponic fodder-growing system:

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hydroponic fodder system by Eccentric Aesthetic, on Flickr[/img]

Which uses a tank and a recirculation pump just like any aquaponics system and even uses a large tank that you can see at the bottom and looks strikingly similar in design if not scale to:

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shelfponics-boxed-1024x543 by Eccentric Aesthetic, on Flickr[/img]

The big difference between aquaponics and hydroponics is that with hydroponics you're purchasing the nutrients in bottles and can manage you concentration as needed in a relatively flexible amount of space--with aquaponics you're relying on the fish for the nutrients so you need more space per plant...as a general rule. I'd have to do so research and see how that would work out to a high-density planting like the fodder. Very interesting idea, though, and very timely.

 

[Ms. Research]

Wow nice. We have been doing hydro successfully for a while. We do wheat grass for our bunnies. Bunnies LOVE it and it's very good for them.

Wishing you success. Definitely do more research on this. We are looking to expand our hydroponics system. Looking at a larger cabinet and a better recovery system. Soon as the funds aren't low.

All these ideas, and no cash. Don't use credit. Oh well.

Please keep us updated.

K

 

[Ariel72]

I love that you are farming on a fifth of an acre! You go girl !! I'm really pulling for ya. Please keep us updated on your efforts!