Sunflower Daze
Sunflowers, sunchokes, pumpkins, squash, beets, turnips, mangels, kale, broccoli, radishes and tomatoes are some of the things we love to grow in our summer gardens. Come fall the livestock are rotated through to graze down the bounty as the pastures wane. The fields of sunflowers are particularly pretty.
Outdoors: 64°F/38°F Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 65°F/59°F
Daily Spark: When you get to the bottom of the hole, don’t stop digging, just change directions.
Walter Jeffries Tinker, Tailor… A bit eclectic & a tad eccentric, polymath, quantum mechanic & Farmer. Also lucky at cards.
Mr. Jefferies ,
I am surprised to read that you don’t pull the tomato plants out of your gardens before the pigs graze them. Being nightshades I thought they are toxic to pigs. Do they know not to eat them? I am scheduled to pull mine today so my pigs can use the ground next year. I was going to carefully find and remove all tomato drops as well to avoid extensive self seeding . Am I wasting my time? Thankyou for your expertise .
I used to worry about that long ago but found it wasn’t a problem with our pigs, sheep, chickens, ducks or geese. They eat good forages but tend to skip over things that are truly toxic. As a wise woman once pointed out to me, toxic plants tend to taste bad. This is how they communicate their toxicity to animals. Unless the animals are starving they tend to avoid bad tasting things. Their sense of smell is far better than a human’s so they are better at avoiding bad tasting plants.
Our fields also have tomatillos, wild cherry, “deadly” nightshade and others. These tend to get trampled and grow mostly in the margins. I’ve never seen a death that I could link to any of them.