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Greens Grow: Where life thrives in all avenues

Greens Grow Nursery has got more than plants living at its facility! Pets such as Ping the duck, Blanche the cat, Milkshake the pig and various other rabbits, chickens, turtles and bees all call Greens Grow home. Though with farm animals like this I'm sure your wondering if Milkshake will wind up on 

your table one day, rest assured these animals are absolutely pets, which you come to realize are pretty andy to keep around a farm like Greens Grow. 

 

On top of the added bonus of gaining a new friend when you choose to have a barn-yard companion, you also gain the by-products and aid from symbiotic relationships the animals may have with the environment. For example keeping chickens produces not only eggs, which for legal reasons of proximity and volume this farm is not allowed to sell, but also manure which from chickens is tilized often in composts, adding nutrients to the soil. 

 

These nutrients decompose and make their way into organic chemicals, such as nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus, also known in the growers world as “N-P-K”, which is eventually used as food for the plants. This a popular form of composting, as is with many other farm animal manure. 

 

 

If you need to clean up your garden, to dispose of mostly all garden weeds, Milkshake the pig will gobble them up for you. It keeps him in shape and reduces the chance of lingering dead crop rot, but his diet is still monitored and maintained by workers at the facility. I had the chance to feed him what I weeded out of a lettuce bed last time volunteering at the facility after given permission by staff.

 

Practices like these are done to maximize use and minimize waste, part in parcel with the higher ideals of holistic agriculture. It reminds one of how inter connected we all are with the environment, feeding off nutrients borrowed from the earth. Temporary use is often times the case as nothing lasts forever, we see this in how Green Grow first got their bee frames. They were received as hand me downs at a dinner party, but that doesn't seem to bother the bees or affect their harvests of sweet honey. 

 

All of these pets at Green Grow all are able to provide something for us, if we are able to provide care for them. It is hands on approaches like this, which don't fret at getting dirty that make farmers a unique group within society today. It gives insights to, in some cases, ancient practices of agriculture and co-existence with the natural world. These are lessons that should not quickly be lost or forgotten in our rapidly evolving culture and society.

                                                                            - Robert Kennedy

Greens Grow West is a newly started branch of the Greens Grow facilities, located at, it is only about 1/10th the size of the main facility but they get by with a smaller and more nursery-based selection. October 8, 2014. - Robert Kennedy

Rows of sprouting cold climate crops make their start inside a greenhouse at Greens Grow farm facility. October 2, 2014. - Robert Kennedy

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