Recycling Olive Branches

Goat Waving Olive Branch
(of which most is in her mouth)

 

 

Part of our goats’ diet includes prunings of olive trees, other brush, you name it!  This week they are busy at work on branches from three olive trees in our courtyard. There is a cyclical process here: the olive leaves nourish the goats, whose manure nourishes the olive trees (and other vegetation).

We add six biodynamic preparations to the compost piles along with goat bedding and manure, straw, lavender prunings and distillation left overs. All of this is composted over a year to form a sweet-smelling compost, which we then use as fertilizer.