Pig in the Garden

The search for piglets has ended. With the weather turning from 'maybe early spring' to 'is it summer already?' I ran out of patience looking for piglets. I had to get the garden started. Another trip to auction, and no piglets.

I came home with Pig.

You see how bad the weeds are? The garden looks more like lawn than garden. You can see how well Pig was working though. This picture was taken the day after we set up her pen.

Pig is a sow, and roughly a year old. She's almost as big as the last two pigs we butchered were. That scared me when we bought her. The last two pigs refused to be contained in their pen, escaping several times a day and wandering off in the woods. Too much time was spent chasing them home, and worrying about what had happened to them when we couldn't find them right away.

The price of Pig made her pretty irresistible though. $105 for roughly 200 lbs of pig. Less than 99¢/pound. Even if she was a complete pain and I had to butcher her right away, I just couldn't go wrong. I could not possibly raise a piglet to that size for that price. Wow.

So home she came. And she has been delightful! She seems so shy! Very quiet, well behaved, and happy with her little pen in the garden. She hasn't shown any interest in escaping. We've moved her pen over three times now, and we're almost ready to move her again. She is doing a great job!

I've transplanted strawberries & onions that I started indoors. Planted peas, lettuce, spinach, beets, radishes, parsnips, zucchini, squash, alexanders, brussel sprouts, and a few potatoes.