We spent a good part of this past weekend setting up a garden. Now the significance of this for us is that we’re previously desert people and are not used to gardening. I haven’t had a garden in almost 20 years and Mikki, an Arizona native, has never had a garden. Horses and the ability to garden were two of the top reasons for us deciding to move to Tennessee. So this weekend we put up some fencing, tilled the soil and began planting. As a horse owner, the thought occurred to me that we really ought to devote a portion of our garden to vegetables our horses like. I’m not sure we’ll save much money…a five pound bag of carrots at Costco and Sams Club runs around $2.50. But if we stagger our carrot planting, for example, at least we won’t have to make a trip to the store to buy them this summer. And we’ll know they were grown without any pesticides, except maybe some sevin dust, if needed.
The only trouble with this plan is, I don’t know what else to plant but carrots. I gave Valentine and Moonshine a radish the other day. She like it, he didn’t. I like radishes too but I could give Moonshine the ones I don’t want. I’ll call them horse radishes (haha). I suppose celery is an option. I’ll have to do some experimenting. Our garden is about 25 foot by 20 foot so we’ve got ample room to grow tomatoes, beans, some corn, strawberries, melons, etc.
As a horse-owner, having a garden is great. Now I know what to do with all that composted manure from the past year. I walked right past the fertilizer section of the Home Depot garden center and laughed.
So this horse owners garden right now consists of only carrots. Any suggestions on other veggies I should try, specifically for horses?
Good for you two on starting a garden! A wonderful way to spend time outside on a nice evening. Here is a link that lists safe and non-safe fruits and vegetables for horses.
http://www.equinerecline.org/fruits.html
I have never fed anything but carrots and apples. Thinking about buying a new treat this summer, maybe, beets, sweet potato or pineapple.
A joyful day to the both of you!
A garden is a great idea. And, as horse owners, you won’t need to buy fertiliser. After composting, horse manure is supposed to make the best fertiliser for a vegetable garden.
I’ve given my horses carrots, occasionally also sugar beet and turnips. They like all of these.
Thanks for the notes Jackie and Julian. I had never heard of people feeding horses those fruits/vegetables. That expands my list quite a bit.
Yes, we love having free fertilizer!
That list someone posted is great. I’ve always wondered what was, and what wasn’t safe for the horses.
I really have to wonder about pb&j sandwiches…
No, that’s not a regular food we give our horses, but I have five children, so we’ve found out both horses REALLY LOVE pb&j sandwhiches…
This year we won’t have a garden, because we are just about done fixing up this small hobby farm to sell and move 3000 miles to a ‘real’ farm. Once we move though, or by next spring actually, I’d love a huge garden. I wonder what types of grains one could grow to feed their horses, besides corn?
PS. if you’d like to read about a boy and his horse riding together for the first time, I wrote an entry about it the other day with photos. It’s in the link provided here.
A further thought is that the excellent old “US Cavalry Manual of Horsemanship” gives a comprehensive list of what can be fed to horses both regularly and in cases of need. I guess that nowadays the “cases of need” are pretty rare. Still, it’s interesting. The Cavalry knew so much about horse management.
I thought that potatoes are OK for horses provided that they are not green. I was also told that carrots and other hard items should be cut into long slivers so that they don’t risk getting stuck in the throat. I have heard of a cow dying because its throat was blocked by a potato, but not a horse.
We used to feed our horses corn cobs, it started out by just throwing them over the fence for them to pick at (get the left over corn off) and they ended up eating the entire cobs!