The Field Guideby Moss & MarrowNatuurboerderij Hardebol
- Cattle, sheep or goats graze on pasture in the grazing season
Natuurboerderij Hardebol is a farm on the Kanaaldijk in Landsmeer that grazes Black Angus cattle and sheep on about 170 hectares of Ilperveld nature land and sells its own beef from a farm shop.
In spring the cattle go by boat to the peat-meadow islands of the Ilperveld and stay there on herb-rich grassland until the weather turns in autumn, at least 150 days a year; each day the farmers sail out to check them and give them a little feed (brok). In winter the cattle live in a deep-litter barn (potstal) bedded daily with reed from the Ilperveld and eat the grass cut there in summer, topped up with the same feed. The land gets no synthetic fertiliser or sprays, only the farm's own manure, and their website says the farm works without antibiotics. The shop also sells chicken, Beemster pork, dairy, eggs and honey from other producers, not yet confirmed.
The shop is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10:00 to 16:00. The beef is usually sold frozen, but on fresh-meat days (versmomenten) it is in the shop unfrozen; orders close about a week before.
The deep-litter manure is fermented with rock dust and microbes before it goes back on the peat, and mowings the cows can't use are turned into bokashi for the soil.