Bountiful Harvest

Lovely crisp sunny day today, basking in the sunshine and appreciating outdoor work. Harvested spinach, black and red kale, some chard and mustard leaf. Bagged up sprouts for market aswell as mixed salad with pak choi, baby sized kale and mustard leaf in. Mostly root vegetables around still lots of produce off to market. Spent the weekend putting up an aviary and fixing motors. Good to get things done though. Got some great council style slabs for the aviary floor. Really heavy but we got them down and the aviary is nice and solid. Birds getting more and more tame especially the cockatiels. Lovely temperament and like to peck at my ring for some reason. Also the kakarikis were out for a scout around. Will post a picture soon.

BAG BALM

BAG BALM: "Bag Balm’s “packaging” (practically an unheard of marketing term in those days) would prove to stand the test of time with as much distinction as the product itself. Mr. Norris traveled from Lyndonville, Vermont to Boston to design the original can. Its distinctive, dominant green colour accented by red lettering and red clover surrounding a cow’s head on the top of the lid has remained virtually unchanged for over 100 years.

For chapped conditions, and superficial abrasions. Bag Balm contains lanolin and stays on to provide moisturizing and softening. For pets, apply liberally to the affected areas. Contains no alcohol.

"

Bag Balm’s “packaging” (practically an unheard of marketing term in those days) would prove to stand the test of time with as much distinction as the product itself. Mr. Norris traveled from Lyndonville, Vermont to Boston to design the original can. Its distinctive, dominant green colour accented by red lettering and red clover surrounding a cow’s head on the top of the lid has remained virtually unchanged for over 100 years.

For chapped conditions, and superficial abrasions. Bag Balm contains lanolin and stays on to provide moisturizing and softening. For pets, apply liberally to the affected areas. Contains no alcohol.

'via Blog this'

Of gorse!!

When it's barren outside you really notice the lovely yellow flowers of the gorse. Apparantly it was used for dying wool and boiled eggs at easter time in Ireland. It was grown for animal shelter and crushed up for horse feed. I saw a programme (Victorian Farm) where the Dartmoor ponies were eating the gorse thorns and all! Here's a great page on it.
          Driving to East Sussex with veg and took a picture of the ruins at Brambletye. Also of the woods nearby.

The house (ruins) go back to the English Civil War.

                                             The wood nearby. I stop here for a break.

As I was delivering to Harvest Home which is situated in the middle of Ashdown Forest and has a shop full of organic, biodynamic, alternative medicines etc. I picked up a copy of the 'Positive News' which is a newspaper full of positive news! It's a great and refreshing approach to news. Here is the website link.

Picked a couple of hundred pak choi in the (11 degrees C) greenhouse. Seedlings coming on on the heat table (20 degree C) for the lettuce (similar to Cos). Pak Choi really lush and green, sometimes have a yellowing on the underside (mildew) so need to be cleaned up a tad and sometimes 3 in a bag if small. Baby chicks arrived and put on heat, nice drip feeder for the bigger chickens. Picked loads of lush Kale today, easy crop to harvest and lovely snapping sound when picking. Here's a pick of the crop;

It's a Kale forest!!

                                         
                                                                 Bagging up for an order

Just a small detraction from growing and a picture from Ella to celebrate True God's Day 2012...

Ella is year of tiger, Gloria year of the ox, Olly the dragon, Lily the rabbit, Archie the horse and Merlin the rooster as is Bogusia. I'm a pig but enough said about that ;)

And I cannot resist Archie's picture just before his up and coming haircut. Einstein and go go?

Back to the growing. I sowed some lettuce and radish in our unheated greenhouse and they are sprouting forth, hurrah. Also have some early onion seeds in the propagator in the garage. Will see what happens there. Got a visit from Martin Macky from Ripple Farm today. They are a very good local supplying organic set up near Canterbury (Godmersham) which incidentally has links with Jane Austen I believe.

Ratty rat

Roban is a popular brand of rat poison to use and the farm I'm working on will buy 10kg tubs. Apparantly there are an estimated 2 million rats born every day in the UK. Some shops stock small packets to put down but they look mighty expensive compared to buying a tub and not sure how good the poison is. Don't like using it but seems like vermin control has to be done as well as owning a few hunting cats. Some people hunt them for sport with air rifles and terriers etc which sounds like a good idea.

A Winter's Day

Harvesting Pak Choi, spring greens, black kale, endive lettuce (also good for tortoises :), mustard leaf, swiss chard and plenty of spinach for market. Not so cold now and was prepared for standing around packing in a cold barn with an old wet suit thermal inner which I got cheap at a boot fair. Mega warm. Lots to pack up for market though. Not so many crops to harvest and things seem to be slowing up crops wise. Growers planted more in the polytunnels now though and garlic and broad beans are well away in the fields. Seeds are ordered and propagating tunnels at the ready. Have been reading about Russian Comfrey as it's apparantly as good as farmyard manure for feeding crops with. Must find out more.

The East Sussex spiritual triangle..

Driving to East Sussex today and dropping various amounts of veg off along the way. Went to Emerson College first and took a few pictures. It's the main UK Steiner college and has the Steiner hallmark curved architecture and windows that are not quite rectangular or square. Steiner believed in the beauty and shapes in nature, curves and rounded and tryied to get away from man made square and 90 degree angles all the time. Aesthetics I think it is called. Here's some windows at the college, notice the angles of the top window frame;

Here's a typical curved and holed sculpture;

Whenever I am sanding or carving wood I find myself getting rid of sharp edges and think Steiner was right. The natural curves of nature are much more aesthetically pleasing.
        Next stop was Tablehurst Farm which is a community farm owned by the local community and mostly biodynamic. The butchery is award winning and really spacious and well laid out. In fact the whole place looks like a really ideal set up in terms of farming by the people. Here's a picture of the pond and the pigs on my way out;

Then off to Plawhatch, the sister community farm of Tablehurst and just as nice. They have an amazing dairy herd and make really nice cheeses and raw milk. The farm shop is really well laid out and has a good selection of produce. Here's the shop from the outside, these are all situated around Forest Row, East Sussex. I feel it's quite a spiritual place as nearby is the main temple for the Mormons, the Scientologists and of course the Steiner movement has a school, shops etc. It also has Plawhatch and Tablehurst which are community run farms and very rare in the south of England (we only know of one other which a small one in Wye).

Here are a few photos I took at Emerson College of some lovely looking berries and an interesting tree with leaves that look like lichen;

 

I'll try and find out what they are, the berries were really striking and the tree somewhat oriental. The other farm I visit is Brambletye which has Orchard Eggs (biodynamic eggs) and apples, juice and mushrooms from Tablehurst Orchards. They are run by Dutch people and I must say they are very skilled, building their own houses on site and setting up impressive productions. I think farming is very much in the Dutch blood as they do alot of horiculture/greenhouse production supplying Europe with various salads etc.

Ic-e-kales

Harvested a ton of kale today into bags in sub-zero conditions. Nice looking kale though. Sun came out and thawed everything including my fingers : )

Loads of leeks, celeriac, cabbage and herons.

Today we bagged up some spuds into quarter sacks (6kg) for an order. Cut,stripped a load of leeks and cabbage. Also dug up and trimmed some celeriac for an order. Gave the lambs some barley to fatten them up. Also picked some sprouts in the morning which was a tad cold on the toes, mainly because they are the only part of the body which isn't moving much. Got them done fairly quick though and not too many needed. Saw two herons out in the field probably eating worms, lovely birds. Also saw a kestrel hovering very near us-amazing. Lots of mud around at the moment and freezing mornings can be a pain. But lots to harvest, can't complain. I asked the grower about the farms slow time, as I was worried about enough work. He said that June is the real quiet time as the farmer finishes the winter crops and starts into the next. I thought it would be Jan and Feb with the cold and snow but apparantly not.

The Zoltanator

I worked my first season with Zoltan from Hungary and we were a very good team. He's moved on now to be a chef but I'll never forget the times we sweated like crazy (40 degrees plus) whilst winding on and de-sideshooting the toms in the greenhouse, winding on and picking the cucs. And also freezing our fingers

 off cutting caulis in sub zero temperatures in the field.

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            It's amazing what you do in one season on a farm. I can also remember picking up potatoes into sacks, loading bales of hay, picking up pumpkins for harvest, weeding leeks (back breaking), picking broad beans amongst a ton of may weed, picking up onions into boxes, steerage hoeing (good fun but difficult), planting on the planter, moving the irrigation system, putting the strings up for cucs and toms, picking cherry tomatoes into November, clearing the greenhouses, wrapping up trickle tape, rolling up ground sheeting and dumping it with the dumper.

              Traying up cherry tomatoes, sowing squash seeds in the compost, hoeing celeriac, tieing up runner beans and staking them out with the post driver(hard work). Putting out and rolling up rabbit fencing. Pulling up canes after french beans harvest, carrying out plants to be hardened off and giving more space. Planting lettuce and pak choi in the greenhouse, watering plants with the wand and speading vermiculite on the seeds to be sown, weeding around the sweetcorn, picking sprouts for Christmas, feeding the chickens, picking apples and blackberries for the shop, picking spinach, chard, kale and rainbow chard, washing leeks down and weighing them, digging up celeriac, trimming it, washing, weighing and netting, bagging up spuds, labelling eggs, netting up squash and pumpkins, cutting red, tundra, white cabbage, purple caulis, leeks etc, broccoli too, planting, irrigating, setting up, mowing around and finally picking runner beans, the list goes on forever.

Harvest last summer

Here's another vid from the summer this time driving back to the barn after harvesting some ufo squash, spinach, spring green, chard etc. Check the fleeces over the crops to protect from pigeon, slug, insect damage and from frosts in winter.

Summer baling

Nice to see the sun and blue sky. We were bailing and loading up the trailer. Great fun and a good work out. PS I will remember to hold the camera on it's side from now on :\. Most farmers use those machines that spin plastic covers on the circular bales. This machine makes old style rectangular bales and we stacked them by hand.

Spuds here there and everywhere

Just worked out how to load up images so here's one of my boots and some organic F1 leeks :)

and here's one of the spud harvester way back in September..

Twas a great year for spuds, perfect conditions.

Here's one from inside the harvester, there's a barrier that goes back and forth syphoning all the small rocks out and the rest comes up the belt. We have to work rapidly sometimes when loads of dirt comes up the shute. This happens mostly at the ends of rows. We has rabbit skeletons, old tractor parts, jerusalem artichokes and even eggs (from ducks perhaps?) coming up the belt. Let alone the massive monster potatoes and different shapes.

This is the paddle going way too fast as we turn for another run. Notice the air force 1 tyres :))

It took 2 of us to sort through the potatoes removing green ones, split ones and old ones that were used for seed (these really stink). The most important job and the hardest is getting rid of all the dirt,sometimes there is a lot of dirt coming up the shoot and you have to work like crazy to clear it. The potaoes then get tipped into bins where they are stored and sold throughout the winter.

Multispanning

Pulled some green garlic out of the multi-span at work. About 10 bunches for market. They just self-seeded. Picked mustard leaves (red and green), pak-choi (which were a bit holey due to slug damage), black and green kale (very hardy), spring greens (really nice looking) and 6 large boxes of spinach which sell very well. Absolutely freezing today, frost on the windscreen in the evening and very cold standing in the barn packing. I will start adding pictures to these blogs soon but for now will link up to other pages. Those spring greens at the Eden project look really nice.

 

                        On the back of the old trailer passing the multispan, off to pick some spinach. Sorry but you will have to lean over for a good view :)

Machete mania

Been clearing out the greenhouse at work, it's about the size of a soccer pitch. Just one section though. Lifted the heavy irrigation pipes to the side, rolled up the sheets that stop the weeds and put all the debris into the dumper. Next, lit up the gas torch and burned all the holes where tomatoes had been to kill any disease. Looks good now, ready for new life:)

Also been stripping leeks, cutting cabbage (red), picking spinach and chard and feeding the sheep hay. Nice warm weather for December.

Here's a short vid of me going to cut leeks, the machetes are really good for cutting them, caulis and cabbages but they get blunt after a while so we carry oil stone sharpeners. You pull the leeks up, sometimes they are really stuck in, keeping them low and shaking the mud off. If it is wet this is some task as you end up wearing half the field on your boots. You then lay the leeks down in a row so they don't get covered in stripped leaves or mud. Taking a heavy wooden box we cut the roots off leaving about a cm on and strip the outer two leaves or any ragged ones. Then chop the leaves leaving about half the green showing. You have to keep the box moving as soon you are standing in a big pile of leaves.

             Drove to Sussex to deliver veg, didn't see any deer this time (Ashdown Forest). Sometimes, especially around dusk the deer jump out in front of me. You have to always be on your guard in the woods. It is an amazing area with lovely open spaces and nice views. Cattle and sheep wander about in a sort of reserve grazing by the side of the  road with no fencing.
           On my route I drive through a small stream in the road at the bottom of a hill, really quaint.I'll get a picture next time.
            This is Winnie the Pooh country and I drive through the village where Christopher Robin bought candy (Hartfield). There are lots of references to the characters around the area.

Scaping

Planted out some organic garlic cloves in the garden. They started to sprout scapes in the first week or so. Snipped off the scapes, cut them up and put in a salad. They are quite strong and juicy..nice:)  Also, we have mustard leaf that has self-sown on the compost heap so harvested that too. Pictures to come..happy gardening!! PS Just found a site that mentions that black mustard leaf can make a good replacement for wasabi when making sushi.

                                     The final dish, garlic scapes with homemade meat balls, delish.

Starting off..

One of the children scaling a pine on our trip out foraging. Loads of wood ants around here. Hope y'all enjoy my blog. I'm loading up all last years vids and pics from local organic farm work. Then I'll be up to date.