Transition Farm - Spring 2015

A good rainy morning is a wonderful chance to share what has been happening this Spring on the farm. We spent the Winter reflecting on our farm, completing much overdue book work and looking ahead - setting new goals and refining old ones. Crop seeding began in early August and it has been a busy time as we nurture the heat loving crops in the greenhouse and wait for warmer nighttime temperatures to transplant them into the field.

This has been a very different Spring with us making the decision to sow another green manure crop over the whole farm, resting our fields and building more hummus in the soil.

The fruit trees bloomed spectacularly and the garlic started to bulb up!

September and October were very dry and we had days over 30C which is "unseasonable" for Spring.  Farmer friends had broccoli crops bolt with the heat and winter sown legumes dry out before the beans had developed.  The Winter grain crops in Victoria have suffered from the lack of water.  Our green manure crops thrived with irrigation. But most of the apricots, peaches and nectarines fell to the ground. The hot heat at this time of the year caused the trees to drop fruit.

The time for field planting is here.  And we are busy trying to take advantage of the rain we have received in late October/early November.

The Spring flush of aphids has come but so have the beneficial insects that feed on them.  We buy lacewing larvae in to kick start the farm population which we hope will multiple and thrive for the whole growing season.

Our CSA Summer Share sign up is starting soon.  If you are thinking about joining our CSA, here's a link to 9 things your farmer wants you to know.  We are trying to make joining our CSA easier for you and for us by having an online shop.  It should be available soon and we will let you know!

The crops are looking fantastic - filled with vitality. We have continued our applications of biodynamic preparations 500 and 501 to support the soil life and hummus formation - give plant's feeder roots lots of great stuff to sink into and to support the plant's natural ability to photosynthesise - turn sunlight into energy.

You can see photos of the day to day activities on the farm on Peter's and my instagram accounts.

We also thought you might be interested in a few links:

Tammi Jones of Jonai Farm has written a great series about Grow Your Ethics.  The third part in the series relates to "ethics of scale", "radical transparency", fair treatment of all farm helpers and connectedness - to other producers, the community and to those that eat what her farm produces! Her post has so many common truths with the way we feel about what we are doing - Tammi says it all so well - definitely worth a read!!

The lovely Belinda, who worked with us last year and did the weekly vegetable box deliveries, will be working with another new grower, Erin, growing food for their local community in Albury/Wodanga!  We are so excited for them. You can follow their adventures on instagram.

Signing up for the Summer Share starts in December and we will send another email letting you know when and how to join. The Summer Share boxes will be for the months of January, February and March with the Autumn Share following from April - June.

Glad it is raining today!  There are more flowers to plant as well as the second planting of cucumbers and zucchini! The soil feels great, the seedlings are thriving and we are excited about the upcoming season.

Happy Spring!!

Robin and Peter

Palate VM - Transition Farm Movies

Happy Late Autumn! The storage crops are all harvested and the first storm of the Winter season is raging outside - gale force winds, heavy rains and hail!  With tender late season greens tucked under row covers, and the harvest for the deliveries completed yesterday,  we can spend the day in the office - catching up on newsletters and bookwork.

The lovely Dylan and Priya from Palate came down to the farm and made a couple of short movies (click on the photos) a few weeks back now. We think that the photography is pretty awesome and the movies give a great insight into how and why we farm the way we do - if you are interested to watch we hope that you enjoy. Thank you Dylan and Priya!

 Conversations in the field can be quite varied...and sometimes can become passionate discussions. This week the lovely Belinda, who has worked with us this season, and Trent, our Autumn intern, attended the screening of the Fair Food documentary and discussion afterwards  in Melbourne.  We have many ideas about what Fair Food means...two of them being localizing the food system...as here in Australia 80% of the food choices are controlled by major corporations... and directly supporting those who are keen to grow great food in an ethical and ecologically supportive way.  We would like to see more small scale farms in Australia and would love to spread the word that farming for the local community can be financially viable.  If you feel inclined to share the video to spread the word, please do!

We are racing the sun to get the last of the winter green manure crops in the ground.  We have lots of things to share over the late Autumn and Winter about our season and our plans for the next, so more news to come.

To see more photos of the farm and our farming, please check our instagram accounts - transitonfarm and transitionfarm_robin.

Summer - December 2014

Spring is a crazy time of year for a market gardener.  The glasshouse is filled with crops.  In the case of capsicums, eggplants, leeks, tomatoes and pumpkins, these are our whole crop of the year.  We also have successive plantings of broccoli, cabbage, cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, Asian greens, melons and sweet potatoes all vying for the limited space and perfect conditions to grow strong seedlings.  In the field, we have the polytunnel, which we need to monitor throughout the day to ensure the correct temperature for growing early tomatoes, small plastic cloches which protect crops in the field from frost, wind, hail and colder temperatures.  These need to be opened in the morning and closed at night and sometimes in between.

Spring weather is very changeable.  This year we had an unseasonably late frost on the 12 November which coincided with a water supply issue.  We were not expecting this frost (as our latest frost in the six years we have been here has been 31 October with other years occurring between the last week in September - second week in October).  We had removed the covers from the zucchini and cucumbers, our field tomatoes were in the ground and our potato crop was already up.  There was field basil germinating and more delicate lettuce varieties.  All of these are frost sensitive.  We had to choose which to try and save with the limited irrigation we had and hope for the best.

In Spring the whole farm gets set up for the coming season.  Green manure crops are plowed in, beds are formed, seedlings are planted, watered, weeded, fed seaweed sprays.  We apply biodynamic preps 500 and 501 throughout the season to try and encourage healthy soil and help plants use photosynthesis, assimilate the minerals they are taking in through their roots and tighten their pores to resist insect attacks and fungal diseases. Very busy times!  I often think of Spring as a high speed freight train streaming past.  You have to jump on and hope you can hold on for the ride and arrive in Summer with enough energy to make it through the rest of the season.

So here it is, the first week of Summer (in Australia) on the farm...in photos

We have also continued to work with with aspiring farmers and home gardeners through our 3 month Farm Internship programs and with our one day a week Workshare farm volunteers.  We have written an extensive internship which shares our farming practices from building soil, biodynamics, seeding with the moon, pest and disease management, market garden tools and tricks, irrigation, harvest and storing crops, crop rotation and more. We have also written a few past posts you can read here.

Our Workshare volunteers commit to one day a week for a minimum period of 3 months and go home after a days work with a box of farm produce. It is wonderful to see the growing desire of people to be farmers and also wonderful to see the support of the community for locally produced food. Anyone interested in either the Farm Internships or the Workshare volunteering can contact us via email : petercarlyon@gmail.com

Our Summer CSA Share starts in January so we ask our current CSA members and others interested if they could please let us know if they would like to be a part of our Summer Share so we can finalise our list for the Summer boxes before we get into the craziness of Christmas.  May the peace and light of the season fill your homes and gardens!

For more farm updates, join us on facebook and instagram.

Spring Farm Open Day

Our next Farm Open Day will be held on Saturday 18th October 2014. The Open Day is a great opportunity to see small scale, sustainable, market gardening, to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and to meet the farmers growing the food – us!  Find out about our biodynamic growing practices,  what it takes to grow nutrient dense food, what we think about sustainable agriculture and how our CSA supports the community.

The farm tour will include: The growing mandalas with over 100 fruit trees, micro nutrient herb and flower borders, and annual food crops; The “new land” – 2 acres of “market garden”; and Our recycled glass propagation house. The permaculture design weaves its way throughout the property providing native corridors.

All are welcome.  The cost for the tour is $5/person.  CSA members are free - the tour cost does apply to guests of members. There will be two tours: A Morning Tour from 11.00am to 12:30pm and An Afternoon Tour from 2:00pm to 3:30pm.

Bookings are essential – We ask that you please let us know if you are intending to come.  Email us with your preference for the morning or afternoon tour to receive more information.

****The afternoon tour is full.  You can add your name to a waiting list in case of last minute changes.****

We look forward to seeing you on the day.

Peter and Robin.

Spring

Although the official first day of Spring in Victoria is 1 September, Spring comes to our farm in August.  Even though the nights are still cold and we have frequent frosts, the green manure crops begin to actively grow again in August, filling the fields with their lush green goodness.

We began sowing seeds for the Spring and Summer crops in the glasshouse in mid July.  By this time, the glasshouse is full of Asian greens, brassicas, celery, cucumbers, capsicums, eggplant, fennel, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, summer squash, herbs and flowers. Some of these are successive plantings of frost hardy crops and others are waiting for the night time temperatures to rise before they can be planted into the field.

And in the field, frost hardy plants are growing strong.

The fruit trees are also looking great this year.  Many are now four-five year old trees with a fine structure.  We have pasted them with a biodynamic tree paste which remineralizes the tree, helps protect them from fungal and insect invasions and helps heal pruning wounds.  The nectarines, peaches and plums have just started blooming with the apricots close to follow.

We continue to encourage healthy soil through the incorporation of green manure crops, the use of biodynamic 500 and the addition of biodynamic compost.  The green manure crop in last seasons pumpkin and sunflower paddock has been incorporated and this year the paddock will be filled with greens and root crops.  Crop rotation helps to keep the soil nutrients from being depleted and also can protect the crops from pests that may overwinter.

This winter Peter set about making some predator safe chicken tractors so that we can incorporate these hard working fowl into the market garden. Sometimes it takes a few tries to come up with a design that works but we hope to incorporate more chicken tractors this year.  The chickens not only break up and scratch in the crop and green manure residue, they also eat the snails, slugs and weed seed.  They add valuable fertilizer and then they move on the next spot.

We were  guest farmers for a week on the magazine Modern Farmer's instagram account in late July.  You can go see our farm in pictures by using this link.  You do need to scroll down quite far...back to the 27 July for the start.  There have been a few other Australian farmers featured as well as many other small farm enterprises around the world.

An online magazine Confetti also did a feature story on our farm. The lovely ladies from Queensland came and spent a cold and rainy day on the farm, talking and taking photos. Their article packs so much in...what is a CSA, our experience as farmers, the state of the earth's soil and how your choices about how your food is grown make a difference!

Our CSA season starts again the second week in October.  Here are some links to learn more:

Our CSA Program What are we growing for the Spring Share Why We Are a CSA Farm

We are currently confirming our CSA members for the season.  If you are interested, now is the time to let us know.

If you would like to see more photos of the farm, check out Peter's instagram page or mine.  You can also find us on Facebook.

We will be having an Open day sometime this Spring.  Look for an update with the details.

Happy Spring!

Reflections on our CSA

It has been quite awhile since we sent out a newsletter.  I had all the best intentions with many photos sitting on the desktop of my computer.  But the time would slip past and the photos would seem out of date.

We are nearing the end of our third season as CSA farmers.  And with two weeks of harvesting for CSA boxes to go, and Winter setting in, Peter and I are reflecting on how we started, where we are now and the path that lies ahead.

 We started our CSA with a trial run, a seven week season in 2012. That trial not only showed us that we could grow food on a larger scale (we really weren’t sure about this), but the feedback we received was that people liked the CSA model and wanted more. So we set about preparing more land, cover cropping, building a packing shed, planning, seeding, weeding, irrigating, and harvesting for a 26 week CSA season in 2012-2013. We increased from 17 families to 55.

 And this season we added Oct, Nov and June and another 30 shares. At the end of June we will have provided boxes for 39 weeks to 85 families. This year we also built a bigger glasshouse for propagation (from recycled windows), built a polytunnel in hopes that we could offer early season tomatoes, added a walk-in cooler and store room to our packing shed to preserve the harvest. Our main priorities have remained -  Building soil life, in order to ensure that the food we are growing is nutrient dense and that the soil is left better than what we found. And providing a diverse box of vegetables that best suits the desires of the families in our CSA. We have continued our biodynamic practices which not only boost soil life and help plants with the uptake of nutrients but also support the plants so that they are more pest and disease resistant.  We have continued to grow heirloom crops that are not always available through commercial retailers as well as offer specialty crops not often found on small farms.  We are pursuing our desires to be a sustainable farm - using soil blocks for propagation, which has eliminated plastic growing cells from our glasshouse - sourcing local materials to make our own compost - growing green manure crops to renew our soil -  Building infrastructure with recycled materials - Limiting tractor use.

We have also furthered our goal to be share what we have learned with aspiring farmers.  We have worked with 10 interns and five work share volunteers all of whom have a desire to understand how to grow vegetables sustainably.  We have written an extensive internship which shares our farming from building soil, biodynamic practices, seeding with the moon, pest and disease management, market garden tools and tricks, irrigation, harvest and storing crops, crop rotation and more.  It is wonderful to see the growing desire of people to be farmers and also wonderful to see the support of the community for locally produced food.

 As the final leaves fall to the ground and we move towards the shortest day of the year, we are reflecting on how far we have come and where we will go from here.  The CSA model we have established for our farm, has made us think of so many benefits for farmers and the community.  

Currently all that we grow is for our CSA members.  The buy a share in the farm upfront in exchange for a weekly box of seasonal vegetables and occasionally fruit.  This year I really felt how this model has removed the food we grow from market value prices.  Our motivation in having early tomatoes, for example, is not to be the first on the block with heirloom tomatoes with a hefty price tag .  It is to offer our members a present - vine-ripened, glorious tasting tomatoes for Christmas.  The cost of the box does not increase.  This is the same in late Autumn when potato prices are so low.  We are still putting potatoes into the boxes and the box value has not decreased.  And when we do have excess, we put it into the boxes without increasing the box price.  When there is so much excess that even our members can not use any more, we are able to pass the surplus on to people in need, via "Second Bite" and "Connections", without wondering if we could have sold it somewhere.  We have already received the income we budget for.

 We have also felt very appreciative that when we have had crop failures, our income has not been impacted.  We feel blessed that so far we have been able to manage the twists and turns of weather and pests. Although there have been some weeks where the boxes have been missing items that we had expected, the diversity of the crops we grow has meant that the boxes have rarely fallen below the number of items we estimate they should have.  The majority of the time, they have had more.

We are continuing to grow as growers, desiring higher quality throughout all of our crops and incorporating new ideas to try and achieve this.  In the past week for example, Peter, with the help of our Autumn intern Belinda and our work share volunteer John, has been busy building a moveable chicken house that will keep the chickens safe from foxes and dogs while we rotate them through our growing rows.  Hopefully the chickens will scratch away eating weed seeds and pests while enriching the soil with the refuse of plant matter and their manure. We are also trying to refine the crops we grow to best reflect the eating habits of our members, keeping in mind our need to rotate crops and the seasonality of crops.

 We are busy planning all of the crops for next years boxes, reflecting on how our CSA may evolve and thinking about capping our CSA membership and allocating a portion of the farm to a farm stand.  We see ourselves as the community’s farmers.

To provide boxes in Oct, we need to begin seeding again in mid July.  Stopping the CSA boxes at the end of June, gives us a two-week break from thinking about nurturing food. We are looking forward to those two weeks!

To see a gallery of this seasons What's in the Box photos, please go here.

To learn more about our CSA program and/or express your interest in joining our 20124-2015 season, go to our website.

 An article about CSA’s featuring Transition Farm was written by Milkwood, a family-based social enterprise that thrives on sharing practical skills and knowledge that can help individuals and communities move towards a mode of living that’s ethical, abundant, and deeply hands-on. Have a read, Community Supported Agriculture at Transition Farm.

We have found farming to be all consuming this year.  With the scales between family time and farming often being tipped towards farming, we have prioritized family...hence the lack of newsletters.  We do post frequent farm photos on instagram and facebook.

Happy Winter!

Sunflowers Are Blooming - Farm Tour Saturday 1 February

With the sunflowers in the pumpkin and zucchini paddock blooming, many corn plantings tasseled and high, field tomatoes starting to ripen, and the bounty of summer vegetable crops, we will be giving a Farm Tour on Saturday, 1 February starting 9:30am.  The tour will take between 1 - 1 1/2 hours. If you are interested, please email us to let us know you are coming. Looking forward to the morning! Peter and Robin

One day...

Monday was a glorious day!  The weather was gorgeous and the farm was filled with us regulars, Peter, John and myself, our current intern Rachel and three volunteers John, Belinda and Meredith.  Here is a virtual tour of the farm on harvest day - preparing the New Year's Eve CSA boxes...

Happy New Year!

You can follow us on instagram and facebook.

Why we are a CSA farm...

As our Spring CSA Season gets underway it seems like a good time to write about what our CSA farm is all about – and what it is not.

There are many variations on the models of CSA and numerous explanations of what CSA means… we have included links on our website – but the USDA sums it up surprisingly well… “Community Supported Agriculture consists of a community of individuals who pledge support to a farm operation so that the farmland becomes, either legally or spiritually, the community’s farm, with the growers and consumers providing mutual support and sharing the risks and benefits of food production.”

For us, CSA is a relationship of mutual support and commitment between farmers and members. In return for a seasonal membership fee to help cover the production costs of the farm, CSA members receive a weekly share of quality, organically-grown produce from our farm. When "consumers" obtain food from local farmers, they are directly supporting sustainable agriculture in their community as well as receiving the freshest available produce. We provide practical education for people wishing to grow food (on any scale) and we are trying to promote small-scale agriculture as being a viable and sustainable method of feeding local communities…as it used to be.

All of the food received by our CSA members is started from seed, planted out and grown on our farm and then delivered (or picked up) within 24 hours of harvest. This is local, seasonal, fresh, nutrient dense produce. We grow everything using Organic and Biodynamic practices.

For us, LOCAL means our farm’s location SEASONAL means the weather on our farm FRESH means picked yesterday NUTRIENT DENSE means produce that is really filled with the minerals and nutrients you expect – and was grown without artificial chemicals and fertilizers.

Like any farm – we have our crop failures, weather nightmares and human errors.

The CSA model we have adopted is one where the CSA members share the risks and the bounty with us. In return they know who has grown the food they are eating each week, how it was grown, when it was picked and how far it has traveled to get to their plate.  From our experience this means that some weeks the boxes we provide our members are overflowing and some weeks they are not as full as we had planned.  Some weeks there is a nice balance with what’s in the box – even including nectarines, melons and watermelons -  and other weeks the box is filled with lots of different leafy greens. Even though we plan for a box that will suit many different tastes and family situations,  our best efforts do not always guarantee this will happen. This year for example, unrelenting wind and occasional hail have made it seem more likely that broccoli will be ready in November even though it was planned for mid October. These are the realities of eating from the box. No matter what the yield, the food received by our CSA members is not only good for them - Our goal is to produce the food while bettering the natural system within which it is growing.

WHAT WE ARE NOT is a convenient weekly vegetable and fruit box scheme – that is beyond our understanding of what a true CSA model is all about. These “box schemes” more often than not source products from all over the country (or world), just as most grocery stores do. They are catering to our ideas about what is in season.  There may be no opportunity to build a relationship with any of the farmers involved and it is difficult to even find out where the produce really came from and how long that process took.

Our members do not receive carrots from us in early October, they do not eat tomatoes from us in August and they are probably hanging out for beans and sweet corn in November – but all we can provide is what can be grown on our farm for our members in our community with our climate and our season.

We recognize the challenges posed by eating a seasonal diet – especially as what is seasonal is clouded by the availability of everything in all seasons.  We try to “sweeten” the deal by sharing ideas as a community about what seasonal meals look like, building poly tunnels to push the seasons, covering produce with row covers to help it grow protected from the weather, planting extra crops just in case.  We continue to grow as growers, learning more about this art we call farming.  We keep experimenting with new varieties, new planting times, different row spacing, all in hopes of filling the boxes with diversity and quality. We think about our resources such as water and soil and devise systems which use these wisely and continue to renew them – Building soil fertility and using water conservation practices.   We hope that our members will participate in whatever capacity they feel inclined. We have many volunteers helping with harvesting, weeding, planting. We have farm Open Days and workshops and U-pick crops for members.

Last year we priced our boxes against two local sources – the grocery store and an organic retailer.  The average value of the $40 box was $62.  There were many weeks in summer and autumn where an 8-10 item box contained 15-18 items.  With that said, please do not join our CSA if you are looking for cheap produce.  We may not meet your expectations and the pressure of trying to is not sustainable.  Growing food the way we do is not an inexpensive method.  We like to believe that our CSA members are involved in this endeavour because they really want to eat nutrient dense, chemical free produce, to localize their food consumption, to move away from big business monopoly and control over our food system,  to know how their food production is impacting their whole community and to eat seasonally. We also hope they understand that the season will provide what it will – for better or for worse.

After a day on the tractor…and under it fixing leaking hydraulic hoses… and harvesting, watering, plumbing, spreading compost, weeding and seeding, I am happy to sum up this post using a quote from Elizabeth Henderson…

“As I see it, reducing CSA to a mere food box subscription scheme would castrate the CSA model, taking away its power to create lasting relationships between the people who grow and eat food. As Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini would say, CSAs allow citizens to become “co-producers” with their farmers, rather than passive consumers. At their best, authentic CSAs are a win-win-win. Farmers get living wages and freedom from worry about profits and losses. Everyone weathers the tough times and benefits from the good times. Nothing goes to waste, and community investments help pay for land and equipment. Most of all, eaters get healthy food, good company, and the deep — if not always “convenient” — satisfaction that comes from playing an immediate role in transforming the food system.”

I believe the “convenient” to which Elizabeth is referring is akin to receiving fennel two weeks in a row, endless Spring greens or other vegetables that make the evening meal more challenging…but the CSA model we have adopted is definitely not one based around convenience – this is something we are learning on a daily basis. So at the start of our Spring Share I felt the need to write to our members about CSA in the hope that it may shed more light on the ideals behind what we are farming for and the differing perceptions we all have about ‘convenience’.

We ate the first broad beans tonight from our April sown crop – 6 months of nurturing and work. Convenient? Well no – not really I guess. Watering, feeding and weeding since April, the Spring winds then blew the crop down and picking the beans is like trying to find a ball in a sea of blown over trees! Delicious? Absolutely!

We hope that our Spring Share will unfold with delicious food for our members and look forward to any suggestions or involvement they would like to have with our farm. We thank all those that have chosen to support us.

This is why we are a CSA farm.

Here is some further reading on the importance of Community Supported Agriculture:

CSA – Just a vegetable subscription or a way to truly connect with your farm – Elizabeth Henderson – GRIST.

Community Supported Agriculture: Why Inconvenience is Better – Margaret Betz – One Green Planet

Community Supported Agriculture: What it is, and Why it’s Awesome – Emily Glass – One Green Planet

The State of the CSA – Gloria Dawson – Modern Farmer

Or something to listen to…

Back to The Start – Willie Nelson

The long gone month of September

Spring...It is a very busy time on a vegetable farm.  Seeding, Seeding, Seeding, tilling in green manure, spreading compost, glasshouse filled, making and filling soil blocks, planting, and WEEDS!!! I have photos of "What's growing" from two weeks ago...wanting to share them but...farming and mothering are about all there was time for in September.  So here is a re-cap...a few weeks late but the story of what's happening never the less.

The glass house is packed full of crops...some are successive plantings like more lettuce and broccoli plantings,  but many are THE crop for the year, like pumpkins, capsicums and eggplant!  Our new glasshouse has been a Tetris game for the last four weeks...moving things around to try and ensure that everything that needs the protection and heat have it while we awaited the building of a polytunnel!!

Chris, the intern who joined us for two months, and Peter built a large polytunnel which is now planted with the first crop of tomatoes, zucchini and basil!  We covered it just before the wind storms and it is still standing!! In addition to being planted, it has worked a treat as a place to "harden off" seedlings before we plant them in the ground, just when I thought I could no longer walk through the glasshouse.  Hardening off allows seedlings a chance at cooler nighttime temperatures and a less protected environment to help them acclimate to being outside.

The wind storm - Of all weather, I find wind to be the most destructive and difficult to cope with.  Standing in the new polytunnel, we watched as the wind tried to force the whole structure up.  The tomatoes were already planted and secured to strings and these were pulled up around the plants...like singlets around your neck.  The tunnel stayed put, though, and we learned a bit more about growing tomatoes in a tunnel and leaving some slack in the lines!

Outside, the broad beans were blown over, newly planted bok choy seedlings snapped off and established cabbage, cauliflower and broccoli plants ring barked or ripped right out of the ground.  It was destructive and we have lost a lot of plants.  Such is farming... We hope the broad beans will not be close enough to the ground to encourage a rat party!

All but one of our winter green manure crops has been incorporated into the soil.  The green manure crops are farm generated fertility.  Once a green manure crop reaches an optimal size (usually before producing seed, which draws nutrients out of soil and the plant itself), it is cultivated back into the soil. Soil microbes feed on these residues, turning them into valuable humus: food for future plants! This in addition to compost helps to feed our soil which in turn feeds our vegetable crops throughout the season.

And here is what's growing...

And so the farm continues to grow with fallowed paddocks becoming pumpkin fields and cultivated areas being sowed down to clover cover crops to have a rest.  This year we are incorporating new crops like sweet potatoes and we are also adding new green manures with cow peas and Japanese millet.  We want the land to increase in fertility...even while it is producing foods which are taken off farm. We continue to count some happenings as experience and others as success.  And we keep growing! in so many ways. Our CSA share box harvest begins tomorrow!

For more information about our CSA, click here.

Our next Farm Open Day will be held on Sunday 20th October 2013. The Open Day is a great opportunity to see small scale, sustainable, market gardening, to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and to meet the farmers growing the food – us! Learn more...

We are posting more frequent updates about the farm on facebook and instagram.

Happy Spring and here's hoping all is growing well!!

Farm Open Day

Our next Farm Open Day will be held on Sunday 20th October 2013. The Open Day is a great opportunity to see small scale, sustainable, market gardening, to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), and to meet the farmers growing the food – us!  Find out about our biodynamic growing practices,  what it takes to grow nutrient dense food, what we think about sustainable agriculture and how our CSA supports the community. The farm tour will include: The growing mandalas with over 100 fruit trees, micro nutrient herb and flower borders, and annual food crops; The “new land” – 2 acres of “market garden”; and Our house mandala with its moving chicken dome. The permaculture design weaves its way throughout the property providing native corridors.

All are welcome.  For our CSA members, come and meet your farmers and see where your food comes from.There will be two tours: A Morning Tour from 11.00am to 12:30pm and An Afternoon Tour from 2:30pm to 4:00pm.

Bookings are essential – We ask that you please let us know if you are intending to come.  Email us with your preference for the morning or afternoon tour to receive more information.

We look forward to seeing you on the day.

Peter and Robin.

Spring!

This has been a full month...culminating with our first Biodynamic 500 application for this growing season.  Regular applications of BD500 encourages strong humus formation, all soil bacteria and soil fungi, increase earthworm activity, absorption and retention of water and development of deep rooting systems - all the things that help make soil healthy and alive and help soil support plant life!  While the glass house was filling up with vegetable seedlings, there were fruit trees to be pruned, mandala circles to be weeded, more herbs and flowers to be planted, mulch and compost to be spread. The mandalas on one half of our farm offer a whole ecosystem to the vegetables and fruit growing.  There are natives, flowers, herbs, fruit trees and circles growing annual vegetables.  Before Spring really hits, the mandala circles are weeded and the perennial herbs and flowers tidied up, the fruit trees pruned and everything mulched and fed with compost.  Hopefully the large amounts of compost will help the mandalas handle the heat of summer. You can read more about herbs and perennials in the mandala here.

In addition to Peter and myself, we have had "a crew" for the month.  Last Autumn, an Ag Science student found and interviewed us about CSA's as alternative farming.  During her time on the farm, we asked her what she wanted to do, upon completing her degree.  And she responded, "I want to do what you are doing." To which we said, "Why don't you come and work with us, then?" And she has...Welcome Clancy Hearps!

We have also been joined by two interns, Lisa Mitchell and Chris Warren - both of whom are really keen to learn more about growing vegetables year round. Chris is also keen to learn the ins and outs of running a CSA. In addition to soil blocking, seeding, greenhouse practices, thinning, planting, weeding, under sowing cover crops, herbs as micro nutrient accumulators, basic fruit tree pruning and maintenance and biodynamics, we have been working with Lisa and Chris on a four season vegetable garden bed rotation, based on incorporating chickens into the rotation.  We love the addition of new energies to the farm,  learning from them and  sharing what is working for us...and what has not.

While the scale of our farm is a bit more than a backyard garden, so much of what we do on the farm can readily be applied to the backyard. We welcome interns interested in any and all aspects of what we are doing on our farm - and hope that their time with us will help in some way to getting them growing more food on a local level. You can read more here about our farm internships.

We will be erecting a polytunnel for the first tomato planting in about a week.  This should ensure tomatoes for Christmas!  We also will be able to put shade cloth over the crop if the summer includes intense heat like last year.  The seedlings look fantastic!

With some quality compost this year, we are using soil blocks to grow our seedlings.  Soil blocks are made by combining compost, peat and coarse sand or perlite into a mold which presses out compacted soil squares.  Not only are we excited about being pot-less, this system encourages a healthier seedling which transplants without any root disturbance.  The seedlings are loving it.

In Autumn, while the days are getting shorter and cooler, the soil is still warm. In Spring, the cool soil slows the growth rate of many crops and also makes direct sown seed germination take longer.  In our home garden, we rely on over wintered  and perennial crops to fill the gap between winter and middle Spring.  We have over wintered several cauliflower varieties, fennel and broad beans for the Spring share.  The artichokes (perennial) are looking great and growing daily.  And the cool season crops that we have sown in the last 6 weeks are beginning to take off with the few warm days that we have had.

Our CSA Spring share begins in October and will run through the end of December. Use these links to find out more about our CSA program, what we are growing for Spring and Community Supported Agriculture.

What is Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)? What is our CSA all about Transition Farm's Spring Share

If you have any questions about our CSA program, please ask away.

Peter and I took a night off a few weeks back and went to see Allan Savory, international range land biologist and educator, speak about Holistic Management. In Allan's own words, holistic management is "making better decisions about where you want to go in your life - bringing in environmental, social and economic issues simultaneously." Allan has dedicated his research to trying to find the cause of the desertification of our earth...and then working to educate agriculturists with some solutions to regenerate pastures, lock CO2 into grasslands and farm sustainably while still generating profits.  This talk, though, was geared toward the city audience.

Allan drew on his 40 years of research to paint the picture of the current state of our world - environmentally.  The rising CO2 levels in our environment are thought to be related to "technology" - the burning of fossil fuels, pollution and the trapping of greenhouse gases.  Allan outlined another cause far greater then this.  Agriculture.  "Agriculture is the most devastating industry mankind has." The production of food and fibre globally is eroding soils at a rate of 8 tonnes for every 1 tonne of food produced. 2/3rds of the planet is currently in some state of desertification.  Soil is fundamental to human survival. Many of us think that technology will save our environment - A new fuel will be found, a cure for the state of the earth and/or a way to continue to live in the manner that we are on the planet.  Throughout the talk in many ways Allan wove a compelling argument that we cannot wait for someone or something to save us and our planet. "Our future is in our hands. We are all the ones we've been waiting for."

I have to admit that I tend to become very overwhelmed when listening to the serious and dire problems facing our world.  And this started happening during Allan's talk...even as I took notes and tried to listen and understand what he was saying.  At the end of the talk Allan answered questions, one of which brought up a story about a single mother who stayed with Allan and his wife while training in Holistic management.  At some stage during her stay, she admitted to Allan that she had no idea what to do with this training, how she could use it to help her community.  So he sat down with her and said, let us start with a holistic management plan for you and your son.  Using a big piece of paper, they outlined the many decisions she was to make as a mother for her and her son.  Using a holistic context that tied cultural and spiritual values in with the economic and environmental impact of these decisions, her choices became powerful statements about the world she wanted to live in.

As Emily from Hand to Ground wrote, "We cannot expect institutions or politicians to make the change we want to see because they are incapable of doing so… It is down to us as individuals and as collectives or “hubs” as Savory puts it, to begin these movements of holistic, thoughtful, compassionate management of ourselves, the land and each other." So instead of feeling helpless in the state of our environment,  we need to believe that our choices are POWERFUL, that our choices can cause a ripple  and that our choices are not only enough but VITAL.

One of the hosts for the talks around Australia, RegenAg, has sent a wonderful email with many links to more information.

For more farm updates, join us on facebook and instagram.

Happy Spring!

Spring is coming!

Around the farm, the signs that Spring is coming are everywhere.  The birds are up early and stay up later in the night.  Just this week, we spied crows gathering nesting materials.  The frogs are croaking and the broad beans are flowering!

This descending moon, we began to till in the cover crops on the new land.  Eleven months after acquiring this land and the soil is starting to glow with all the added compost.  I love the look of the freshly turned soil and love seeing all of the worms!!

The compost looks and smells terrific.

And the Spring sugar snaps have germinated!

The glasshouse is filled with cool season crops like brassicas, lettuce and fennel already germinated and ready to plant in the next fortnight.  While the tomatoes, capsicums and eggplant are on the heat pads.

Although we planted a few things for the spring share last Autumn, the late winter seeding for the season began three weeks ago.

Our direct seeder, a Jang, has different wheels for different size seeds.  I used a trick from Joyce Wilke and Michael Plane of Allsun Farm to organise the seed and the wheels together...large snap lock bags!

We built a glasshouse in June/July.  Our builder friend Dave told us about a whole house full of big laminated windows that were going to be smashed and binned during the house remodel.  Recycled materials seem to have a way of looking so good...but there are usually hiccups.  In the case of these windows, we never imagined how heavy they were.  Six men could barely lift ONE window!!  In came the crane. The glasshouse is a passive solar structure that with the use of heat stores and venting should be warm in winter and early spring and cool in summer.  It will be a great place to start all of our crops, protecting them from weather until they are strong enough to be planted.

With time off school, Maya and Rye helped too!

Thank you to Alan and Lionel for building the glasshouse, Dave for telling us about the windows and all of those hefty fellows for helping get the windows out of the house!

In the next few weeks, we hope to construct a polytunnel for the tomatoes, make soilblocks for all of the warm weather crops, more and more and more seeding, finish pruning the fruit trees...the list is long and we love the energy of Spring which helps to get it all done! Two interns are arriving this weekend too, ready to jump in to the Spring season.  We are still taking applications for the Summer and Autumn Internships.

We are hoping that our CSA season will begin in October.  If you are interested in the Spring share, please sign up as we will be sending information about what to expect in the share and the size of the shares in the next few weeks.

Even in the pouring rain...the children came

Last year after hearing a prep class in the grocery store singing their chant, " Single file through the aisle.  This is where our food comes from.", I thought several expletives, went home and contacted one of our local primary schools, offering to host the whole school on our farm. The school accepted and made the term two focus an investigation into plants.  The younger children wanted to see food growing and see what food plants look like...trying lots of food was a huge hit too!  The 1-2's questions ranged from what is the smallest seed to how do plants communicate.  The 3-4's were curious about plants as living things, fertilizers and pesticides. And the 5-6's wanted to know how farmers were managing in extreme weather and how were we reducing our greenhouse emissions. Big questions for 11 and 12 year olds!  Even through the pouring rain, the children came, explored, nibbled very adventurously, planted cover crops, pulled carrots, ate raw sweet corn, jumped in puddles, and heard stories about how plants play "Chinese Whispers", how plants attract beneficial insects, plant "force fields", soil hummus, making winter blankets for soil life with cover crops, mono-cropping farming compared with small scale, diverse, sustainable farming.

In addition to coming to the farm, a few of the classes invited me to come to their classrooms.  One class helped us with seed saving by fermenting the tomato seeds of four different varieties.  Another class had more questions about how plants grow, all the different functions of roots, where does the seed come from, which came first - the seed or the plant.  I have been loving the questions that the children are pondering and really enjoying the opportunity to share the importance of healthy soil to plant life.

The purple carrots will be unforgettable for them.  And their Thank you notes have been the best...we have especially loved all the rain in the pictures...loads of blue spots and some were a wash with blue...do you think they noticed the rain?

Thank you to Dizzy Carlyon and Mel Turnbull (the Wwoof-er who came for the last two weeks of the Autumn Share) who both helped immensely with the tours!! And a big thank you to the principle, Meg Dallas, and all the teachers of the school for giving the children a great chance to think about plants, farming and really see where food comes from.

Winter Bounty

With the solstice coming in less then a fortnight, we have been watching the movement of light across the back of our house shed and designing a glass house to make the best use of the low winter sun.  Last year we found the poly tunnel at times too cold for starting some of the cold sensitive plants...and we also ran out of space.  The glass house will give us a warmer place to start seeds and the poly tunnel will be used as the nursery for the cold loving seedlings in the late winter early spring.  Only 12 more days before the sun heads back to our side of the planet. Our seeding for the next growing season begins again in the middle of July.

We finished 26 weeks of our CSA season in May.  It was a great season for us as growers.  We trialed intensive market gardening techniques and new and different varieties of vegetables, provided a box of vegetables and fruit each week for local families and really enjoyed feeling supported by our CSA members.

We still have plenty of plants producing lovely Winter vegetables (see below pictures) - so we will be heading to the Boneo Market (cnr Limestone and Boneo Rds) on Saturday 15 June from 7:30-1:00.

We will have the following items for sale at the market: Golden Turnips- White Cauliflower - Coloured Cauliflower - Romanesco Broccoli - Broccoli - Purple Savoy Cabbage - Green Cabbage - Red Cabbage - Beetroot - Buttercrunch Lettuce - Perella Rougette Lettuce - Brown Cos Lettuce - Tatsoi - Bok Choy (red and Green) - Mibuna - Snow Pea  - Sugar Snap Peas - Kale bunches - Silverbeat bunches - Coriander - Parsley

Past and present CSA members will receive a 10% discount at the market.

In addition to selling produce we will be trying to spread the word about local food and CSA farms!  Up until now, all of the food we grow has been divided between CSA members and when there is surplus beyond what we think families can use, to the local soup kitchen.  We are looking forward to having the market time to share our produce with more people and spread the word about nutrient dense, locally grown produce and small scale, diverse agriculture!

Last year after hearing a prep class in the grocery store singing in unison, " Single file through the aisle.  This is where our food comes from.", I thought several expletives, went home and contacted one of our local primary schools, offering to host the whole school on our farm. The school accepted and made the term two focus an investigation into plants. We have written a post about the school's visit and will send that out as soon as we have the approval of a few more parents to use photos that include the children.

We had our first Wwoofer (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) stay for two weeks at the end of May.  Mel Turnbull was a great help with the school tours and the final two weeks of the CSA. We wish her all the best on her journeys!

In addition to building the glasshouse, Peter is also designing a moveable polytunnel that will be used through the growing season to provide extra protection from hail to early spring greens, warm the soil to germinate carrots a bit sooner in the early spring, late frost protection for some of the warm weather crops, a structure to trellis field tomatoes, frost protection in the Autumn and possibly a winter hideaway for chickens.  This greenhouse will not be heated and could make up to six moves in a growing season allowing the soil to be constantly kept full of hummus and in touch still with the natural cycle.  We are also thinking that the poly tunnel may provide us a structure that we can pull shade cloth across if there are times of extreme heat like last summer.

We are enjoying some inside time during the welcome rain of Winter, too.  This is a great time of year to plan the crops for next season, order seeds, catch up on our book work and do a bit of winter reading!  I am loving the book Soil and Sense written in 1941.  The concepts of how to keep soil healthy were embedded into farm land deeds and if you depleted your soil you were called a "land robber". Even 73 years ago, chemical fertilizers were not delivering on their promises of higher yield. Farmers were turning to "an older way of conserving fertility".  I wonder how farmers are still being seduced by the newest inventions to increase yield...such as GMO crops...only to find that the claims again were false.  Healthy soil still wins not only in high yield but also in nutrient dense food!!

Transition Farm has joined Instagram...“... a fast, beautiful and fun way to share your photos with friends and family.” This is another "social networking" platform available for users of Apple products.  We are also on Facebook.

If you are local, hope to "socially network" in the old fashion way this weekend by meeting you at the market!!

Happy Solstice!

What's growing Mid-late April...just making it in there!

I started taking photos for this post 10 days ago...and then farming and life kept me from sharing them...so before these photos are out of date, here is what is growing in mid April...now that we have fully entered Autumn!

We have been running our CSA for 21 weeks now...21 weeks of providing local families with boxes filled with seasonal produce grown here-by us.  The boxes have ranged from 10-20 items over these 21 weeks and in addition to vegetables, we have been able to include seasonal fruit - our first nectarines from three and four year old trees, cantaloupe, honey dew and watermelons grown from seed.

I feel like everything we are doing as farmers is an experiment...from trialling different varieties of crops, growing crops we have never grown before, trialling intensive market garden techniques, pushing seasonal boundaries with early and late season plantings, growing a variety of cover crops...the list could go on.  Peter and I are not 'third generation market gardeners' and while we are trying to not re-invent the wheel, we have been told by many growers, "Farming is trial and error." And so we are not maximising the number of "boxes" we produce and instead building the soil and using the space to trial crops and growing techniques in order to fine tune sustainable, seasonal growing.

Our CSA has five more weeks of the Autumn Share.  Both the Summer and the Autumn shares have given us so much to learn and many opportunities for growing as growers.  We have taken lots of notes and have already begun the planning and planting for next season.  Peter and I are enjoying the wind down of Autumn.  We will not have a Winter share this year, taking the time to build the farm.  The garlic, broad beans and overwintered cauliflower are already planted - ready for Spring harvest. And the spring planting will begin in the greenhouse in July.  This winter will be spent constructing moveable polytunnels, and hopefully building some mobile egg laying houses so that we incorporate chickens into our farm rotation.

And the Winter will also include some rest.  Working with nature, working in nature, is wonderful and it is also constant.  We always hear about dairy farmers and their milking routines.  We rarely hear about the broccoli that would not wait to be harvested, the weeds that are choking plants, the right moon for applying seaweed sprays...  And yet, that is the case with growing vegetables biodynamically - crops are ready when they are ready and the moon keeps changing...even if you have other plans, other tasks, sick children.  Winter offers time...growth slows down.  So in addition to working on the infrastructure of the farm, we are looking forward to a bit of rest.

As we move into May, we still have new crops coming on that we have not yet put into a box...the variety that we are able to grow and provide is truly amazing.  We feel so grateful to the soil, the rain, the sun and the seed - and to our CSA members for supporting us!

Show Day!!

The Red Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Society Show or as we like to call it "The Show" is hosted once a year to showcase "this most acclaimed agricultural and horticultural area". Farmers and growers from around the Mornington Peninsula attend with their sheep, alpacas, cattle, poultry, flowers, fruits and vegetables.  Displays include farm equipment,  working dog training tips, wine judging, cheese judging, wood chop competition, dog high jump,  horse show jumping and recently motor bike trick riding.  Pavilions are filled with fleece, craft, preserves, cakes, cookies, fruit, flowers... and vegetables.  After a day spent at the show, there is a great buzz around our table tonight.

Most of the time, our kitchen gets the rejects from the packing shed - the food that is a bit too ugly, too ripe, a little nibbled and consequently deemed not worthy of a CSA box.  But tonight we ate blue ribbon food!

I had never heard of a show before I moved here.  Peter's family indoctrinated me and the lively competition is so much fun, the whole family gets into it.  The children mark their pumpkins as they are growing in the field, putting ribbons on the stems.  They "call" the biggest sunflower and then cover it so the birds can't pick all the seeds out of it, ask us to leave a zucchini growing on the plant so that it grows huge as they want to make a zucchini car to enter into the novelty fruit and vegetable section.   The week before the show, as I am staying up late to finish a relish or a sauce, I receive phone calls from the family with much chitter chatter about entries...How the storm has knock the petals off the special rose, who's beans are ready,  "oh, and what will you be entering?"

This year I started really thinking about the show and how it is a great place to showcase the quality and variety of locally grown produce.  Thousands of people come to the show and the thought of them seeing a huge heirloom variety watermelon that has been grown here, as opposed to a supermarket watermelon from Queensland, got me very excited.  Not to mention the opportunity to showcase the quality of organic/biodynamic produce.  It is one thing to try and tell people how organic food is nutrient dense, how paying attention to soil health and supporting ecosystems results in not only better food but also a healthier earth, how growing food this way may be more labour intensive than growing with pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers but it will taste better and be better for you and the environment.  This is sustainable agriculture.  It is another to offer all of this and food that is high quality.  I entered 14 different classes in the vegetable section to let our produce speak for itself.

And the results are...bragging a little bit... 1 bunch of Carrots - 1st 3 Brown Onions - 1st 1 Lettuce - any variety - 1st 12 French Beans - 1st 1 Musquee Pumpkin - 1st 1 Butter Pumpkin - 1st 1 Butternut Pumpkin - 1st 3 Tomatoes- table, with stalks, same variety - 1st Vegetable - Any Other - 1st (the 'Moon and Stars' watermelon) 3 Zucchini - 2nd

And these next two are really a delight as we were able to include special varieties/blends and heirloom varieties...food not seen in the grocery store... and truly seasonal displays of locally grown food...

Best Collection of Salad Vegetables - 1st Best Collection of Vegetables - no more then 15 distinct varieties- 1st

The total of these prizes  gave us the highest points obtained in Classes 1-49...and we were awarded The Aggregate Award in the Vegetable Section and a prize for Heirloom Vegetables!!

And all I can think is Hip Hip Hooray for Organic/Biodynamic food and heirloom seeds...imagine if the judges had done a blind taste test...Hip Hip Hooray for small scale, diverse vegetable production...Hip Hip Hooray for sustainable agricultural...and Hip Hip Hooray for the celebration of local produce!!!

So get out there and plant your Autumn cover crops, make compost during this highly digestive time in nature, support the life in your soil and grow award winning, nutrient dense vegetables!!!  You can do it!

Post Note-  The Red Hill Show is our local show...the Mornington Peninsula community gathering together... It is not as big nor as acclaimed as the Melbourne Show.  Other local growers and home gardeners are all included and celebrated in the vegetable pavilion...Not trying to be to big for my britches!  We have a long way to go as market gardeners!

CSA members expect some blue ribbon 'Australian Butter' Pumpkin this week!!

Tomato Sauce and The Red Hill Show...

It is count down in this house...only 7 days to go before the craft, cooking and preserve entries are due...only 9 days to go for vegetable and flower entries...It's the Red Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show!! I was thinking about the show tonight...it is already 12:30 and I am waiting for my winning tomato sauce...not trying to brag but it really did win the blue ribbon in the savory sauce category last year...to finish simmering so I can go to bed. Tomorrow is a harvest day...but the tomatoes would not, could not wait...slowly over-ripening in the basket on the floor.

I reckon that tomato sauce used to be a luxury. It is simmered with exotic spices...island spices and sugar...all commodities that were traded...not necessarily grown in every home garden. Not only that, it takes alot of tomatoes to make a little bit of thick, lightly spiced, slightly tangy,  sauce. The mother of the house, being the manager of the home garden, the head cook and chief nutrition expert of her ever growing family, might have first jarred tomatoes for stews, then dried them for flavouring and lastly, if there were still more...and time...made condiments. And it would have had to have been a good farming year to have been able to afford imported, island spices.

Our society does not think about that now...as they line up for their chips with sauce and pies with sauce. Where did those tomatoes come from and how many did it take to make that small plastic container of sauce. And so they consume it, without appreciating what a true treat and treasure a jar of tomato sauce would have been in the larder.

We make Christmas chocolates in this house. These are lovely truffles...maybe not as fine as Chocolatiers but we do use pure ingredients and rich chocolate. My children love making the chocolates, love making the packaging and love giving them away...but they also love the few extras saved in the deep freezer. They know that when a special guest comes over, the desert may include "Christmas Chocolates" ...even if it is a March Sunday Lunch...and they delight in taking out all of the containers...one for each sort of truffle...and preparing a party plate to offer first to the guest before diving in themselves.

Tomato Sauce would have been the same! It would have been a preserved treasure, brought forth from the cellar, only for special guests and/or occasions. It would have been served with a silver spoon, savoured even after the meal was cleared...the jar would have been scraped clean with a finger.

But our current society uses it and most food without thought or consequence. I am left wondering about the aspirations of the poor to be like the rich...the promises offered by assembly line work...You, too, can eat tomato sauce with every meal!...a slogan pinned under the wood cut of a worker doing a menial job but persisting to "better" the family...with tomato sauce at every meal...yes these must be late night ponderings!

Where has our callous...maybe even ignorant... attitude about our food gotten us, as a society? High rates of childhood diabetes, population obesity and a complete disconnection from our food, where it comes from, why it is special...why it should be treasured, savoured.

And so I sit, smelling the lovely fragrance of these island spices...all spice berries from the Greater Antilles, Southern Mexico and Central America, cloves from Indonesia, India and Sri Lanka and ginger from southeast Asia. Mixed with white wine vinegar , sugar and our organic tomatoes...the ones too ripe to give to our members. My son especially will be so excited tomorrow when he wakes to the smell filling the house as he sleeps. The very special, very treasured five jars of tomato sauce...from 5 kilos...yes 5 kilos yeild only 5 500ml jars... of over ripe Romas

And this is what makes the Red Hill Show so special. As a mother, as the manager of the house garden, head chef and chief nutritionist, if I have the produce to make such an exquisite delight as tomato sauce, what a beautiful thing to enter in to the show, where it will be appreciated, marveled at, and honoured. "Wow, they had enough tomatoes to make tomato sauce this year!" The show is not just a place for family entertainment, it is where, at this time of year, when I am staying up until 1am waiting for my preserves to finish, I can join with the other mothers, garden managers, head chefs and chief nutritionists and appreciate the fruits of their labour too!

Vegetable Entry Forms are due by Wednesday, 27 march.  Delight in the community celebrating the growing of food and flowers, rearing class animals, riding horses, making crafts and cooking, preserving and fermenting.

Post Note:  I just have to add how wonderful these passed on recipes are...scribbled, doctored, worn, stained and faded family favourites.  This tomato sauce recipe came to me in my children's grandmother's handwriting, entitled "Stephanie Tomato Sauce - given to me by Minetta 22/2/12".  I wonder where this recipe originated, where it has been, how it has changed.  My thoughts and changes are added to the patina...and then passed on again.

What's growing in March

With the rain falling...sideways....YEAH!!!...this is a great time to share what's growing in mid March.

We have now stretched right up to the corners of the new land.  The area that had summer crops is being prepared for Autumn sowed cover crops.  We rotate through a variety of cover crops such as oats, peas and vetch depending on the crop that will be planted in that area next year.  The crop rotation plan is coming together for next few years.  As Eliot Coleman says, "Crop rotation means variety. and variety gives stability to biological systems."

There are Spring crops being planted now-Broad Beans, Green Cauliflower, Big White Cauliflower, over wintered Broccoli, Silverbeet and Kale.  And garlic is being planted now for Early December harvest too.

Baxter from Palate Earth organized a sunrise weeding group, who arrived before the sun and stayed for a few hours. A Big Thank You to Sarah, Amy, Jane, Jenny, Jo and a budding young grower, Archie, who asked his mum if he could have the morning off school to come and weed on our farm.  How fantastic that Jo said YES! If there are other young growers out there who would like to learn more, we are always happy to discuss opportunities.  We have had three teenager come at different times in this growing season.

We have changed our delivery day to one day a week to try and have more time on the farm to design and implement a bit more of our whole farm plan.  We will be incorporating chicken tractors into our farm fertility and need to make some mobile chicken houses.  With the hot, dry summer we just had making it hard to keep compost moist, we are going to construct some shade for the compost piles. We are building a warmer greenhouse to use in Winter for starting the warm weather plants like Capsicum, Eggplant and Melons.  We got by last year with several make do inventions but having come into a houseful of windows, we thought we would recycle them and make Spring a bit easier.  And we need to prepare native corridors on the new land for late autumn planting.

We are thrilled to be welcoming a whole primary school prep-Grade 6 to the farm in May to see food growing and learn about plants as living things.  Last year, we saw one prep class and heard about several others going on excursions to their local super markets.  As they marched through the aisles, they recited, "Single file, through the aisle.  This is where our food comes from."  I sent a letter that day to the principle from one school, opening the farm and offering to work with the teachers to tailor make a curriculum based tour.  I hope this is the first of many such school visits.  We may buy food at the grocery store but that is NOT where food comes from!

The Red Hill Agricultural and Horticultural Show is quickly approaching at the end of this month.  As the RHA&H Society state,

"When the Show began in 1922, local people exhibited apples, flowers and vegetables along with the best butter, cooking and preserves from home and farm kitchens. Show Day was declared a local holiday by the Shire of Flinders and a special train ran from Melbourne to bring spectators down to Red Hill, the journey taking over three hours.

Over the years, horses, sheep, cattle and alpacas were included in the Show – each new introduction indicating the changing face of farming on the Mornington Peninsula. More recently we have added wine, avocados, olives, berries and cheese to the list of produce coming from this most acclaimed agricultural and horticultural area, and some of the very best local produce will be available at the Show for tasting and buying."

If you grow your own food, this is a great chance to come together as a community, exhibit the fruits of your labour and raise the bar on the quality and diversity of produce that is being grown in our local area. We are so lucky to have so many delicious offerings within a relatively small radius.  There are many areas for children to exhibit as well.  There is still time to get your entry forms for flowers and vegetables in. Hope your gardens are loving this rain like ours is!!

What is our CSA all about?

CSA's are quite a rarity in Australia (we hope this will change!).  If you are thinking about joining a CSA, one of the first things  to understand (and the most important) is the reasoning behind the concept of a CSA.  Here is our interpretation of what a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) is, and how it applies to our farming practices and the produce that our members receive. When you sign up for our CSA you are agreeing to a commitment between the farmer (us) and the member (you). In this case your membership fee pays for seeds, soil amendments, irrigation supplies, farm equipment and allows us to pay our expenses. In return, we will provide you with veggies for the seasonal share that you have signed up for.

What a CSA is NOT

A Cheap Source of Food Cheap food may be inexpensive, but it is hard on the environment and may be transported over thousands of kilometres to your local store Cheap food may be treated with harmful chemicals Cheap food may have compromised nutritional qualities and a lack of freshness

And most importantly - a CSA is NOT designed to replace the supermarket.

What IS a CSA?

A Source of Quality Food We grow our food with a focus on protecting and enhancing the environment We grow our food with ZERO pesticides, herbicides and/or fungicides We grow in a way that maximizes the soil health and builds up the life within it We provide our food fresh, from the farm to you

What is in my Share (weekly box)? We focus mainly on foods that grow in our specific seasonal climate An effort is made to estimate quantities and items available in your share each week, but it is only that, an estimate What you will receive each week is determined overwhelmingly by the season - temperature and weather

Why join our CSA? You have the opportunity to get the know the people who are growing your food You can learn about how your food is grown and the methods we use You can learn about our integrated farm and how we are trying to maintain a healthy ecosystem You may try new foods You will get to experiment with new recipes - there are plenty of Recipes on our website You will eat nutrient dense, fresh and varied produce You have the opportunity to visit the farm to see your produce growing You will be eating seasonally You will be eating locally and reducing the energy required to transport food long distances You are supporting sustainable agriculture You are helping to keep small farms viable You are helping to keep rural communities vibrant You are helping to support your local economy You are helping to maintain small, mixed farms You are reducing your reliance on agricultural chemicals You are supporting organic/biodynamic growing methods

What do YOU have to do? Pay your membership fees - on time. We are committed to getting our members their produce each week and expect them to attend to their invoices with a similar commitment.

Ensure your empty veggie boxes are left out for pick up or returned each week.

Ask questions. Lots of them!!  If you are curious about what we are growing, how we are growing it and why we are growing it in that way.

Communicate with us if there are new crops or varieties you would like. We are growing for YOU!

What do we the FARMERS do? Planning, planning, planning, researching and more planning, ordering seed and supplies, seeding, preparing soil, making compost, making compost, making compost, planting, nurturing plants, weeding, feeding, watering, observing insects and plant health, making special brews to support plant health, sow cover crops for soil health. Recording how things grew, where they grew and how much they yielded Devise integrated farm systems where intensive market gardening, cover crops, animal husbandry and native corridors are all interconnected to support farm health. Administrative work Organizational work Harvesting, Washing, Weighing, Packing Delivery/Pickup

Managing Expectations If you are not used to eating seasonally, do some research If you are not accustomed to eating seasonally, you may find that it takes a while to make a transition from eating whatever is at your local supermarket (pretty much everything) to whatever is in your weekly CSA box (what’s in season). It may surprise you to find that capsicum do not turn red until late February in our area, there may be no carrots in the month of October and its a bonus if you have tomatoes for Christmas.

You should expect the boxes to vary from week to week.  We harvest when things are ripe and perfect for eating.  Sometimes that means a box is fuller. Other times the box may be light.  We have tried, through planning, to provide an even harvest but sometimes, with weather, plantings ripen at the same time...or go by quicker then we thought.  We provide lists of what types of produce you might expect for each season on our website under each respective season, eg. Autumn Share.

Quantity varies – good to ask up front When filling the weekly CSA baskets, we try and provide a variety of items, in a reasonable quantity. We don’t want to be skimpy, and we don’t want to overwhelm our members. Too much of even a good thing, and it ends up going to waste, which makes everyone feel bad. Of course, the weather and other mitigating circumstances can get in the way of our ability to provide the ideal amount, as discussed above. We will try to provide you with an accurate description of how much of what items you may expect in your box each week in our Whats in the Box newsletters.

Make sure you understand these concepts - they are at the core of how we are running our farm CSA for our members. If you have any questions ..... please always ask!!

We have written more about What is CSA on our website if you are interested to read more about the background and ideology behind why we are farming this way.