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!

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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.

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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.

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!

Blossoms and Bees

Day length and bees...as we approach the summer solstice and spring farming is slowly moving into summer farming, my thoughts drift back to day light and bees. Many of the typical summer crops begin as flowers - tomatoes, capsicums, beans, peas, eggplant, cucumbers, pumpkins, and zucchini, to name a few.  Fruit as well with apple, pear, cherry, plum, peach, nectarine, apricots, strawberries, raspberries, and many more blossoms that through pollination start to become fruit.  Each year I marvel as to how those flowers move from buds to blossoms to itty bitty fruits and then grow into the crops we harvest and eat.

Some flowers are self fertile - they contain both the male and female part and can be pollinated just with wind.  Tomatoes, capsicum, eggplant, peas, beans fall into this class.

For the zucchini, pumpkins, cucumbers and melons, though, each plant has a profusion of male and female flowers.  Without bees to visit the male flower and then the female flower and distribute to pollinating pollen, the fruit that clings to the female flower turns yellow and falls off.  Humans could hand pollinate every fruit and seed savers do this to ensure a seed true to the variety.  But as a farmer I think why spend my time doing a job when bees are far more efficient.  Isn't it amazing though to think that each zucchini, cucumber and pumpkin we eat has been made through the efforts of a bee!!

There has been a profusion of growth in the past weeks.

The daylight always amazes me at this time of year...16 hours of it.  The birds are so busy everywhere.  And the onions have received the earth's message to bulb up!  Onions are very sensitive to light and each variety responds to a different number of daylight hours.  Once that magic number is reached, they turn their energy towards making a big bulb as opposed to growing more leaves.  Another amazing plant fact!  The onions that bulb in Queensland need fewer daylight hours then the ones here in Victoria because our early summer days are longer.

We have settled into a nice rhythm of harvesting, weeding, seeding and planting while still fitting in weekly seaweed applications and biodynamic sprays.  We may apply 500 in the summer but the one last week may be our last until autumn.  I am never sure and we are eager to really kick start the new land.  We will continue to apply 501, with another application to boost plant health happening Saturday morning.  501 is ground quartz crystal.  It helps the plant's ability to use light, helps plants with the uptake of minerals and also helps plants to repel fungal infections.  With the humid moisture in the past weeks, we have been making herb brews to help coat the plants leaves with silica so that the increase in moisture does not bring an increase in diseases like powdery mildew and blights.

We wrote a post about our new packing shed.  The shed was completed the day before our open day and it has been invaluable to ensuring all the produce grown arrives to members in the freshest condition.

Happy Summer Solstice!  May light and peace fill you and your families in the New Year.

The happenings in the shed

We are busy planting and harvesting food on the land we recently bought at the back of our farm. We are really happy with how everything has been coming along - and especially happy to have a place out of the sun, the rain and the wind to wash and pack all the produce that we are harvesting each week for the CSA boxes. Here is a picture walk through the building and then filling of our new farm shed...

It is wonderful to have a space to bring the harvest, shade to wash, bunch and store it and cool space to pack the boxes so that everything arrives to our members as fresh as can be.

We are really enjoying the Saturday morning pick ups, gathering in the shed and chatting while children have fun in the crate cubby houses, swing and play in the sprinklers.  With the garlic everywhere drying, the shed smells fantastic.

Thank you to all the people who lent a hand: Colin, Alan, Lionel, Woodsie and the crew from Shepparton, Chris, Greg, and Justin.

Spreading the word about Community Supported Agriculture

On Saturday I went to the Balnarring Sustainability Fair to spread the word about sustainable farming, the organic “industry” and Community Supported Agriculture.  From the historical inspirations for sustainable farmers, to the industrialisation of agriculture and how it has changed the food we eat, to the CSA movement and the community support necessary to have a local, ecologically, socially and economically sustainable food source, my head was swirling with data and I found it hard to sleep the night before. Peter saved the day in the morning when he said, “Robin, just tell stories.”  So I shoved the speech in my back pocket for luck, and started talking about our beginnings as potato, carrot and raspberry farmers up in the high country during the drought (2001-2003) (photo of our first farm above).  We were very lucky to have the support of some beautiful farmers who spent time “teaching” us how to grow and market our produce.  The farm was a commercial farm and although we tried to not conform to the spray schedule recommended to us, in the end, we could actually see why commercial farmers do spray pesticides and herbicides.  In monoculture farming, the ecological system in place to assist nature in restoring balance is severely hindered.  We simply could not work hard enough to keep up with weeds and the pest infestations ruining the crops. And so we went through the season, spraying and questioning and researching the sprays and being generally horrified by what WE were putting on the food we were growing and going to eat.  When we were told that the market price was high for potatoes and we should spray our plants with ‘Round-Up’ to kill the tops making the potatoes ready to sell, we thought…commercial farmers are the ones who should be regulated and jump through stringent hoops so that their food is certified safe to consume! We choose to wait until the plant died back on its own.

We were really lucky that it was a drought year and we had a ready supply of water.  We did not have to go through the disappointment and financial down fall of growing a crop through its season only to find that the market price did not warrant harvesting the food!  Many farmers face that dilemma and they choose to cut their losses early and till the whole crop in.

I told many more stories but, as I was the one talking, I really do not remember how they all wove together.  By the time I finished, though, there were many people gathered and great conversation ensued about the different ways the community could engage more farmers and the regulations which currently restrict buying local food.  Here is the rest of my research though…and if you get bored, just jump down to the last three paragraphs where I give thanks…and not just for reading my speech…

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The industrialization of agriculture followed the industrial revolution.  From highly automated machinery, pesticides and chemically derived fertilizers, hybrid seeds and more recently genetically engineered organisms, food production has the characteristics of other industrial systems.  These changes raise a diverse range of social, environmental and ethical concerns about the future of food systems.

To name a few: farmers have been struggling to produce their food for a profit because in order to produce more food they require more off farm inputs, their soil productivity is decreasing, they require more machinery to plant, maintain and harvest the “more” food, which requires growing even more food to pay their rising debt.  It is a treadmill of industrialization.

In order to use this big machinery, farmers have had to limit their crops to machine friendly monocultures and to homogenise their farmlands by cutting down trees, ripping up hedgerows, laser leveling the soil …essentially ignoring the specific characteristics of each field and completely limiting the food diversity available to the whole ecosystem.

We have gone from being community members to consumers, a group subjected to brand marketing, price wars and the control of our food by global corporations.  The varieties of vegetables that can withstand the mechanization of planting and harvesting, have the “right” genes (to be hardy to grow in a monoculture) and have a long storage life (as it takes awhile to get the food from the field to the “consumer”). They  not only contain only the hint of the taste of what that vegetable used to taste like, it also has been subjected to a barrage of chemicals and possibly genetic engineering which we ingest.  Health concerns such as cancer, attention deficit disorders, food allergies, and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few, have been linked to the chemicals found on “fresh” produce.

Nutrition is a complex science, moving beyond just what nutrients food contains to the process our bodies do to absorb these nutrients.  Some schools of thought within natural medicine hold that the well-being of a plant directly influences the health-giving effects of its fruit.  One thing that can be shown clearly through scientific testing is that the levels of vitamins and minerals in fruit and vegetables can vary dramatically depending on the environmental conditions under which they are grown.  A famous study from the United States found that tomatoes grown in an area with soil rich in organic matter consistently had levels of some nutrients up to ten times higher than those grown in another area with poorer soil and higher fertilizer use.

I optimistically think most of us would like to be able to choose to eat fresh organic produce, grown by farmers who are doing their best to look after the soil, the air and the water resources available to them and farming with ecologically sound practices.  And we think we are supporting those farmers when we BUY ORGANIC.  Unfortunately though, with the rapid rise of the organic food market, the historical roots of the organic agricultural movement have transformed into the organic industry.  Local farmers have been joined by “new” players – supermarkets, governmental departments and food processors to name a few.  The supermarkets are a great example of the social and ecological imbalance of the organic market.  Supermarkets are very good at creating price wars which cheat farmers out of a fair wage for their efforts.  And when the product is sold, it can be trucked thousands of kilometers to its final destination only to be packaged in plastic and styrofoam, labeled and shelved.  It may say organic but the food miles have not only taken away any freshness and created a false sense of “seasonality” it has also left a product which is far from environmentally friendly.

In response to an increasingly globalised food system, and the corresponding social, environmental and health problems which it poses, communities around the world have been developing a different vision for food production and distribution.  Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a concept which encourages local, environmentally sustainable food production, and which supports both farmers and the people eating their food alike.  The CSA concept originated in Switzerland and Japan where people interested in safe food and farmers seeking stable markets for their crops joined together in economic partnerships.  Called “teikei” in Japan, it translates to “food with the farmers face on it”.

CSA is a partnership of mutual commitment between a farm (producer) and a community of supporters which provides a direct social and economic link between the production and consumption of food.  CSA members make a commitment to support the farm throughout the season, and assume the costs, risks and bounty of growing food along with the farmer.  Members help pay for the seed, equipment, labour and other costs.  In return, the farm provides, to the best of its ability, a healthy supply of seasonal produce throughout the growing season.

We are very lucky because here on the Peninsula there are many sustainable farmers selling their products in various ways: farm gate sales, farmer’s markets, on-line delivery services and CSA’s.  We also have an amazing diversity within small distances which offer us a huge range of produce available, a great growing climate and good soil.  We, as a broad community, have the chance to support these local growers by buying local.

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And with the speech well received, I returned to our farm to get ready for our first Open Day, a chance for CSA members to see their food growing and meet the people growing it for them.  And a chance for us to meet the people who will be eating the food.  With our packing shed clad just three days before, I sat in the shade, looking out over the new land, waiting for people to arrive and watched as a whistling kite was chased off by a magpie lark.  Even though we have much work to do on the new land, it is already a thriving ecosystem…and it was nice to look out and see all the food growing.

The open day was great.  CSA members, friends and family toured the farm.   They enjoyed seeing the new land and packing shed and the old land and hearing the story about creating and re-awakening agricultural land, trying to jump start an ecologically balanced system and the triumphs and learning experiences of farming.  We talked about biodynamics, pigs and couch grass.  And I slowed down from a mad spring frenzy of working to see all of the food growing and feel so very thankful to the earth and the sun and the rain, for all of their help in making that food grow, and to the wonderful 65 families that we will be feeding this summer, for supporting us as farmers and supporting the concept of community supported agriculture!  Thank you!! We feel truly blessed.

There were many ideas generated from the speech about how other farms could start on the Peninsula.  We would love to see many more small farms growing and feeding our community as well as home gardeners.  We are working to share the knowledge that we are learning about market gardening, home gardening and designing sustainable systems.  A few people talked about donating their land to farmers who wanted to grow food.  We are participating in a great group called Land Share Australia. In their words,Landshare is for people who:

• Want to grow vegetables but don’t have anywhere to do it
• Have a spare bit of land they’re prepared to share
• Can help in some way – from sharing knowledge and lending tools to helping out on the plot itself
• Support the idea of freeing up more land for growing
• Are already growing and want to join in the community

  

French Market Gardens and Heirloom Melon Varieties

"Always tend the smallest amount of land possible, but tend it exceptionally well." - The first principle of success as given by a leading Parisian grower in the 1870's. I have been reading Eliot Coleman's The Winter Harvest Handbook.  Mr Coleman is an organic market gardener in Northern Maine, USA, producing very high quality produce year round.  He is also a champion for new growers like ourselves.  His book are manuals on small scale, organic vegetable growing techniques, tools, rotations and historical inspiration.

Here is a summary of what he has to say about the "French garden system". Practiced by Parisian maraîchers (market gardeners), it reached it's height in the mid to late 1800's with around 1800 growers producing food on one to two acre blocks.  Covering about one-sixteenth of all land within the city limits of Paris, the gardens fed Paris year round with a huge variety of produce, both in season and "out" of season vegetables and fruits.  This system not only incorporated incredible intensive planting techniques, it was sustainable.  The Parisian maraîchers were referred to as "goldsmiths of the soil".  Both the heat for winter production of vegetables in hotbeds and the amendments to maintain the fertility of the soil were by-products of composting another by-product - the horse manure mixed with straw that came from the city stables.  After delivering crates of produce to the market,  wagons would collect the manure on their return to the garden.

Paris was home to 2.5million people in 1891 and these small, intensive, "organic" market gardens provided all the produce, and produced enough to export to other neighboring countries.  And not just any sort of produce...last week the latest Diggers magazine arrived with a wonderful article on seeds before genetic engineering and the re-printing of the French seed company Vilmorin's album of exquisite drawings.  The diversity of varieties known and grown by the French in the late 1800's was extraordinary.  As Clive Blazey writes, "Vilmorin listed over 1400 vegetable varieties in 1885...when compared to the 236 varieties offered by The Diggers Club today."

I love learning these sorts of facts.  I love knowing that we, as farmers, are not re-inventing the wheel.  We are trying to learn practices that once thrived on a large scale.  We are trying to grow produce for the local community while continuing to build soil fertility.  And we are also trying to keep alive varieties of many vegetables which are not being offered to the consumer, varieties that make eating vegetables and fruits a real experience.

As Blazey writes, "The rock melons offered in today's Australian supermarkets are a travesty of the delights that 'could cause drooling' to quote melon expert Amy Goldman.  The latest melon from Seminis (Monsanto [the makers of Round-up and one of the leading corporations involved in genetically modified seeds] ) is actually called Hard Rock so completely and humourlessly has this multinational bred the latest hybrids."

And that brings us to our 2013 melon varieties...Most are heirlooms and we hope they will all be that small slice of juicy, perfumed summer sun...We transplanted them last week and they are loving this heat.  Depending on the season, they should ripen by the beginning of February and continue into the Autumn share. Honey Dew    "Eden's Gem"   Heirloom. Small, round, netted fruit the size of a softball.  Spicy, sweet flesh. Honey Dew    "Early Hanover"  Heirloom.  Sweet, sugary flesh that can be eaten right to the rind. Cantaloupe    "Hearts of Gold"  Heirloom. Highly aromatic, sweet, firm, juicy, salmon coloured flesh. Cantaloupe    "Schoon's Hardshell"   Sweet, flavoursome, apricot coloured flesh. Cantaloupe    "Hale's Best"  Sweet orange flesh. Cantaloupe    "Delice De Table"    Heirloom. Very sweet orange flesh. Cantaloupe    "French Charentais"   Heirloom. Sweet, thick, deep-orange, flesh.  Flesh has deep, aromatic, flowery aroma. Watermelon    "Criss Cross"    Heirloom. Attractive, pale green skin & jagged, dark green markings.  Flesh is deep, rich red with excellent flavour & crispness. Watermelon    "Crimson Sweet"   Large, round, light green melon with dark green stripes and firm, deep red flesh with high sugar content. Watermelon    "Sugar Baby"   Round - oval melon with dark green rind, juicy, sweet, bright scarlet flesh & firm texture. Watermelon    "Moon and Stars"  Heirloom. Very sweet, rich, red flesh. The rind is patterned with yellow markings and the foliage can be speckled yellow as well. Watermelon    "Klondike"   Heirloom.  Large, striped, oval melon with sweet, scarlet coloured flesh & thin, tough rind.

Summer Share Tomato Planting

We thought we would introduce you to the 2012-2013 Summer Share Tomato Plants....from their beginnings as tiny seeds, to the strong plants transplanted into the new land.  Here are old Italian favourites, heirloom varieties, and some of the most "exquisite" tasting tomatoes we found to grow... It all started back in August when Rye and I seeded the tomatoes.

Once they germinated and had their first true leaves, I pricked them out and planted them into 4 inch pots.  And through the hail and frost and rain and cold, they grew bigger and stronger in the greenhouse.

We planted some early cherry tomatoes under row covers in September in the hopes of Christmas tomatoes.

But the big tomato planting happened this week.

Peter used the tractor as a ladder to hammer in all of the stakes.

Our favoured technique of trellising the plants is called the San Diego Weave.  The weave uses twine to gently cradle each plant as it grows.  We move up and down the rows of plants weaving in and around plants and the wooden stakes through the field. Our hope is to support the plant and keep it away from soil borne diseases and fungi...and also make it easier to pick the delicious fruits. Here are the varieties we are growing this year: Marglobe - Old American heirloom variety popular in Italy. Large, deep red, juicy fruit. Excellent taste. Marglobe is the ancestor of many of today's hybrid tomatoes. Saint Pierre - French salad tomato. Round, good sized, renowned for it's super flavour. Principe Borghese - Small plum shaped fruit. Eat fresh in salad or dry for sun dried tomatoes. They also make outstanding oven roasted tomatoes. Roma - Plum tomato used primarily for sauce, but also good fresh. Scipio - Plum tomato ideal for sauces and cooking. Tommy Toe - Attractive medium sized red fruit. Tommy toe is a renowned great taster. Those that judge these things use words such as “complex”, “tight” and “oh! just so sweet!” to describe its flavour. Sun Gold - Exceptionally sweet, bright tangerine-orange cherry tomatoes. Yellow Pear - Petite, distinctive salad tomato. Black Cherry - The flavor is dynamic...much like an heirloom. Red Cherry - Small, round tomatoes with very good flavour Lemon Drop - Lemon shaped small fruits with a zesty sweet flavour. Wild Sweetie- Stephanie Alexander and other top chefs preferred this to Tommy Toe.  The world's smallest tomato is also the world's sweetest with a Brix level twice that of others.

Hoping for another bumper crop!