Wintertime activities on the farms

Moel Hebog from Mur Crusto. Click to enlarge.

We're at last experiencing some cold weather... well, relatively cold. We've had temperatures dropping to 0 Celsius once or twice and even a little ice on the ponds. Okay, that's not very cold but the mountains are snowy and the brisk north wind makes it feel cold.

As we're about to explain in a customer newsletter, paper version via the boxes, we don't at this stage know how long we can maintain full production. We normally close down by March or thereabouts simply because almost everything has run out. Some things are plentiful like Jill's carrots and parsnips - but she hates these because they're a devilish pair of crops to harvest in cold weather. The parsnips have especially deep roots and are reluctant to leave the ground. Happily, Jill is helped every Friday (harvest day) by Deo, one of our two volunteers. Trouble is, we don't know how we'd cope without our volunteers. At Mur Crusto, the polytunnel green leafy stuff is still looking reasonable though we have problems with mildews and tiny slugs. At least veg with holes in the leaves is proof that it's grown without pesticides!

Bry tipping barrowload of mulch around cleared base of a fruit tree. Click to enlarge.

Val and I have been tending the orchard at Mur Crusto, now that the trees are at last beginning to bear some fruit. This involves cleaning round the base of each tree with a Spanish tool called an azada and then mulching heavily with rotted wood chips. Jill says she's been having serious problems with voles undermining her trees and eating the roots. They hide very happily under certain mulches like straw or grass or any kind of matting but we're hoping wood chips will just collapse into their tunnels and put them off. Voles are quite a serious pest for us. They severely damaged our potato crop last summer for a start.

Winter or spring?

To find out the significance of the picture below, please visit my other blog! There, all will be revealed - and yes, it is Llangybi Organics news but I believe it bears a wider significance.

Celebrating the Solstice

Tonight is the longest night of the year. Today (21st) and tomorrow are the shortest days. Now this, in my opinion, is worth celebrating. So Val and I are opening a bottle of cava later this evening to drink in the real New Year; the astronomical new year. Why don't more people celebrate this truly significant event?

From now on, we'll be looking out for early signs of Spring and beginning to plan - with Jill and Mike - what crops we'll be sowing and when for your boxes and bags in 2007. Happy Solstice!

The ultimate recycler...

... is, of course, the compost heap. Our heaps - cylindrical because they're held in place by fencing net and old carpet - start off with almost everything biodegradable from the farm, including cardboard boxes. It's all about balancing the carbon:nitrogen content to achieve optimal effective decomposition. In fact, I don't bother too much with the details: much has been written on this topic. I just give the heaps plenty of time to decay. This one (first photo) I have dug out completely and dumped on next-year's brassica rotation beds, protected by a waterproof cover (leftover from the polytunnel construction 5 years ago) to prevent leaching by winter rains. It's excellent-looking stuff, well rotted and matured. I started the heap in March 2005 by which I mean I stopped adding stuff and covered it with carpet to start decomposing. You're supposed to turn the compost after a few weeks but, being lazy, I don't. Time seems to do the work for you.

Once the well-rotted stuff was out of its fencing net cylinder, I could close the latest heap. I first of all poke large holes all through the heap, top to bottom, using a heavy steel fencing bar. These holes will remain after the carpet covers are in place and allow oxygen to penetrate throughout the heap. Then I cover over the top with the old carpets (available from our local carpet shop, free of charge - they otherwise take them to the dump where they become non-recycled landfill) and lay old (also recycled, partly-rotted) fence posts on the top to stop the gales blowing off the cover. And that's it. One last thing is to write the date of closure on a plant label and attach it to the fencing net. That's how I know how old the compost is in each of the 5 heaps.

Oh yes, there are still weed seeds in the compost I make because I don't turn it as I should. So I find it easier to spread the compost in spring, rotavate it in and leave the seeds to germinate. Then I till it again a few weeks later, incorporating the sprouted weeds as green manure: yet another version of this lengthy exercise of recycling. What is really bothersome is that in any farming system, you are effectively 'mining' the soil. All the veg we sell to our customers is fertility lost to the system. Where does it all go? Down the sewers. Smelly waste? Well, umm, that's our fertility! There has to be a better way. Still, making compost helps redress the balance and, dear customers, if any of you cares to bring us compostable material which you don't want, I will gratefully add it to Mur Crusto's latest compost heap.

PS. Note to Val: Remember that nail brush you lost in early 2005? Well I found it... in the compost. Sorry, it wasn't recyclable. It was quite well rotted. I wonder if that lost pruning knife will turn up in the next lot of compost.

It must be Halloween!

Look what we found today in a wood just 15 minutes' cycle ride from Mur Crusto farm. And (below), just look at Jill's great Halloween pumpkin, on sale as an 'extra' in the Swallow House at Mur Crusto this weekend.

Happy packers in Mur Crusto kitchen

This post may not be very newsworthy but it does give you an up-to-date snapshot of a typical Friday's harvesting and packing.

Here's the workforce having tea after successfully finishing another packing and harvesting day. Deo, our wonderful and hard-working volunteer, is on the left. Val is standing and Jill seated.

The photo above is of all the packed bags neatly stacked, ready for collection by our customers. On the freezer are the 'extras' we offer each week. At present, these include tomatoes, apples and shiitake mushrooms but it changes each week.

Mur Crusto crops and Ty'n Lon tatws

I thought you'd like to see a couple of pictures, taken just a few minutes ago. We started harvesting leeks for the bags last week. They're doing very well and most are quite a decent size (picture, L). On the R are some of the polytunnel crops: lettuces, chard (on L) and fennel, the feathery stuff in the centre.

Our potato weekend went well, despite the lifter falling spectacularly to bits. Between about 5 of us, we reassembled it. We had several wonderful helpers: Bini and Hugh (singer extraordinaire), Arabella, Pat and John in addition to the four of us (Mike, Jill, Val, Bry). Even so, it took the best part of the weekend to pick and pack away the thousands of potatoes. I hope Jill will post some photos for you to see!