Posted on Wed, Oct 28, 2009
It's a massive day for me tomorrow, it's half term and just at the same time I get contacted and told that the John Deere tractor I put a deposit on in Bristol is ready to be viewed with the stone burier... It's the first time I've bought such a thing and I really excited. It's still not going to be a done deal until tomorrow but either way it's a big step in the right direction. I bought all the materials today to build a lean to on the lorry body which will provide the shelter needed for the tractor if/when it arrives.
This week has been, I feel, quite a progressive and rewarding week. I produced a little leaflet for the dinning rooms earlier under the advice of Andrew Edmond (one of the current Directors) at the college. It's illustrated and contains some text from me about the my pick of the week vegetables, and Cilla has added a recipe for the back page so the students can cook some of what she is making at home... Next time we'll put a beetroot and chocolate recipe in there, very nice :o)
The first group of 1st year Biodynamic course students will be moving on after next week, it's been great having such a nice and willing group to work with to start so the others have something to live up to.. . . . . I'm hoping that we can do some fun stuff next week as a large group like coppice and pruning work. Cilla has also suggested that we can peel and core apples for her, as these jobs take a long time and it'll mean we get more apple crumbles, a good way to persuade anyone. It is hard however to organize these groups of students, this one is 6 and has a range of abilities and experiences, so finding the right people for the right job sometimes a challenge as you never want to send the same people to do the same sorts of things everyday. Hopefully working on the fruit bushes and in the woods will create more of a learning opportunity for everyone.
Posted on Sat, Oct 24, 2009
I'm really getting stuck into the parsnips now in the garden, you get a strong sense of winter when they start to come out of the ground, dirty, covered in mud but smelling very very sweet... But once we carry them up to the storage unit, cut the tops and wash them, they are transformed into something else; a sweet smelling, beautiful white vegetable that you can eat all winter and warms your belly.... I'm looking forward to Cilla (our chef) making something great out of this biodynamic produce soon. The cabbages are also coming on well, some of the later ones we planted are getting gobbled by the pigeons but just as long as they stick to those i'll let them be... if not then all the brassicas will have to be covered up with fleece, and the garden won't look as inviting as it does at the moment. We are having raw cabbage in the salads and steamed as a vegetable with our meals at the moment. It's a great winter warmer and as the winds and rain draw at this time of year it'll help to keep us all warm and healthy.
The Biodynamic Agriculture Training 1st years have been away on their farm tour this week so I've not been having much help in the garden. Most of the jobs I couldn't really start, knowing that there will be 5 students coming to help in the afternoons makes me find other jobs that i can do more independantly. So i helped in the estate cutting some trees down that were blocking light and made a start on the coppice project near westwood.
All the apples have been picked from around the campus, Colyn, Martin (another Biodynamic Course 2nd Year), Anne Marie (the grounds guardian) and myself finished off the last of the trees on Friday.
Oh and theres one other small thing that happened this week, I put a deposit down on a new/second hand tractor. Its a John Deere 955 with a loader and forks and it'll come with a stoneburier. I'm fairly excited about getting it all sorted and really hoping to get it delivered to the college by December, all being well. It's taken a lot of research and time to find one and I finally spotted it an managed to make a deal, once i've visited it in Bristol and checked it all out i'll be giving them the final cheque, they will deliver it to the college which is great because I didn't fancy driving it from Bristol to Sussex....
Posted on Tue, Oct 20, 2009
Something not so great happened on Monday, I found our Drake had passed away, he had become rather unwell over the weekend but passed on Sunday evening. Unfortunatly one of the harsh realities of working on the land is the way of life and death, I was fairly sure there was nothing I could do to save him as he was getting weak quickly, you just have to let go of things somethimes even if it doesn't please you. The other two ladies are doing fine, they seem a little confused about where their boss is but other than that they just seem happy to be getting fed and not bossed around too much.
I'll see how the winter goes with the other two and decide in spring if I need to get another male, it doesn't seem right to have such an imbalance in the flock, it would be normal if there is at least one male with the females. I was also hoping that we might get a breeding pair and some chicks in the spring and this won't happen if theres no Drake. So i'll have to make a decision in the early part of next year about our bird stocking quantites....
Posted on Fri, Oct 16, 2009
If anyone is interested in buying some of our home made organic jam made with biodynamic red currants please email me for details
robert.tilsley@emerson.org.uk
Its a simple jam, just red currants, sugar and water, cooked down to a good consistancy, it's an ideal spread for toast and lovely with Camembert grilled with breadcumbs, or even on pancakes.
We are asking £2.50 for a 1lb jar and the shipping will be quoted when you place an order.
Posted on Sat, Oct 10, 2009
We have moved the Carson Garden blog site. It makes sense to keep all of the college enterprises under the same umbrella, and it makes for better management.
This week has certainly been full. After 3 days of rain we get a break in the weather on Thursday allowing the students to get some more of the onions and garlic planted. I've realized now (after planting 3 beds) that we have a few too many onion sets. It doesn't make sense to plant too many as we still have the spring sets to plant and if they all went in there wouldn't be room in the rotation for much else. We also have one bed of garlic planted and once the first row of courgettes are out then the next row of garlic will go in. It's exciting to see that the first lot of onion sets I planted a couple of weeks ago are starting so show signs of the first shoots coming.
As well as the planting marathon we are also dealing with a harvest marathon. The carrots have all been dug up now. It's a funny process: first you dig them up, then you top them and put them in sacks, and then you put them all in the ground again. When you are storing carrots it's best to keep them in dark, cool and damp conditions. If you don't dig them up they tend to get damaged by either slugs or the carrot root flies. And if they aren't affected by either of these they will start to grow again and become woody and less flavorsome. Once they are all dug up we take the leaves off, leaving about 1cm of the top. They are then put into sacks and placed into a hole in the ground which is lined at the bottom with a layer of straw, this helps with the drainage. When they're all in the ground we put another layer of straw over the sacks and cover with the earth we dug out. We pulled out 110KG of carrots for storage in this way, including everything else we've harvested this year, it means we grew about 250KG of carrots this year, not bad for the first year.
Yesterday I did some work with the chainsaw around the college, one of the jobs was to make a hole in the hedge between the Rachel Carson Centre and the Biodynamic Garden. It's the time to start doing such work because the sap is leaving the trees so you are not likely to damage the trees permanently. Although in this case we will need to stop some from growing back. The hole has been put in so we can install a gate. There was a general feeling amongst people that having a window into the carson garden would help to draw people to it. I also started to do some work in the woods in West wood, an area of woodland owned by the college. The student body at the college has been asking for more wood for the clay oven we have, as well as wood for the fire inside Pixton. I did some work pulling out old logs and cutting down dead branches to help and hopefully start a stream of wood coming to the college. I have some larger plans for maintaining the coppiced Hazel in the woods but need to read up some more on how to maintain them correctly so as not to cause any damage to this beautiful piece of woodland the college owns.
The ducks are still fine, although I did loose them on Tuesday. I went to put them away and discovered that they were nowhere to be seen. I got quite a shock from that, obviously they turned up again otherwise I wouldn't be writing this. It dawned on me that actually I am attached to them already, which wasn't really meant to happen. And to top it off, we spent Wednesday afternoon pulling off slugs and caterpillars from the brassica. They are getting a bit confused about there role now. They're eating the Cavello Nero more than the slugs at the moment. I'm not sure how to address this one but rest assured, when I know I'll write it down.
Posted on Mon, Oct 05, 2009
The new
Biodynamic Agriculture Training students at Emerson College have started to work with me now. They have a rota running over the two terms and I have a different group every four weeks. Its great to have a regular group again, we'll be able to get some great things done.
I've been anticipating their arrival, planning which jobs we'll do and how to work with groups of 5-6 people who sometimes have minimal experience but other times have a great deal. All the winter jobs are mounting up and I have plans to clear some more beds and plant more onions and garlic before the winter sets in. And we have lots of Globe Artichokes we started from seed that will go into the ground soon too (thankfully Arjen Huese, the course leader, rotavated a couple of strips with his new tractor and stone burier) so I have some great freshly prepared beds for the artichokes.
Having said all this, and made all the plans, the weather today decides that it's had enough of the sunshine and blue skies and that we are long over due a good old heavy down pour all day. This makes the ground sodden and non-workable for at least the next 24 hours.
So what do you do with 5 keen students who want to get their hands dirty and who all seem eager to help out with the community in any way they can?
Some quick thinking was required...
Well, I had a couple of hundred jars of jam that needed cleaning and labelling, some potting on of herbs to do, and we harvested the remainder of the squash in the field, all done by 4pm!!
What a group! It's quite amazing what you can achieve when the work force is increased by 5 times.
It's starting to dawn on me now that this winter really will be a time that we should cover much ground.... weather permitting :o)
Happy gardening all!
Posted on Thu, Oct 01, 2009
The ducks are well settled now and have been treated like Kings and Queens for the past week or so... they have a freshly filled pond and have had free reign in the garden (and particularly the compost heaps) for a while now. So I decided it was about time I put them to work. The fence has been moved, as has their house, into the area where we grew the beans and brassicas.
I noticed this morning that the slugs where becoming a bit of a problem in the cabbages, thats what inspired me to move the animals, so I got them to start doing what they were brought here to do..