Hello friends,
The first thing we’d like to share is that we are having a Spring Plant Sale on 26 April, and we’d love to see you there. Expect loads of ready-to-go plants, grown in the polytunnels by our team, with loads of different varieties of vegetables, flowers, herbs, and ornamentals on offer. There will also be some music, beers and good vibes for anyone who’d like to pop along and say hi.
On the farm we’ve been feeling the itch to get our fields ready, so the team has been doing some final winter clean-up and getting the land ready for planting green manures in the areas we had produce in last year. Our neighbour Sam, who we’re collaborating with this year, has been getting loads of the fields ready for our new-season crops, too.
As we have been getting loads of compost delivered, we’ve been thinking a lot about fertility and especially about biodynamics. The main difference between organic and biodynamic, as we see it, is that organic certification regulates what you can use on the farm, whereas biodynamic takes into account the whole ecology system of the farm. We haven’t got our biodynamic certification yet but working towards it, and using lots of biodynamic practices already.
Part of our biodynamic approach is using different 'preparations' that we apply at different times of year – using herbal ingredients like yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion, and valerian; the idea behind these is that, in the same way you use a sourdough starter to begin making a loaf of bread, these contain valuable microorganisms like fungi and bacteria to boost the nutrients in the soil. We’ll soon be applying the first of our biodynamic preparations for the year, 500.
Preparation 500 getting mixed and ready for application
There are various different ones, but 500 (also known as horn manure) is the preparation that you apply at the beginning of the season. It is pretty labour intensive - you have to stir and activate the solution with natural rainwater, essentially activating the energy in the water and bringing all the organisms to life. You then apply it onto your fields to bring the soil to life, and we have quite a lot of land that we are using our preparation on so will be doing it in several parts, but the first application was done this week in some of our agroforestry fields and it feels exciting to have taken the first step towards a fertile and fruitful year.
