Hi all,
Welcome back to Scrap Kitchen where I, Magda, take you through the process of my partner and I managing a farm while also trying to get a future farm sorted out. I’ll take you through the farming season; what we're getting up to and thinking about.
This episode is the seventh (I'm pretty sure) and I'm calling it Little Shoots (because I am soppy and it's spring).
I thought I'd start this episode with a bit of gratitude. One of my friends and I send a lot of voice notes backwards and forwards of things we're grateful for. Personally, I think it's a really great way to think about all that we have and not focus on what we don't have. It's a good way of identifying all the good shit, even within all the bad.
Here’s some of the stuff that I'm grateful for:
- of The Poor Prole's Almanac, which is a really great podcast.
- is doing an amazing podcast as well (also her newsletter's bangin’).
When I talked to my Partner’s Friend’s Girlfriend yesterday she told me about the nurses where she's working who are trying to unionize. She saw some real bullshit union-busting propaganda and thought of me. I love that I’m strongly associated with being pro-union. But more importantly, their whole hospital consortium is trying to Unionise, that's pretty amazing.
The Book recommendations I got from hanging out with people this week.
Mostly I'm grateful for the farm team, most of whom came back this year. This particularly feels amazing. To be working with the same people for a second year in a row.
Also for moving my body more than before.
We're really starting to kick off the farming season and it's great to feel my way back into all the stretching and moving and carrying that we have to do.
Current Farm Updates
The update for this year's farm is that people arrived!
We had the staff turn up on Thursday; talked them through the plan for the year. We also went over something called the Wheel of the Year which I'll probably talk about some other time. The whole team then took a tour around the farm and my partner and I showed them all the systems that we've been improving over the winter. All the signs we've been putting up and laminating!
Got a couple rounds of applause, yeah, no big deal. Were they sarcastic? Maybe. But also, you know you have a great team when they seem genuinely excited by a laminated sheet of harvest bin weights and a 5-S-ed tool tent.
This week we did lot of seeding a lot, a lot, of seeding. Within the last week we started Tomatoes, Aubergine and Peppers, which are kind of finicky. As seedlings go they're somewhat difficult. Something we're keeping a very close eye on them; their temperature, light and water. Mostly we don't want them to get ‘Leggy’.
Getting ‘Leggy’ is where a plant grows too tall too fast because it doesn't have enough sunlight. It’s reaching towards light and overextends itself. In turn, this stunts its growth for the rest of its life (so that's pretty bad).
Next week, the farm team will be in for three days but my partner and I are in for the whole week. We're going to be doing more seeding, lots of flowers need to be started. Just like Solanaceae (tomatoes, aubergine etc), flowers are quite intricate in how they need to be seeded. But in new and interesting ways. Just another layer of complexity for the diversified vegetable farm. Some of them need to be stratified which is to be left in moist soil, in the cold for up to 6 weeks. Some need direct sunlight (so not to be buried at all). Some need very specific temperatures. All very intricate.
But also amazing, to see all these trays of plants growing already. Ones that we're going to put in the ground and eventually feed to people (in like six to eight weeks). It also feels like we're finally back doing what we love doing. Yay spring!
The plan for next week is also to be doing a lot of bed prep. This is where we prepare our no-till blocks for planting. Our blocks are 100 feet by 100 feet. This is divided into 20 beds each 30 inches wide and 100 feet long. The beds are separated by a 30-inch pathway which is covered in wood chips. On the beds themselves we put compost (when necessary) and other fertility down (e.g. certain rocks (Basalt) or Alfalfa Pellets).
To prep a bed we take out any weeds that are growing and we churn up the top inch (maximum!) of soil. Sometimes we need to aerate the beds which means we use a Broadfork, imagine a normal fork but massive. It has lots of tines, which when you stand on it are pushed into the earth, this brings air into the lower soil and helps with soil health. We also need to lay down lots of new wood chips and make sure all of our beds are mostly straight. Eugh obsession with straightness. But also it helps when you're running a farm (quite hard work) if plants are in straight lines especially when you're weeding. If you can just walk in a straight line down the row and pull a weeding tool (scuffle/stirrup hoe etc.) behind you it's a lot easier than wiggling in and out of plants. The only time I will be like, ‘woo, straightness’.
We’ve got a lot of that coming up.
And it's really exciting.
It's really, really good.
We will also be seeding things directly into the ground next week. So that's some carrots and some turnips and radishes. It truly spring once you're seeding stuff outside.
Future Farm Updates
My partner and I have been working on the business plan. We've got some of it done, some of our history and some of our vision. This week we'll be working on more of it.
The process is bringing up a lot of interesting questions about what our ultimate aims are with the farm. Why do we want to do stuff. Or even what we want to do. It’s pretty vital to talk over.
So that's all we're really doing at the moment.
Heavy hectic week. I mean it's heavy time in general but there are good small bits of light in between it all.
I hope you all have a great week. I hope all of this makes sense and if it doesn't shout at me in the comments.
Okay, bye,
See you next week.
M
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If you missed the last update, read it here.
Ep.7-Little Shoots