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Monday, November 19, 2007

new farm

Well, summer has arrived here in ONC*. Two days in a row around 33 degrees - following on from a fairly warm Saturday. The shade cloth got put up on the pergola this afternoon to keep the sun off the lower parts of our wonderful full length northern windows. This creates an instantly cool, dark outside room, and makes a huge difference to how hot the house gets during the day.

At the new farm, I have been experimenting with my big pile of worm castings. I have dug a trench into the old sawdust (stable waste) and filled it with castings. This I planted with runner beans, which have all sprouted, are lovely dark green and nothing is eating them too much (unlike the previous pea seedlings). Watermelons are up, Rock melon is up, Pumpkin is up as are the Cucumbers. I wondered how things would go growing in neat worm castings, but so far so good. For those of you who don't know, the new farm is my new extended veggie garden in the making up the road at an agistment farm. There is lots and lots of work to do, bringing this huge patch of depleted sawdust spread out over a paddock to life, but having a commercial worm farmer next door certainly helps!

I have been reading Charles Walter's book "Eco-Farm, and just loving it. It is on loan from the biggest hippy, but I think it might be one I need to have beside the bed for a long long time.


If you are ready for the mysteries of plants, eco farming, soil biology, production of chemical free, nutrient dense food and the like, this might be just right for you too!

* Our Nation's Capital

1 comment:

DianeSchuller.com said...

Thanks for mentioning this book. I'm going to see if our library has it or if they'll bring it in for me! That's right up my alley.

Cheers,
Diane at Sand to Glass
& Dogs Naturally