Just a little knowledge.....

Hello Everyone,

Bob and I hope you are all very well and not thrown by the changes in the climate. We have no idea what we should be wearing…warm and sunny one day…snow the next! Mother Nature certainly is keeping us all on our toes.

A slight change with my exchange with you all this week as I will generalise the conversation. Suffice to say work continues in both the Freyja Walled Garden and Freyja Farm. We are continuing the reset on the farm and restoring the garden with much the same as last week’s message. All the social media is full of information and visuals. Go for it…Take a look and subscribe. 

This week, what I am to report belongs to all areas we garden. 

Mother Nature plays a huge part in how we farm and garden. What we would like to accomplish can be controlled by ourselves using the tools available.  For instance, we have polytunnels which help protect our growing crops. We use organic seaweed to feed the growing plants. We use bees and ladybirds to help and protect our plants. Mother Nature very often has a totally different plan! An instance being the unusually high temperatures last weekend and then snow and hail storms with hard frosts during the week. We then have to adapt by adding fleece to the crops to protect from freezing the leaves or simply opening all the doors and sides to the tunnels and greenhouses to cool them down. By putting waterproofs on to protect ourselves we can still work but stay dry. We erected a huge chicken pen to allow our girls to roam even with Avian Flu outbreaks. We have to work with Mother Nature, rather than against her.

Our approach to gardening is the ‘no dig’ (‘no till’ in America) method. This is exactly what it says on the tin…we do our utmost not to dig the soil. Occasionally we may have to, particularly when we start on new ground which is very compacted and full of clay. This we very rarely do. 

We do, though, hoe and I love to hoe, to be able to see a tidy line of leaves looking stunning against freshly hoed compost…a happy Ann. This also has the advantage of removing the tiny seedlings of unwanted growth, commonly known as weeds. 

Alongside the no dig method we also follow a ‘deep mulch’ system. Organic matter is placed on top of the growing beds, we use compost and wood chip. Occasionally we may use leaves and straw. At the start, when creating the growing bed, a very thick layer of compost is used and every now and then, between the change of growing crops, a fresh thin layer is placed onto the bed. Not only should the vegetables, fruit and herbs grow more successfully, the physical activity of gardening should be less intense. Watering should be less as mulching helps to retain water. It should be less labour intensive…less weeding. The organic matter provides many of the nutrients the plants need which creates a healthier plant. If your plant is healthy it has a much better survival rate if attacked by pests or sudden change in temperature. 

Following a no dig and deep mulch system, while taking full use of Mother Nature, is a perfect way to create and maintain the best soil. Soil, commonly known as ‘earth’ is sacred. Much has been written about how we have to ‘Save the Earth’ and we are doing our best to ‘save’ our part of the earth. We look after our soil. 

When Bob and I first started toiling on our land…my goodness, I look back now and think how hard we worked a decade ago, rotavating and digging, all for good tilth. We were clueless as to the damage we were doing to our earth, our soil. We got some crops, but my goodness, since converting to the approach we follow now, we have amazing, healthy, tasty goodies. When working then, we just didn’t realise that the soil was inactive and we were perpetuating the condition. We hardly ever saw a worm. Now? Soooo many worms. The worms and their friends drag down and combine the organic matter into the soil below. Organic matter is food for everyone below the ground. Once you start adding organic matter, the essential organisms gather to enjoy the feast.

Bob gives a great talk on Soil. He will give the breakdown of its components and how they work together. He tells how the www of the soil is busy busy busy creating the perfect environment for the roots below ground and the growth above. How the multitude of organisms below ground far out-number those above the ground by a gigantic amount. Read up on the “tinternet” for tons of information about the earth below. It is an incredible science. All we need to know is that we should take great care of it, feed it with organic matter then watch the transformation right before your very eyes. This Bob and I can confirm…our ground used to be grey, dull, crunchy and lifeless. Now we can say it is dark, soft, full of life and very giving. We are providing the food for the organisms and they in turn provide for us. 

(I am not going to even go down the road of carbon capture or water capacity, which is also very essential for sustaining our earth! More homework for you all I suppose. Sorry).

Bob and I have researched and followed courses enabling us to establish our gardening and farming methods. Our produce confirms that this is the way we wish to proceed. We also want to, not only care for what is happening below the ground, but we are also carers for what goes on above the ground. We care for the birds by not cutting the hedges during the nesting season. We take great interest in sustainable methods…if we cut a tree down we will replace it with even more trees. We save rain water. We reuse, recycle and do our best to reduce waste. We work and grow with the seasons. We do not use harmful pesticides.

We follow methods Bob and I were always going to use. These are tried and tested ways of growing, established for years and years. History tells us that there were mixed successes in farming, however, farmers did know how to grow food and still look after the soil using crop rotation plans. 

Then the Second World War. After the war food was needed and needed fast…something we hear regularly now…food security. Large equipment was being engineered and so was commercial pesticides who remembers ‘DDT’? (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, even sounds lethal). We do not think we should consider anything other than the pure food.

All of the above conditions we follow but, we also wanted everyone to have freedom from doubt and the knowledge that we do follow an environmentally friendly and sustainable route. Enter the Soil Association. 

The Soil Association is the largest certification scheme in the UK for Organic businesses. We registered the farm over a decade ago to be organically certified. So, for the past eleven years we have been an Organically Certified Farm. The Walled Garden was registered as soon as we learned the garden was part of the Freyja Project. On March 5th, the garden also became certified. The fact that both farm and garden are now organically certified, by the Soil Association, makes us happy as we know how rigorous the process is. We now hope that you, our readers, appreciate that the certificate offers high standards of animal welfare, that the environment is cared for and that the rules of law are all followed. But, more importantly, that good looking tasty food is grown.

YouTube

In this week’s YouTube episode Chef Alex visits us at the farm and cooks North Sea Squid with Pistachio and Parmesan. Unbelievably tasty!

Thanks for reading,

 Ann