March 2025
In the propagation tunnel the weak March sunshine feels ten times warmer. I open the heated bench and check the tomatoes, chillies, celery and assorted flowers.
Torrin spends the dry days on the massive task of infrastructure. This last winter saw us lose three tunnels, old though they were. With one already down and two to move, that means we’re starting the season with far too many tunnels down and uncovered. This next month will hopefully see to that. With any luck we’ll cover at least six this spring with another two in the year to follow. We’re investing quite a bit in battening these tunnels down with professional help. Actual skilled tradesmen to cover and build them rather than just ourselves muddling along. Partly this is because we have young children and can’t afford the days and days of time away from them that this would take, and partly because the winter storms and summer winds are now so strong we need to ensure we’re doing all we can to protect the tunnels from weakness.
We’re talking a lot about changing things, in small ways and in big ways. We’d like to put in agroforestry rows into the growing fields, breaking them into rotational blocks and hopefully calming the winds that hurry across the wide open fields flattening beans and peas and harassing the courgette plants. It would also give us blackcurrants, aeronia berries, tayberries and raspberries, hopefully for sale but likely just for the kids for a few years until they establish. We’re expanding how many legumes we put in our rotation, more broad beans, more peas, sugar snaps and French beans. We’re looking at investing in a little more machinery to make time in the field more efficient. Mulching and composting more. And on it goes, the endless list of improvements, the endless list of ideas. I suppose if there are more peas available in the summer you’ll know if we succeeded or not!
Most of you will also know we’ve also been renovating a large property opposite to the farm shop on site. It used to be a mill a few hundred years ago, but its more recent iterations were as a cow shed and then it fell into disrepair about twenty years ago. But we recently completed the first phase, replacing the two levels of roof and hanging the mezzanine in one end, and the second floor in the other. We’re hopeful that it will be the next step on the farm, a café and event space with a yoga studio and co-working area. We want it to be a community space, friendly, adaptable, affordable. Designed around what everyone needs it to be, rather than what we think it should be.
It might take a year or so, it might take a bit longer, but those are enough plans for now. Back to the compost for now, and pushing seeds in to the earth.
