Pigs Clearing Land

Hello Everyone,

Thank you to all our lovely customers who came to Jesmond Food Market last Saturday. It was really good to catch up with your news – Bob and I thank you for all the fab comments regarding your organic pork and vegetable deliveries. We realise we are a small local provider, but we still want to be able to deliver a good produce and a good service. It is always great to have a ‘pat-on-the-back’……we all need one of them! So, thank you.

Bob is still concentrating on our ‘no-dig’ beds. Quite a few of the beds have already been seeded with carrots and spring onions for instance. This is alongside our over wintering produce. I am still concentrating on sowing seeds in the greenhouse, today it will be more brassicas. Greenhouse number two (Greenhouse one is almost full) will have to be warm and ready to fill due to the huge number of seed trays being filled.

But, we still concentrate on caring for our animals.

The ducks took up ice skating this week….the pond froze!

The chickens will soon be laying eggs again (fingers crossed). Our organic chickens really do free range. They do have homes to go to at night, but the rest of the time they wander around the Orchard Field (and sometimes the garden which annoys her indoors!). We do not have extra lighting in the chicken houses and it is the light which aids in the making of eggs. So, as the daylight increases, so will the egg production.

As soon as we have eggs, you will have the eggs back on the list.

The pigs have been working for us……..

Bob and I have increased our growing area four fold. This is to help grow even more of organic fruit and vegetables, as our number of customers is increasing rapidly. Those of you who have read about, or seen on Instagram, we have been moving our pigs during the day to clear areas in readiness to plant, we are using the pigs again.

We do have a paddock area. This area has never really been used as we would like to keep some ‘wild and natural’ parts to our little farm. However, we have begun to move some pigs into a cordoned off area within the paddock. They are brilliant at clearing scrub and grass. It is a win-win. They enjoy rooting and we have clean land!

The cleaned area is then to be covered with tarpaulin which will have small holes. The small holes are going to be filled with strawberry plants. The strawberry plants are new runners from our pre existing strawbs. We are creating a new strawberry patch. The old patch is going to be used as another outside growing area…..as I said, we are increasing our organic vegetable growing area some four fold.

It is never to old to learn. Bob and I have enrolled on an on line course for the no-dig approach we are following. We are also going down South this weekend for a course on the no-dig approach. The on line course is delivered by a French Canadian and slightly different to the British guy we will be visiting on Saturday. We are cherry picking all the bits we think are ideal for us up North.

We are following Jean-Martin Fortier and Charles Downing. Guess who is the French Canadian?

We will update you on our course next week, till then, have a great week,

Ann