Champion chooks keep count

Week two at Imago Forest and I’m really starting to settle in. The chooks are getting used to me and have stopped pecking me quite as much! This week they have laid fantastic amounts of eggs…and I feel quite proud!

Monday we collected Paul from Singleton who is coming to help us on the farm for a few days. We get stuck right in and sow a bed Monday afternoon and I’m pleased to find I remember enough from last week to be able to explain to Paul the reasoning behind the planting patterns we use in the Mandala Garden.

Tuesday the weather is perfect and we plan to plant 36 trees in the newly cleared orchard area. Morning is spent grafting several types of apple tree to root stock…Julian cuts and joins each piece in a clever fashion which will hopefully ensure successful grafting, while Paul and I use grafting tape to bind and label each new tree…Cox’s, James, Sauvages and Esopus etc all heritage varieties. After some hard digging by Paul and Julian, and once again the mixing in of lime and dolomite, the gentleman kindly allow me the best job of planting the trees! Our production line works well and we finish just in time to quickly admire our day’s work before dark falls.

Wednesday, Julian and Paul head off with the deliveries while I remain on the farm. Perra follows me around as I see to the chickens and collect the morning’s 15 eggs…that’s my girls! With some time to sit I add to and alter our farm operations flow chart as we keep having brainwaves on how to better it, and we can see how it’s developed in just one week. Following this I do my first small stock count in the Mandala Garden and realise I need a lot more practice at recognising what’s what! The cool of the afternoon is spent planting 2 more new beds, and this time I do one on my own…cant wait to see if it turns out well…I did put a lot of love into each and every seed!

Thursday arrives, not a cloud in the sky and another day ahead of us in the newly created orchard. We rake up all the grass from the clearing, put a good amount of manure around each tree leaving space around the trunk, and then cover the manure with straw for protection. A job well done, the orchard now looks like a mass of huge nests with sticks sticking up in the middle! After a day in the sun we shower, relax, read our books and look back over what we’ve achieved this week.

Hannah Parsons

Hello from Mount Royal! My name is Hannah and I'm currently up here at Imago Farm, working with Julian through the WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) programme. As a complete novice in the field of biodynamics I'm looking forward to learning about the various levels to the work Julian does here on the farm, from the day to day schedule through to the thought and theory behind the concept of the Mandala Garden. So for a few months I'll be helping plant, nurture and harvest the produce you receive...and I hope it's all to your satisfaction!

Each morning since arriving here on 2nd September, the first thing on the agenda has been to tend to the chooks. Day one Julian showed me how to feed, water and collect and clean eggs which has become my first small responsibility on the farm. It's been my first experience with chickens so I'm still getting used to getting pecked!

Day 2 the weather wasn't so good and we found ourselves concealed by a cloud being so high up. We put our minds to writing an operations flow chart (a work in progress) and I began to get a pretty good idea of all the work needed to run the farm each day of the week. As I hand made bread baked in the oven, I learnt some of the theory surrounding the Mandala garden, in particular guild planting and its advantages.

Wednesdays are delivery days so we awoke early to pack the fruit and vegetable boxes before the chance of any sun. We weighed each item according to the order sheet and arranged the fresh produce into labelled boxes ready to deliver. Julian explained how it can be useful to do a stock count of the remaining produce for help with our orders later in the week. Boxes packed and loaded onto the ute we set off to Singleton, amazing views to both the left and the right.

Day 4, Thursday and we take the opportunity in the finer weather to spread some lime and dolomite over the Mandala Garden to sweeten the soil. Julian teaches me about soil acidity and how using these two materials can improve the availability of nutrients and thus the growth of our fruit and veg...so hopefully the hard work has been worth it! We relax for a much needed lunch and then head out again to move my first chook dome. Again I learn more about soil preparation and how the chickens fertilise and scratch, partly cultivating the earth for us.

The day ends with the much anticipated sowing of a bed...first we do a little cultivation and Julian explains how he tries to cultivate shallowly to prevent soil compacting underneath. We then sow a nice mix of asian greens, zucchini, coriander and others, and I see guild planting in action as we sow in radishes between our other vegies which will be the the first to be ready. We should see our first shoots in about 2 weeks which will be extremely satisfying for me, and eventually I'll have seen my first cycle from sowing to harvesting and delivering to your door!

Farm sitters

Thank you to the wonderful farm sitters, who looked after the chickens and watered the seedlings while I was away! Without them I would not have been able to have my all too brief break from the farm. On my return I found the chickens in high spirits and the garden looking healthy after four inches of rain.

Unfortunately, the warmer weather has made most of the plants go to flower, reducing the harvest. However on the positive side, there are many self-sown baby bok choy coming up.

It's actually the most difficult time of year as it is not warm enough for most of the warm weather crops (tomatoes, eggplants, corn etc) to go in yet but the cool weather crops are bolting.

As Jackie French says, wait till you can sit comfortably on the ground with a bare bum before planting! In the meantime i'll be raising seedlings under cover.

Aotearoan magic

Spending a fortnight in New Zealand has been a great experience -- personally and professionally. I visited NZ's most acclaimed organic farmer, Tony Mallard and got to chew his ear about how he farms. He now has 18 acres of deep, finely structured rich topsoil that looks good enough to eat and he puts it down to compost. So even in NZ where they have soil that we could only dream about, compost is still the key!

Painting with Poo

Ha Haa!
My sister called me and asked what i was up to... quite truthfully i answered that i was painting poo on trees.

To explain, I was painting Biodynamic treepaste onto the trunks and branches of the recently pruned fruit trees. The tree paste is made up of fresh cow pats, sand or diatomaceous earth and potting clay or bentonite.

The idea behind it is to seal wounds from the previous year and from the pruning. It also provides a nourishing "cream" for the plant in this season's growth.

Rudolph Steiner said that "the trunk of a tree can be likened to an elongated mound of Earth, upon which plants (leaves) grow." So the tree paste carries out a similar function to compost spread on the ground.

Pruning the Fruit Trees

Well, it was well and truly time to prune the fruit trees by the time we got out there with the secateurs. The peaches and nectarines had their leaves starting to show already... naughty naughty!

So we sharpened the secateurs, and went to each of the trees and cut it back to vase shape. It seems a bit drastic cutting off so much material, but the theory goes that you set the shape in the early years, and reap the benefits in the future. I'm after a vase shape here to maximise fruit on each tree. Whereas a central leader shape maximises fruit production per area (if you pack in lots of trees). Also a vase will work better with the domes that come in quite close.

Paul and I kept the "scion" wood that we cut in readiness for grafting it onto rootstock when it arrives.

Tipi

In preparation for setting up the tipi, the poles which were cut from saplings in the forest, were sanded back and oiled up.

Then Paul and I set about creating a flat spot to put the tipi on. In a couple of days, we accomplished with great satisfaction what a bulldozer probably would have done in about ten minutes!

The tipi from Rainbow Tipis arrived a couple of days later and i couldn't help myself, but i had to unpack it all. After getting instructions over the phone, i raced over to the tipi site and set up the poles. It was hairy setting it up on my own as the poles are tall and quite heavy!

The next morning, i thought i could tie the poles better so i took it down and set it all up, including the skin in time for breakfast in the new tipi!

Of course it rained that same day so i got a chance to try out the rain shield.

Perra was a bit nervous of the whole thing, but i encouraged her in. I was going to sleep in their but didn't want to risk a bad night's sleep with a talk I was giving at the Healthy Living Expo the next day.

I did sit and admire it for a while from across the lake and saw the swallows flitting and soaring around it and just occasionally right into it.