What a glorious summer day on the farm. Today Ian, Steve and Jacqui harvested mugwort, nettle and borage. The borage was amazing and just hummed with the millions of bees all amongst it . Shame they are not ours as the honey would be amazing. We are going to establish some hives next year and will be attending a biodynamic bee keeping course. Made quite a few litres of assorted tinctures, just as well as it's herbalists open day in a few weeks, our first ever open day !
Well, not too much work done today, aside from some weeding. We packed that up mid afternoon to join the fabulous party that Dawn & Mark throw every year. People camp and it goes on till the early hours. There are bands and a DJ and an open mike for anyone who wants to have a go at entertaining. Steve was a hit with his slide guitar! Off to give a talk now to the Embody group, they want to know all about the work we do at the herb farm !
Today, some of the gang started harvesting the limeflowers. Now for any of you that have tried this, it's a very time consuming job, quite fiddly, but relaxing none the less. Amazing smell. Only trouble is that the flowers are so light that you need loads to make just 1 litre of tincture, that's why it's a little pricey! But we think your worth it !
Pressed out our Elderflowers tincture today and omg it was totally amazing, even though we do say so ourselves. We also made dome roman chamomile tincture and that too was rather excellent. Can't wait for you herbs to taste these tinctures we are making!
Well, today was all about Hawthorn really. It's out early this year, so trying to get as much as we can. Some people don't really care for the smell of the flowers, but these were so fragrant and the structure of the flowers are so beautiful when you see them up close.
Also found some Lamium album, so we tinctured that too ! It was a great bank holiday weekend and we got tons done, so roll on to the next one!!!
Continuing in this glorious weather, today's activities were mainly building work on the straw bale roundhouse, a bit of digging in the herb field and rescuing the feverfews that were damaged in the incredibly wet months at the beginning of the year. We lost a few things to the wet, so will have to replace them, which means reduced yields of those herb tinctures. But, that's the weather for you. Nature has informed us that raised beds are the way to go so that's what we are doing.
A big shout out to all friends and family for the spontaneous assistance in moving and carrying all the wood for the roundhouse, including the youngsters.
At 2 o'clock, work ceased, and the play commenced, with family and friends. There was an Easter Egg Hunt for the youngsters, and much sitting around chatting, eating, drinking and generally chilling to the Reggae playlist put together by Steve and Jacqui!
Today in the sweltering heat, most of the team worked on the structure of the wooden roundhouse. Much sawing and preserving of wood. Everyone is getting very coloured by the sun.
Jacqui subjected herself the the heat of the polytunnel, whilst pricking out some more seedlings. Why pay money for an expensive health spa??? Just come into the polytunnel and sweat off some excess weight !! She could only stand it for about an hour, and then went off to start the Hawthorn harvest, with some help from friend Jo. Hawthorn is very early this year due to this magnificent weather, in fact we think a lot of things are goiing to be early, we have already looked at the elderflower and it won't be too long if this weather keeps up !
Mark, Ian and Steve continued with the barn floor with the help of Jo. It was time for spreading concrete type mix onto compressed hardcore base and levelling it. Its looking good and now we have to wait for it to dry before sand and slabs go down.
Jacqui spent her time in the polytunnel with her seedlings in the intense heat, but enjoyed herself very much, playing assorted tunes to the plants via her I phone!
Big shout out to Jo for refreshments and Jacqui for late lunch/early dinner and home made hot cross buns!
Yup...more dirt. Steve learnt to drive the dumper truck. Mark, Ian & Steve fiddled with clutch on said dumper truck (blokey stuff...blah blah clutch cables). Endless trips, transporting dirt from barn floor to a big pile to build a raised bed somewhere. Towards late afternoon, once the floor had been dug out to required depth, hardcore was required !
Jacqui played with the mugwort!
Today, work on the barn floor commenced. It had been too wet, even in early March to attempt this, but as things have dried out sufficiently its all go!
Mark was on digger duty and Ian drove the dumper truck and Steve dug out the awkward bits that the digger could not reach with his own fair hands.
It was quite funny because Steve did his digging from a kneeling position, so when you came round the corner and saw him in the barn, it looked as though he had dug down to Australia !!
It was very much manly blokey type work...so we left them to it. Dawn & Jo did the refreshment bit and as usual Jacqui played with the herbs !
No rest on a Sunday, despite S & J not rising from their slumbers due to the clocks going forward, work eventually got under way. More planting and more pricking out. It was a tad warm in that polytunnel! Today Jacqui pricked out Borage, Calendula and Plantago and had some little helpers in the form of some very nice kids! A big shout out to Zac for filling up my watering can and helping with some pricking out. Good fun had by all, a very sociable day with lots of visitors. Mark & Steve set up a watering tank in the polytunnel, which sure makes watering easier! Day ended with a fantastic sunset..Bliss!!
Arrived at the farm today and it was a little overcast. Steve & Jacqui had managed to propagate 38 raspberry canes from their home stock, for our raspberry leaf tincture. But then a lovely suprise came in the form of lots of white willow and wild cherry plants that had been donated to Dawn and Mark. They were delighted to know that these were of medicinal value and so Steve and Mark set too planting all these wonderful free plants. They planted a 100ft bed! Meanwhile in the polytunnel...pricking out seedlings commenced.
Today was planting up a very large bed with nettles that we had dug up from elsewhere on the farm and comfrey. We are trying to fill a large 100ft bed and have thus far managed about a third of it. Still its good to see the plants in at last, since we made a vow not to let that bed go over to weeds like we did last year (it was all a bit too much ) and we forgot to mulch it, but hey...you live and learn!
We raised the level of some of our beds due to waterlogging and when I say waterlogging I mean sump like and squishy like a big old sponge !! We were amazed that the plants survived, but they are a hardy lot. Still , it gave us a chance to divide up our balsamita plants and planted up most of another bed from the divisions. Then it was back to the homestead for hearty grog !
We've invented a new olympic sport.... Extreme Rotavating !!
Basically this requires, 1 man and 1 rotavator and some ploughed up land from last autumn.
Put said man and rotavator on land , fire up the beast of a rotavator and off they go.... lumps and bumps and everything flying everywhere. We were amazed at how many passes it took to level ploughed up lumpy land into something you could actually stick plants in. Kudos to Mark & Steve , who performed this amazing feat (Jacqui & Dawn being a bit too much like girlies and unable to master this brute of a task)!
Dawn, Steve & Mark did some raising of bed levels due to extreme waterlogging and quite a bit of mulching. Thats all folks, no really ... not much to report !!!