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Hopefully you had the opportunity to go along to the first Farmers and Foodies market last Friday. The market was alive and vibrant, with a selection of food and treats from local or regional producers. The Farmers and Foodies market was well supported by Queanbeyan and Canberra providing a great food connection. The Farmers and Foodies market is on each Friday starting from 3pm - 7pm.
This week on the farm....
We are planting more winter seedlings in the patch and continuing to work on the second market garden patch. We have the fence up to protect it from wildlife, cows, and pigs. We currently have the ladies (chickens), and turkeys in there scratching and fertilising the soil. We have started building Hugelkulturs, an old farming technique, used in Eastern Europe and Germany using wood debris. Most of our farm is filled with beautiful natural gums or native plant species. We have a large number of fallen twigs and branches that we've used in the hugelkultur. Our aim for these hugelkulturs is to slow down water run off, and mimic the nutrient cycle found in natural forests, soaking up moisture and releasing it slowly into the ground. We are currently putting together an information sheet about hugelkulturs, ready for you during compost awareness week (2-8 May) for those who are interested.
The farm is quite brown at the moment, we've had no significant rain in recent months. The paddocks are looking dry and fatigued. It makes planning tree planting a little difficult as we'd like to take advantage of a rain forecast instead of relying on hand watering.
We're getting ready for Taylor to head to Sweden. She'll be working at Ridgedale Permaculture Farm, learning from Richard Perkins an internationally regarded teacher, innovative farmer and Permaculture leader, and Yohanna Amselem who has specialised in perennial polycultures for extensive cropping. Ridgedale is accredited by the Permaculture Research Institute, and will teach Taylor keyline design, holistic management, agroforestry, on farm processing and regenerative design. All aspects that are important for our future on the farm.
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