PermOrganics Blog

18/11: Sunshine!!!

Hi all,

had a busy week and for once I feel I've achieved something, rather than being stuck indoors.
I think the launch of the CSF went really well, the people that came seemed to have a good time and we have several names down for the next get together. Everyone ate well too! The Chron took some pictures so at some point there will something in the paper about the day.
We have managed to get the polytunnel pretty much ready for planting into now, just a bit more tidying up to do.
Zarnia and I planted 9 trees the other day, between showers of rain, so tht at least has made a start!
Today has been lovely, I've managed to get 3 tyre towers planted up with strawberries, planted out 1 bag of onions and made the chickens an extended run so they can come out without being able to pull up the onions.

Soon to start on the garlic!

Blessings

Kwizxi

11/11: MUD MUD MUD

Hello all,

I'm afriad I don't have a great deal to report, due to all the rain and mud :o(

The shop is looking great and is stocked with lots of exciting new goodies, so come and have a nosey ;o) It's open Tuesday to Saturday, 10-5.
We have a busy weekend coming up, an evening with Bob Folwerdew on Saturday, followed by our Harvest Lunch Gathering on sunday, we really are hoping and praying that this event is a success, we have advertised it quite well I think, and so long as people turn up it'll be a great afternoon. If we get people sign up to the CSF it gives us the stability of trade for the coming season, and it also gives our customers a fixed price and quality of food all year. We've also got meat shares available, which i think will go down well.

Today Dawn and I plan to start cleaning the polytunnel, ready for sowing winter salads into, we haven't had anything for the restaurant for a few weeks now, so need to get growing.
We also are in desperate need of getting the garlic planted!!! Any willing helpers much appreciated, as we have 8 kilos of it to plant.

Please keep fingers and toes crossed for better weather so we can stop hiding indoors.

Oh...we've been accepted to be a WWOOF host! Our details should be online soon....very exciting!

Blessings

Kwizxi

05/11: Back from our brief hols

Hi everyone,

sorry it's been a while, we've been off in sunny glastonbury. Actually I think the weather was much better there than it has been at home, judging by the mud we returned to! We have had a well earned rest, I treated myself to some rather awesome shamanic healing, and generally spent lots of time relaxing.

Our garlic is here, so we'll be looking for willing helpers to get all 8kg of it planted over the next month.
Today Dawn and I have been re-arranging the shop, and we also got the 1st delivery from Suma today, the 1st successful order for our little food buying group :o) So when I've done this I'll go back to the shop to carry on bagging down and tidying up.
We also had a visit from some students today, to learn about composting. It turns out they are being allowed to create a veg plot in the university grounds, so I told them a bit about permaculture and no dig gardening, advised them to take as much land as they could get and tried to inspire them to start a guerilla gardening group. Of course I also told them about compost and showed them how to make a bin out of tyres or pallets.
We are getting excited about the launch of our Community Supported Farm, and are working at advertising it.

Anyways, got to get back to the shop,

Blessings

Kwizxi

23/10: A Rather Busy Week

Hi all...

sorry I'm late this week, been rather busy!

we've been busy planning and preparing for the coming winter and the following growing season. We have been continuing with putting out young plants and with weeding (as ever!) Zarnia has started planting a willow shelter belt along her plot and much muck is being spread! We have started clearing away the old squash plants and composting them, and I have been planning that area for field veg next year...all straight lines and careful thought to rotation!!! What's wrong with me you ask? We have also ordered our garlic!!! 10 kilos of the lovely stuff to plant out, so that will keep us busy all November.
Yesterday we got quite a bit of clearing done, with the help of a bonfire, we want to generally have a good tidy up and see just what resources we have for building goat houses etc.
We have booked the village hall for the 16th of November, 1.30pm to 4pm...for the launch of our community supported farming scheme! It will be a shared buffet lunch, followed by slide shows and a raffle. We will start advertising this properly in the next couple of days, but it is all very exciting.

Dawn and I have also booked the hall for a 2 hour introductory Tribal Fusion Bellydance workshop on the 23rd of November :o)

Well...i think that's it for this week, still no sign of Fizzgig :(

Blessings

Kwizxi

14/10: Carrot Surprise!

Hello everyone :o)

What a lovely week we've had, apart from the rain today. It's been nice to get some more gardening done.

We have been continuing with the endless weeding in the herb garden...during which we found 2 carrots, apparently I sowed a row there a while ago...I do vaguely remember doing it! There are a couple of areas in the there now which are ready for filling back up. With the help of Luke and Chris we planted out a few bits yesterday...some different varieties of rocket, some mustard, kale and lettuces.
Today Zarnia and I fenced off the litlle raised bed outside the chicken house, and I have sown pink, black and white radishes in there this afternoon.
This week we've been digging up more ragwort from the horse field, which is basically our rent for the field. The nursey came and did some weeding on Thursday.
Erm... Ah yes, I have finished the tree catalogue, just gotta get it printed off and sent out now. I definitely want to get lots of whitecurrants this year.
One of my cats, Fizzgig has gone missing at the moment, so I hope to see him home soon.

That's all for now methinks.

Kwizxi

07/10: Frost?!?

Well the frost has seen the end of the squash, which is always a shame, but we do need the room to plant more crops out. So now we have a lot of clearing away to do, all the squash and courgettes, and the beans are ready to come up. We definitely wont grow the beans in the same area next year, 2 years of poor crops... they clearly aren't happy there.
I am still working on the trees, I have a bit of the hedge left to mulch but it's not far off being finished now. Which is just as well as I'm currently working on the tree list for this winters planting. When I've got it finished and printed we'll send them out and have them available in the shop, so anyone wanting to buy a tree can do so. The planning should be easier this year, with several trees already planted, pollinaion is becoming less of a worry and I'm fairly sure there'll be enough of everything. I think last years tree chaos has taught us how to make life easier this time :o)
We had a meeting last week about our accounts (yes we have to do them...) and it seems as though it isn't actually as scary as we thought, and luckily someone has offered their book keeping services cheap, hurrah! We hate the admin side of things and really are terrible at keeping on top of it.
We need a kick up the bum to remind us to order garlic!

Sorry not much to say this week... the weather has stopped anything much exciting happening!

30/09: Compost at last!

Hi everyone,

I'm afraid I got too impatient waiting for a group of people to be here... so I emptied the first compost bin yesterday. There were some very nice spuds growing in there (oops!) but other than that it's pretty good compost. So... off I went with a whole years worth of compost and I get to mulch one bed with it... one of the spiral beds. 'Tis looking rather lovely now, and I'm sure that bed will be a bit more productive now it's having a good feed. This also means we finally have one free compost bin to start again with! We really must build more.
We are making progress in the herb garden and in general the place is starting to look a bit tidier.
The nursery came up last week and dug up their potatoes, they hadn't been since about June but I think the kids enjoyed themselves.

We have decided to look for someone else to take on the running of the farm shop, preferably as part of the co-operative but maybe not. We unfortunately lack the time, energy and cash to make it a real success... and to be honest we never really wanted to run a shop as well as growing the food...we just didn't want it to close. So, if there's anyone out there who fancies giving it a go, there's a lot of potential in the shop for someone who can afford marketing etc.
We will focus on what we do, growing... and hopefully starting a CSA. We also want to hold a lot more courses here, just gotta find the people with the skills to teach. All the veg box customers we've spoken to so far are keen on having a CSA, so that's very promising! If anyone knows lots about CSAs do shout because we need to do our research on it.

Produce we have ready now:
lots of types of squash
courgettes
salads
chard
sorrel
french beans
celeriac
potatoes
peppers and chillis
garlic
aubergines

and probably some other things I can't remember at the moment!

Blessings,

kwizxi

24/09: Welcome

Welcome to the blog for PermOragnics Ltd, I shall post weekly (or more often if needed) with updates of goings on here at Rothersthorpe.
Currently we have two main objectives (among the hundreds that are always ongoing), one is to reclaim the herb/salad garden from the weeds and over excited clover... this is taking quite a while but parts of it are beginning to look as they should now, we're also finding ourselves with plenty of room for more things to be planted out. This garden was only really created last winter, it's amazing how bonkers it's gone in one season, but it has also produced us a lot of food!
The second mission is rescuing the young trees, that to be honest have been rather neglected this year. So... every one of them is getting a nice membrane mat and some manure around it. I have been needing the scythe and the sickle to get at some of the baby hedgerow... but we learn and we certainly wont let things get like that again. We're looking forward to planting the next stage of the Forest Garden this year, and also beginning to plant short rotation coppice.
We're so glad to have another member on board, and also the way we are now running the shop (with walkie talkies) gives us a lot more time to be growing. Oh yes, the 15 rescue hens we got last week are starting to look much better :o)
The aim of this blog will be to share our triumphs and joys, but also to share our failures and struggles. Smallholding certainly isn't easy, but none of us here would live any other way!

Brightest Blessings and a belated Merry Mabon

Kwizxi