January
Fresh back from the festive break we are very busy on the farm. Two main jobs have taken priority.
Sowing the seeds for this summer
During January we start to sow the seeds of our future medicinal herbs into organic compost in the polytunnels after taking the seeds out of stratification. Planting the seeds now will allow them sufficient time to grow into herbs big enough to plant into the field once the soil becomes warm and dry enough in the spring.
Our farm manager explains in this video (unfortunately it is not very warm in the polytunnel at the moment!).
Putting a few seeds into each part of the tray
Placing seeds into the compost
Seeds in the tray
Muck Spreading
As we cannot use artificial fertilisers on our Biodynamic farm, it is crucial that we spread farmyard manure onto the soil. Without this manure our herbs would not get enough nutrients from the soil to grow into healthy plants. Also the manure brings with it soil organic matter which gives the soil structure, thus allowing it to cope more effectively with any extreme weather such as heavy rainfall.
The timing of the spreading is, however, crucial. If you spread manure onto the actual herbs when they are growing then this will damage the plants. Also, it will take too long for the manure to break down and make its nutrients available to the growing crop. However, if you spread the manure onto bare soil then there is nothing to capture the nutrients from the manure and they will all run off into the streams thereby causing unnecessary pollution. Therefore, the best time to spread manure is onto a growing cover crop. This timing allows for the cover crop to take up the nutrients from the manure and then release them slowly into the soil when the cover crop is dying and the herbs are growing after planting.
However, there is a big problem with this. It is often too wet to drive on the fields in the winter. So, the recent very cold snap has been extremely useful to us. It has allowed us to drive on the fields and get the manure spread onto the cover crop.
Our trusty old tractor and muck spreader
Beautiful dark well rotted manure spread onto the cover crop
Finally, we have some more good news. Our Arnica Montana tincture is now back in stock. Please click on this link to purchase.
