Wood Chip Gardening

The Willow Farm is still alive

Yes I know, I havent been blogging lately :) sorry. I had much to do and blogging needed certain amount of energy which I didnt have at that time but now Im back again. Lots have happened since my last post.

 The wood chip garden is starting to green up nicely. It is totally planted now and now its just left to wait for the remaining seeds to sprout to life. The wood chips are very good at keeping weeds at bay. Some weeding is necessary but it takes little time.

 Sugar peas in the front, onions, coriander and carrots in the middle, garlic, spinach, radishes and lettuce at the back. The covered patch is the Kale.

Wood chips keep the soil moist even in the hottest of weather.

 We have got 10 new chicks :) I hope most are female for eggs, because landrace chicken are poor table hens since there is hardly any meat on them (trust me we tried to prepare one and there is almost nothing there. I don't know what to do if we get many makes ... :( Their father is a very aggressive cock and he already killed one of his sons last year (the one we prepared in the oven)

 Sheep shearing was extremely traumatic both for me and my friend David but also for the poor sheep. This was the first time we did this after watching shearing videos on you tube. The machine is heavy and very sharp and the sheep were not still. We managed to cut all but one sheep :( Not much but still there was some bleeding which we were not happy about. It took us 3 hours to shear 5 sheep :(

I managed to do the first one alone and after that one I was dead tired. I wouldn't be able to finish this without David's help. Thank you David!

Our bees are doing great despite all the pesticides used around this area. At this time there is a fair amount of forage in form of blooming trees and bushes. After the end of Jun the forage will decrease. But I have sown lots of bee friendly flowers like white clover, honey phacelia, borage, calendula, sunflowers and tagetes as well as pumpkins, squash and nasturtium.

Im not kidding when I say that there are too many fields around here covered in pesticides! This farmer sprayed the Canola field during a sunny day when bees were flying which is illegal in Denmark. I asked him nicely to spray after 9pm when its allowed to do so but he refused saying that he didnt do anything illegal and that he did so for the last 20 years without anyone complaining about bee issues. So I reported him to the officials and they will visit him soon. Its amazing and sad to have farmers which dont know the law :( 

And to finish this post with positive stuff :) My dear wife and I have begun harvesting Nettle leaves and Peppermint leaves for teas. So far we did one batch which is drying inside the house. Soon we will harvest some more. The plan is to have enough of it through out the whole winter.