A day spent in the woods

I needed some posts for my beds and I was running low on firewood so I decided to spend the day sorting it out. Matt is our main woodsman. He's a gardener and tree surgeon and he knows a great deal about wood.

The area we were working in yesterday was coppiced last year and Matt took down a few dead chestnut trees as well. Here's a bit of a gallery of the day. The next job will be putting the beds together. Freash horse manure will be arriving this weekend to make the hotbeds.

When I arrived Matt, Julia and the Wwoofer (can't remember her name at the moment, I'll get it later) were putting some new tarpaulins on Matt and Julia's bender.

This is how you split a log for stakes, you bash one of the splitting wedges into the end of the log with a mallet.

Then you use the other wedge to force the split along the log.

Repeat until the wood is the right size.

These posts will then be split diagonally and pointed with the chainsaw to allow them to be bashed into the ground.

This area was coppiced last year the wood has been sitting for a year and is now ready to burn. 

Here's Matt showing me how to sharpen a chainsaw. He clamps the saw to a bench then gives each blade 3 swipes with a round file parallel to the mark on the blade filing each alternate blade (The ones pointing in the appropriate direction) then he turns the saw around, clamps it again and does the same to the other side but doing 4 swipes because the left hand is weaker. He then takes a flat file and does one swipe on each of the depth nubs of metal in between each blade (I'm sure it has a proper name but I don't know what it is yet).

He then made sure everything was clean and properly tensioned and put it back together.

I

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It's snowing today again so more tomorrow hopefully.

Delays and more delays

I'm waiting for a bunch of deliveries at the moment so not a lot is getting done. (Which is why I haven't been posting for a few days) 

It doesn't really matter because the first outdoors planting won't be happening for a couple of weeks yet.

This is the slowest month in the gardening calendar. I will be doing some more planting indoors over the next few days but there's no rush right now. 

I'll post again whan things start happening.

Back from Wales

That's Star in Brechfa forest. We got back from Wales last night. The compost still hasn't arrived but we have a couple of weeks till the parsnips and broad beans have to go in so I'm not that worried. We still have the compost Matt made. In about a weeks time there's a poultry show near Canterbury so I'm going to go down and choose some chickens and maybe some ducks. We already have a duck pond so it's time to populate it and hope the fox doesn't get them.

 

More later.

A few good sources of information

 Here are a few useful links. Many are quite vast libraries.


http://soilandhealth.org/  
This contains a large library of downloadable books that I've found of use from soil management to herbal medicine.
 
http://www.swsbm.com/homepage/
Large materia medica library has a lot of late 19th century herbal medicine books.
 
http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/


A good source of agroforestry plants. I use them a lot.

 
http://www.motherearthnews.com/
Very good library of practical solutions to things.

http://journeytoforever.org/
Good self sufficiency library

http://www.pfaf.org/index.php
Online encyclopaedia of useful plants with cultivation details and uses. Over 7000 species listed.
 
http://www.rhs.org.uk/Gardening/calendar/
Essential reading for new gardeners and useful for old hands.
 
http://permaculture.org.uk/
Good for networking
 
http://carolynbaker.net/site/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
I subscribed to this woman's mailing list she talks about the state of the world and transition.
 
http://sharonastyk.com/
I like this woman's writing she talks a lot about self sufficiency.

A frosty hiatus

We had a hard frost last night and rain yesterday delayed the compost delivery. We have a Wwoofer all next week (Volunteers on organic farms http://www.wwoof.org.uk/) so they'll work with Matt for the first part of the week and I should get some help from Thursday onwards because I'm visiting a friend in Wales on Tues/Wed next week. The mini digger should also be here by then and we'll finally get on with it. The first beds should be ready for the broad beans and the parsnips in mid February.

I wanted to make clear that we have no budget here. There is only what comes out of our pockets and what time and equipment people donate. Danny isn't being paid for the use of his machinery and wood but he'll get a share of what we produce as will all who work on it but for the next few months there will be no income of any sort from this project.

I've been debating with my self how to start talking about why we're doing what we are and about the importance of systems. I'm not going to go into the details of what's wrong in the world today in this blog. That current systems are unsustainable and at the end of their useful life should be taken as read. The question becomes how do we respond? How do we create a resilient system that will allow us to live in reasonable comfort indefinitely? The most resilient system I know of is Gaea. Life itself. It is a vast interconnected network that passes energy and materials around in a vast array of forms that are all utterly dependant on each other. We cannot exist independently of that web and the more it gets simplified the more it risks collapse into a state that could not support us. Therefore everything we do must prioritise life. 


In an ecosystem complexity produces resilience and productivity. What I am aiming to produce here in the long run is a food producing ecosystem that requires no external inputs once established. A synergy where the system itself becomes self perpetuating. Whatever I produce must do no damage to the life around us and we should aim to increase the diversity of wild life around us. 

That process has been going on here at Brickhurst for many years now. Ponds have been dug in many places around the farm. Many more niches and edges have been created. Edges are where the greatest diversity and productivity is. The more edges we can create the more we can produce. I've seen the diversity of life here at the farm explode since I first started coming here nearly 20 years ago. 

The only thing that I can see will feed the people of the world after the end of industrial civilisation is to permaculture everywhere we live. We have to live in a way that is compatible with life or we will cease to exist. 

One of the most important functions of this project for me is to create a plant bank so we can copy it and pass it on to other people.  I'm planning on growing about a third of each thing I plant for seed. 

There won't be much to report for the next few days but I'll try and get a post or two up. I'm thinking of putting together a list of sources of good information. I'll have a dig into my links and post a few in the next post.

I'll be chatting with Anne tomorrow, Anne is working on a project of her own here and we'll be doing some seed swapping.

Plans and musings

Here are some of Matt's piglets. Last year, they and their relatives were living in the area we're going to be creating most of the raised beds. They've cleared all the vegetation and compacted it somewhat but we're expecting a delivery of a large quantity of compost this week and this will be dug into the beds.

Some will be manured and others will just get a green manure in them with some wood ash.

The ph of the soil here is around 6.8 to 7.0 slightly more acidic in places and it is pure clay. No stones at all.

This is the little pond dug into the corner but I'll look into solar irrigation if the resources to get it become available. 

 

We'll also be working in the polytunnel. I have a third of the bed shown plus the area at the end shown to work in. We'll be creating cold frames and hot beds as well to extend out season as much as possible. Another planned project is a polytunnel bender.

 

 
I was given a brace of pheasant yesterday so I made a warming stew.

1 brace of pheasant
1 onion
3 medium sized carrots
3 cloves of garlic
a bottle of dry white wine 
a bunch of fresh tarragon
100g mushrooms

3 bayleaves
stock from the pheasant carcasses and giblets
seasoned plain flour
olive oil and a little butter for frying

pluck draw and portion the pheasants and dust in a little seasoned flour. Fry the pheasant pieces until lightly brown and sealed. Throw in the chopped onion and garlic. Fry until transparent. chop and put in half the tarragon and the bay leaves. 

Pour in about 50cl of dry white wine and about an equal amount of part reduced stock. Cut each mushroom into 3 or 4 pieces and throw in. Simmer for about 45 minutes and add the carrots. Adjust the seasoning. Simmer for another 40 minutes and then add a dash of wine, the remainder of the chopped tarragon and the cream. Bring back just to the simmer and remove from the heat.

Solving the conundrum

Well the conundrum is resolved. Mick Gould turned up with a great big machine and pulled the trailer and tractor out. Here's a gallery of what happened.

Dogs playing. Star, Lumpy and Pip.