FIRST WEEK OF THE YEAR 2024 STARTS WITH A WORK EXPLOSION

FIRST WEEK OF JANUARY

We tied up some tomato plants because as they grow up the strings need shortening. We have decided this year that we will only grow cherry tomatoes for which there is a good demand and because they are very hardy and therefore easy to grow. The other thing we did was to plant a line of marigold plants along the middle of the bed.

We plant marigolds with the tomatoes because it helps deal with soil nematodes - small microscopic roundworms that live in the soil and attack the roots of the tomato plants. Marigolds help stop the build up of these organisms and thus their ability to weaken the tomato plants so much that they suffer from viruses like the dreaded wilt. Even so it will be best if this bed is not replanted with tomatoes for at least two years. As this will reduce the nematodes still further. I also love seeing the bright orange of the marigolds in with the tomato plants and eventually the red tomatoes.

Two volunteers also wound up a lot of string, which was a very good job done because we are soon going to have a lot of beans to tie up. We use jute string that composts but it comes in large hanks that have to be wound into balls otherwise they get impossibly tangled. They can get quite tangled even as you wind the string into balls.

I couldn't resist adding this picture to the blog which shows Rajan with the very large amount of microgreens which were ready for delivery to a wide range of places for the New Year weekend!

JANUARY 3RD

Today I got very excited when FINALLY we started digging up the mango ginger. As you can see, the plants are looking quite brown and straggly now they have been in the ground for six months or more.

When we started digging up, however, it was clear that there was a lot of mango ginger on each root. I takes some time to dig up each root and then it has to be washed and the small pieces taken off and then what is left of the root is kept to plant for next year.

I wonder if the mango ginger would keep better if we just left the mango roots to dry off and and then brush off the soil before storing them.

Everyone else thought we should wash them so that's what we did. I think its going to take some time to dry them - but we must get them properly dry before we put them in store. Hopefully there will be enough sun to do that.

I think it is going to take us quite a while to dig up all the plants as this is what we got from only five plants!

We will also have to make sure that we store them properly as there will be too many to sell all at once. We don't want them getting mold or other fungus before we are able to sell them

As we slip into the rhythm of the cool season with cool nights and bright sunny days I suddenly realize that we have a LOT of work to do getting the cools season crops into the ground. We started today with these trays of ruccolla and lettuce.

Each of these small plants have to be replanted into a bigger pot, where they will grow until they are ready to plant. Which won't take very long.

After which they will be transplanted into beds - of which we are going to need a lot. Fortunately we have a lot of volunteers this time of year so we will be able to start bed preparation tomorrow.

We had a little rain last night so this morning it was once again perfect planting weather. So while one group of volunteers cleared, composted and planted a bed of ruccolla in the Suryan garden. Another volunteer prepared bean seeds for planting.

He then planted these 11 trays of seeds. Each tray takes 40 pots so we will eventually have around 440 bean plants. This will be enough (and a bit over) for planting a bed in the Suryan garden. These beans will take two to three weeks to be ready for planting so we have to make sure that, by then, we will have a bed cleared composted and ready in the Suryan garden.

So much of what we do in farming is being aware of all the different human and natural cycles going on and then getting them to mesh together as we grow food.

This is another volunteer looking for bassella spinach seeds on plants that we took out of the ground last week.

At the moment I feel a wonderful sense of purpose amongst everyone involved with the work.