The new season has begun. Wish us Luck!
It’s Rabindranath Tagore’s birthday today. Poet, artist, visionary, educationalist and sage. A huge inspiration to Good Earth. Peter Gill who has been Wwoofing with us left this quote in the visitors book last week:
When organised national selfishness, racial antipathy and commercial self-seeking begin to display their ugly deformities in all their nakedness, then comes the time for man to know that his salutation is not in political organization and extended trade relations, not in any mechanical rearrangement of social systems, but in a deeper transformation of life, in the liberation of consciousness in love, in the realization of god in man. Tagore
Contemplating this goes hand in hand with planting the first spring lettuces!
The nurturing of new life is what Spring is all about.
And the season’s creative energy and joy is expressed in the small animals that surround the garden at Talking Horse Farm…
… and the small plants in the greenhouse.
The garden is thick with cover crop.
A mix of vetches (purple, hairy & common) and clovers in the beds. (the one on the right also has garlic growing in it). Rye in the paths to suppress the quack grasses. Our beds are 3′ wide and paths 18″ to allow for maximum planting area in a small garden. These cover crops are providing bio-mass above and below the ground, nitrogen and other nutrients.
In our SARE experiment beds the fava bean cover crop is almost ready to flower.
The cover crops are scythed multiple times…
… and we using this small Japanese tool called a Seikobo (?) to get a closer shave.
Transplants go directly into the cover crop residue…
…as we continue to harvest last year’s chard, kale and mustard flowers for a braising green mix, thanks to a mild winter.
