Snippets of farm life with a growing family – the highlight kind of snippets. Thereβs quite a lot in between these moments that really donβt look and feel as whimsical π
The majority of the farm work just is plain hard, with not much reward – and we are dancing the delicate balance of doing this on a low budget, while we also sow into our young family. Many would say itβs really not an ideal time to do something like this – but the fruit shows that God has said differently. There has been a whole lot of times where weβve prayed for provision for something weβve needed to keep running our little farm that was above our pay bracket – and every time, miraculously, weβve been provided for. We have all we need for each day in this and we are certainly not a fancily set up operation – but we have seen the fruits of deeper trust and endurance, and our family being brought together in a way we havenβt known before.
Weβve had quite a few people say the phrase to us, βyouβre living my dream!β
It makes us laugh, as most of the time it can feel very far from dreamy. But the dream we are living – and will not trade for anything – is following God and risking saying yes to him, at all costs. It is what has held us here when weβve wondered if itβs all worth it. To live with the One who is bigger than all of this, who owns the story of all time – it is something all of us are invited into.
We are currently sitting in the transition between cool season and warm season – still enjoying the final few weeks of tasty brassicas while busily planting in all matters of summer sunshine foods. Cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zuchβs, corn and many others should be starting to change up our veggie boxes soon. Stay tuned βοΈπ§π½βπΎ
We now have bottles of Manifest Kombucha available for purchase as an optional extra to your veggies πΌ the tastiest kombucha youβll find made with the real stuff, brewed on the same farm we grow our veggies on π
Stoked to reveal our beautiful new logo, created and painted by the talented @kayeredmanart π
The beauty revealed through creation is something that is close to our hearts, and it is a big element of why we love what we do. So we are very excited indeed to have this piece of art represent that β¨
Never fear though – the radish wreath profile picture on Instagram will remain in its place π
We have been busy these past few weeks getting plenty of veggies in the ground and getting them growing, all while succeeding and failing and adjusting (and taste testing). This is a whole family affair – it often means progress is a little slower, but far more colourful. Eden specialises in planting, watering, harvesting (peas are the favourite choice) and digging deep holes to call for the worms. Cedar is great moral support showing his excitement with big arm movements and rapid grabbing, and will often taste the soil to check its growing suitability.
Lots of exciting things are being formed, and get ready for veggies boxes very soon π€π₯¦π±π₯
Yewww, our first harvest at the new plot (which we shall affectionately name Marabelle – star of the sea). And what better than the humble old radish? π
Veggies incoming. π
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In our front food-forest-nursery-garden we are working alongside nature to produce the inputs our garden requires.
In this case we prune back this epic wild tobacco plant to give the garden a pulse of growth and to encourage the plants around it to start pushing growth and encouraging flowering. Doing so gives them a nice bit of fertilisation both in the soil through root die off (which adds organic matter, changes the makeup of the soil life, and encourages the plant to release growth hormones), and above the soil through the mulch (which creates an amazing microclimate upon the soil) and additional sunlight.
With much prayer π we have finally worked out a way to raise seedlings again at our house. ππ₯³ Fighting with slugs and mice in our wild greenhouse was a battle indeed! We got there with a few neat tricks (and no poison!).
How to stop mice eating seeds or seedlings without poison
If ever we sowed seeds, the mice would eat them straight up. Sow out a tray and in the morning it was completely eaten. Super depressing.
We have now put traps at the base of our tables, this has helped their numbers dwindle.
And if any are not phased by the delicious peanut butter traps, we bought a table smaller than our seedling trays. The seedling trays then overhang the table, so they will have to be some ninja mice to climb up the overhang onto our trays. So far so good!
How to stop slugs eating seedlings
And then the slugs. If the mice missed any seeds the slugs would eat the baby plants.
Copper tape. We bought some garage shelving from bunnings and wrapped a real thick application of copper tape around the base of each foot, the slugs don’t like passing the tape so they don’t climb up. Win!
Copper tape wins versing slugs
We also make sure there are no plants reaching up onto the legs of the table or onto the seedling trays so that they can’t bypass the copper tape.
Make sure you double check your seedling trays that have any hidden cheeky guys and we’re good to go.
And with that, we have vegetable seedlings available! Check out our plant list and see if you could use any veggies (or any other goodies in our greenhouse). We’ll be using these seedlings in our new (sunny) plot, so if you don’t want to plant the veg yourselves but just enjoy eating them, we could have some coming your way real soon. Follow us below and we’ll let you know straight away!
RSS is like a personalised news feed you have control over. You sign up to an RSS reader (https://www.inoreader.com/ is pretty nice) and then subscribe to the feeds you want to be notified of, and you get their content delivered to you! No more AI/big tech/Social Media getting us all addicted by manipulating our cheeky dopamine response. π