We’ve got a tractor!
We received our tractor on Monday, which we had been looking forward to. With the help of the tractor we could finally get started with clearing the ground of stones.
The plot of land is filled stones, on a surface level but also in the earth. Picking up the stones laying on top of the soil went fine, but the deeper ones ended up costing us a lot of time and effort. This is where the tractor really comes in handy!
The tractor as an aid
We intend to use the tractor as consciously as possible since we want to treat the earth as naturally as possible. We will certainly not replace everything that we (humanly) can do by hand with machines.
The tractor uses plowing to loosen the stones, which is very pleasant when picking them up. It still remains a lot of manual work that we can fill many mornings with.
Finance
The tractor was unforeseen but a crucial part of starting our farm. An expense that we had not counted on and could not ignore. With an incredibly generous donation and some fitting and measuring, we managed to fit it into our budget.
Our budget has logically gone down because of our new acquisition. No reason to panic for us… This new development gives us great motivation to get the farm up and running as quickly as possible. In this way we intend to supplement the budget in time by selling organic medicinal herbs!
The start of our veggie garden
We gave the tractor a baptism of fire by plowing a field that we want to cultivate for personal use. Our vision is to (largely) grow our own fruit and vegetables, very fun and rewarding!
After applying our stone pick-up procedure, the fields were ready for the first official planting. We had already sown a few things in our greenhouse, these young plants now adorn our vegetable garden:
Arugula, Basil, Zucchini, Cucumber, Tomato, Pumpkin, Lettuce, Sunflowers, Aubergine, Bok Choy & Paprika
Baby goat
Another week with a lot of rain and thunderstorms. In the heaviest thunderstorm so far we were surprised by a stray baby goat that came running towards our car (where we had taken shelter for a while). We decided to take him to the tent to figure out what to do with him.
In the end we decided to give him a safe place to stay in the ruins, hoping that the shepherd would pick up his goat the next day. To everyone’s luck, this was the case and the baby goat was able to be reunited with his herd the next morning.
From stream to river
After the extreme rainfall, our stream has turned into a real river. We went exploring and walked a bit in the area where we live. The river runs beautifully through the valley, we were amazed by the beauty but also by the amount of water that was carried with the strong current.
We consider ourselves very lucky with this well-stocked river, a nice supply for the (dry) summer months!
Infrastructure
In addition to watering the plants and stranding baby goats, the exuberant rain also inspired and made us philosophize about our irrigation system.
Jesse got to work on the infrastructure and started moving the water pipes, the water points and the electricity cables. Because of the restructuring everything is much more central now, this way irrigating our plot of land will become a bit easier as well.
The first fields of Farmgully
The tractor has already been used a lot this week. In addition to our own fields, we have started clearing the first fields for herbs. The photo shows how many stones we have already removed!
We are doing everything we can to get the farm going as quickly and properly as possible. We aim to enter our first herb season after the summer. We hope to be able to harvest, dry and sell these in the first half of 2024.
But for now, stones, stones, stones.
