Awaiting the Winter Solstice

It’s only ONE MONTH until the Winter Solstice. Thank @#&!.

To be honest, I haven’t been that affected this year. It’s been extremely mild and there is very little mud due to the lack of rain. There are colourful crisp leaves underfoot, magical fungi popping up and beautiful blue skies. But that sky doesn’t stay sunny for long and with these short days, it’s hard to get anything done.

I am NOT a morning person. Many people have said to me you just need to get up early and get into a routine. That doesn’t work. I worked for three years starting my job at 8am. It took my body a good six months to recover after I left. I work far better starting between 9am and 10am, taking a lunch after 2pm and getting on with projects well into the early evening. These short days make that super hard!

This week I’ve been concentrating on getting through some of the winter projects list. The market garden and flower farm is pretty much wrapped up for the year. I still have lettuces, herbs and radishes growing in the polytunnel. There are still hundreds of biennial flower seedlings to pot on but nothing is growing fast and most plants are currently on a time-out until those longer, warmer days reappear. Meanwhile, the animals don’t call for much of my time either at this time of year which allows for the little daylight hours I do have to enjoy some infrastructure projects.

The past couple of days have been a good time to work on the post and rail fencing along the edge of the pit by The Lookout. This edge has gradually been cleared of brambles and nettles over the past few years with the idea being it’ll become a customer focused area in the future; providing a place to hold outside meetings, goat experiences, bird-watching and more. I want to put in some picnic benches and a fire pit too and it will become a fun, recreational and functional space.

The Lookout without fencing

The Lookout fencing is a simple post and rail installation because it’s only really there for aesthetics rather than to control animal movement. It’ll offer an area to look out across into the pit, which slides away below, and spot the various animals down there - we often have foxes, deer, rodents and a plethora of birds which can be watched as long as you’re quiet.

Below the fencing I plan on planting simple rugosa roses and a variety of herbs - rosemary, sage, lavender, chilli plant; lots of lovely specimens that can be used with the firepit, will smell lovely, will attract insects and provide an attractive barrier. Initially I was going to put the plants directly below the posts. But I have goats. And goats eat the exact things you don’t want them to graze. And go to the one place you don’t want them to go. So in some small effort to make it slightly more difficult, I’m going to set the planting back a little and just out of reach of long, reaching tongues. Of course, they’ll still find a way around I’m sure but with a few obstacles it’ll give me a chance to cut them off! Cue Geoff running across the farm yelling at wayward goats.

Though I ran out of half rounds, I’m pleased with the results and it’s a good to get a job ticked off the list. Don’t worry - I have dozens more. Continue restoring the natural ponds. Putting up driveway fencing. Potting on seedlings. Planting trees. Digging in the market garden pond. Building the barn. To-do’s go on!

Away from the farm, I’m really starting to knuckle down and plan ahead for my 2022 CSA enterprise. My Community Supported Agriculture shares are already up for sale, and I’ve had a couple of takers. If you haven’t heard of a CSA before, simply put it’s a veg box scheme but you buy the entire seasons’ boxes in advance. I’m offering a £10 box over 20 weeks so you pay £200 which aids the farmer (me) to start the season and you get all your vegetables for the rest of the offered season.

I’m not one to do things on a whim, however, so I’m currently working out exactly what I want to put in each box for each week. This means I know how many seeds to sow, when to sow them, when to harvest them and a rough idea of exactly the crops customers will have in their boxes for each week. Though it’s a lot of work now, it’ll help immensely next year when it comes to the actual season and making up the box. I’ll have a list for each week, harvest, box and then off it goes!

Already planning for 2022 harvests

So despite the shorter hours of daylight, there is plenty of keep my occupied. But I miss the sun. And the late, light evenings. So I’ll be doing a happy dance on December 21st and looking forward to seeing those dusks creep later and later.