Tag Archives: farm work party

farm work party: feasting table platform

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We have plans to build an outdoor feasting table next to our deep beds beneath an arched trellis that will hold our kiwi vines. We LOVE daydreaming about having meals at this feasting table in the summer, eating fresh food straight from the garden.

To prepare the feasting table area, we dug out the space where the table will sit and laid down bricks as a solid platform slab (we found the bricks free on craigslist). Once all the bricks are in place (we ran out one or two rows short), we’ll plant fine moss around it, letting in grow in to fill in the spaces between the bricks.

It was a solid group effort lugging all the bricks over to the area, but biggest kudos go out to Jordan who spearheaded the project and did the majority of the heavy digging, lifting and laying :)

farm work party: the deep beds

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We had our first farm work party of the year this past weekend! Despite the on-and-off-again rain, a solid crew of old and new friends came out to help us get some important work done. A lot of tasks were accomplished and a lot of photographs were taken, so instead of plugging everything into one blog post, I’ll break the activites down into smaller, bite-sized chunks.

I’ll highlight the work we did on and around the deep beds first. This was the first ‘job’ of the day and involved turning over the earth in our last unprepared deep bed, adding composted manure to the bed, digging a path along the ditch side of the beds, laying bark mulch along the pathways between and around the beds, and planting wildflower seeds along the ridge of earth between the north pathway and the ditch.

TIP: when laying bark mulch down for paths, make sure you lay down layers of newspaper first, then add the bark mulch. This will help keep weeds from growing up through the bark mulch. We learned this the hard way and had to redo some of the paths that we had started a few days before the work party. Special thanks to Chris’ Gaia College instructor for the helpful tip!

Thanks to everyone who pitched in on this job. Helpers included old high school friends and their children, neighbours, community members we’ve connected with through the CEED Centre, fellow students of Chris’ from his Master Organic Gardening course, our local Green Party candidate and family members. The deep bed area is looking so much better now – we can’t wait to get our seedlings planted and watch that part of the garden develop into an abundant food provider!

our first official farm work party!

 

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This past weekend we hosted our first official farm work party and it was a great success!  After a week of rain, the sun came out and gave us perfect weather and a great group of friends came out and gave us the manpower we needed to get this farm up and running.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined our work party!  Your support was a really big encouragement to us and made us realize how achievable our dreams for this place might be.  It was awesome to get the big kick start we needed with all of your help. 

Although we didn’t get everyone in the group photo above, we did capture everyone on film at some point in the day, so check out all the photos for a visual record of the work we did.  Thank you Cary & Tommi, Mike & Brie, Shirlea & Keith (mom & dad), Dan & Jeannette and their three lovely daughters, Zach, Melody, Matt C, Bob, and of course the farm crew members Jordan, Melanie, Matt & Chantalle and Chris & Julie.  We definitely couldn’t have done it without you!

And now for our list of work party accomplishments:

  • built a gate into the fence that separates the backyard and raspberry patch from the field where we plan on building our deep bed gardens;
  • insulated and installed the interior walls of the chicken coop;
  • put a new door on the chicken coop;
  • mowed down all the long grasses in the field where we plan to build the deep bed gardens;
  • mowed down all the long grasses in the smaller plot area between the barn and the chicken coop;
  • dug up and rototilled the plot between the barn and the chicken coop, prepping it for the garlic and other fall veggies we’ll plant there;
  • cut down excess blackberry brambles in the field where we’ll put the deep beds;
  • pruned trees alongside the ditch;
  • cleaned and dug out the drainage ditches;
  • weeded, thinned and transplanted the raspberries;
  • completed the roof on the composting toilet building;
  • sealed up the leaky windows on the motorhome;
  • began burning wood from our big pile of ‘wood to be burned’ that’s been building up for the last few months;
  • painted the house address numbers (that are nailed to our fence post at the start of the driveway) a fresh coat of bright white;

There was probably more that I’m forgetting at the moment, but all in all, a VERY successful work party at the farm.  I think the coolest thing about the whole day was the vibe.  It was really relaxed and fun and very productive at the same time.  For those of you who came out, we hope you had fun and we hope you’ll come out again!