This is kind of a belated post since it's been more than a week since my trip to the biodynamic farm (13th May) that's just located at Hungary Lane, near Sutton Bonington. It was originally supposed to be a trip with the Agrics or our own Scoopers but everyone's got their head stuck in their books so not many people wanted to come along.
Thank goodness for the international students who wanted to come along ! Everyone had fun learning new things about farming. And this is it. Biodynamic farms are very different from conventional farms.
Rephrasing Joe's words and to my own understanding, biodynamic farms are to be regarded as ... living things. They have their own system and it's very seldom that they would introduce fertilisers to the system and they regard fertilisers as medicine. Biodynamic farming is a bit like spiritual farming. Which I will get to it in a few points. But first ....
This is Jess (on the left) , one of the 2 dogs belonging to Joe, who is the owner of the farm. She was really lovely and licked everyone who would give her affection. I can't remember the other dog's name as she was a very nervous dog that I didn't get to interact with much. She's a rescue so she's nervous around new people. It was a lovely day for both humans and dogs to be frolicking around in the fields.
It's quite crazy but the entire farm was 300 acres (which I have been told that it isn't that much actually for a farm) and we took 2 hours to go about it, and it's not even the full farm that we explored.
A little back history about the farm. Joe is the owner of the farm, but not the owner of the land. He just rents the space and he has been farming all around the world. I think he did mention farming briefly in South America before coming home to do this organic, biodynamic farming business. He did it because the owner of the land, who is a lady who owned many lands around here, wanted someone who would do organic farming.
Before we went to the field, Joe introduced us to a very new concept of farming.
He thinks of the Earth as a living thing that breathes in and out during different seasons, sleeps during the Summer and wakens during Winter etc. So you do certain things at certain times to maximise the effects. I can't remember when do they apply fertilisers but they certainly make the sprays in the morning. I think they bury the cowhorns filled with manure during Winter. Manure buried in cowhorns (which acts as a concentrator) and quartz crystals are mixed together in water during the morning for an hour. And then they would spray it on the fields as fertilisers etc.
It was a very bizarre concept to everyone, because it's a totally different world from conventional farming.
Here, Joe is explaining to us about the crops and livestocks, as well as weed on the fields. They follow a 4 years rotation, where a field is filled 4 years with crops, and then 4 years with grass. And he mentioned that different weeds grow here, but there would always be one that's dominant and he thinks of it as a sign that something's lacking in the soil so he should remedy that.
And to get rid of weeds, usually, he would pluck the weed from the ground, crush it and mix with water and then spray it on the fields. Somehow, it did stop that particular weed from coming back onto the fields.
Everyone was quite amazed with it !
Another picture of happy Jess ! Walking in the field was hard for me because I didn't want to squash and damage the crops, but it appears that no one else except me had that worry. There were a few crop lands that we explored. There were Spelt fields, grass fields etc. And we finally arrived ....
And more weeds on the field. I have totally forgotten all their names, other than clover. It was here where Joe showed us this weed and said that if you eat it, it's kind of bitter. Some of the more daring guys went ahead to try and ... yeap, it was indeed bitter.
I wanted to try but I was a chicken, just thinking about how maybe the cows pooped on it before etc so .... I didn't try.
This is Chirag, another international student who is doing a Masters in something that's agriculture related. We met while playing pool. I have to say that playing pool helped me to make more friends ! This is why people should go out and meet new people !
On one of the fields, Joe said that they tried to grow potatoes on this kind of sketchy land and that he's not pinning much hope on potatoes to give much good crops. They are kind of guinea pigs for the land. And they said something along the line, that in October, they open up the farm, and people can come around and pick their own. Lisa and I instantly looked at each other with that gleam in our eyes going, YES YES YES. WE ARE HELLA DOING THAT.
Another picture of the dogs !
And we then made our way back to the farm when we saw these ponies ! These are full grown ponies and they were so adorably small ! Joe was just telling us how each of them have their own personalities and how one of them is the boss etc. They were so cute omg.
I think this was taken in the potato fields or something ! Lots of weeds growing round.
As we were making our way back up .... we got chased by a herd of juvenile cows that were in the barn since Nov 2014 and that day we visited was the first time in months that they got to roam the fields again. They were so curious about everything and of course, us. So they were chasing us, following us all around. Everyone was kind of looking at each other with that, HELP ME look.
Pretty funny when I think about it now !
And the calves ! There were more calves that were out on the fields but these 2 weren't on the fields.
That was the end of our farm tour but we got to leave with some booklets and leaflets about biodynamic farming etc. If you need more information about biodynamic farming .... visit this link !
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