Farming our future.

Over the past few weeks I have overheard Bren on the phone to different restaurants around Melbourne telling them how due to the large amounts of rain and the cold Spring whether, that our season is really late this year and we may not have any produce until mid January.

You'd think he would be stressed about not producing anything yet, about letting them down and about constantly having to deliver the same bad news.

But he's not.

After almost ten year of working in so closely with Mother Nature, he knows that she is calling the shots and there's nothing he can do about it.

I also know that to my husband what grows above the surface and what is harvested from the plants is an added bonus. What he really cares about is what is going on below the ground. He is obsessed with the health of his soil. I have heard him talking on more than one occasion about taking a few years off from growing stuff and just focusing completely on his beloved soil and compost.

I also know that he is looking at the bigger picture.While I am concentrating on what we will have to take to the farmers' market this weekend, he is looking way down the track into the future months and the years to come. He speaks often of the olden day farmers who would get one bumper crop about every seven years. Growing a crop takes so much out of the soil that he wants to make sure he is putting as much, if not more, back in.

Any minute now the ground will dry out, the boys will work the soil and plant the seeds and then there will be the never ending cycle of weeding and picking and planting but for now we are just waiting, watching, planning, composting and enjoying our children, the next generation.

Have a great weekend every one.

And there's an interview with me over at Thea and Sami today if you want to go and check it out.

On the tractor.

If you are looking for Bren, this is where you'll find him at the moment, from sunup to sundown.

He's cutting the grass, he's making our place fire safe, he's turning the compost, he's doing road works and mulching the gorse.

He's listening to the radio in his headphones and is a wealth of information. Apparently there's a cyclone about to hit WA which means we'll get between 15 to 50mls of rain on Thursday. Yay!!

Crunchy cold

On some days we wake up and the world is white.
The ground crunches with each step.
On these days the world seems very still and quiet.


It is hard to believe the baby garlic shoots are hardy enough to survive.

But out on the edges the compost piles are steaming.

The air and the surrounding ground are close to zero yet the compost pile is cooking on the inside. Growing bacteria that will break down the raw materials and turn them into black gold, humus, fertiliser, soil nutrients, plant food, innoculant....compost.