Winter...

With the weather getting colder, I went looking for something to warm me up.... you may have already seen this great clip about the need for more responsible food production - but if you enjoy Willie Nelson as much as we do - enjoy it again!

Our submission to acquire additional land is still with the Council - we hope it will be finalized in another month. Whilst the land looks a little neglected at present, it once was a thriving flower farm. We are excited about turning it back into productive land and continuing Transition Farm's CSA goal of feeding local families - a goal that Anne Cure (pictured below) sums up beautifully.

“THERE’S NOTHING BETTER THAN KNOWING WHO YOU’RE GROWING YOUR FOOD FOR. That Alicia and Quentin love the fava beans. Mark and Anne who can’t wait for the San Marzanos. Or Oliver and Eli, who will eat these carrots before they leave the farm. We want to share the farm’s stories and create a place people feel a part of. We commit to feeding as many families as our land can healthily provide for. This includes over a hundred varieties of vegetables and flowers grown during the year.”

We grabbed this awesome picture from the Lexicon of Sustainability - "The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability.  By illuminating the vocabulary of sustainable agriculture, and with it the conversation about America’s rapidly evolving food culture, the Lexicon of Sustainability educates, engages and activates people to pay closer attention to how they eat, what they buy, and where their responsibility begins for creating a healthier, safer food system in America."

We believe the CSA concept can create a viable opportunity to utilise the many small parcels of productive land we have on the Mornington Peninsula and move in this direction of a healthier, safer food system. We hope that you will join us and through our combined efforts the concept will spread across the Peninsula. CSA's everywhere!

The Summer CSA will be starting again on 1st December and whilst that still feels a while away -  the first seeds will be in the greenhouse in a month! So we have plenty to keep us busy in the coming months -  putting in green manures, spreading compost (lots of compost), building our new CSA farm shed with coolroom, washing, packing and pick up areas and of course getting an irrigation system in place. Then vegetables, herbs and flowers for CSA subscribers!

We recently took a trip to Port Albert in south-east Victoria to pick up an old Connor-Shea 14 disc seeder (with a fresh coat of yellow paint!). With the extra land we are taking on, the areas of green manure crops to help build the health of the soil have increased. The disc seeder will allow us to run over whatever vegetation is in place at the time, without cultivating, and drop seed into the soil for germination. We hope the seeder will enable us to keep all the land under our care covered - all the time.

Whilst we were in the area we took the time to visit Bullfrog Gully farm in Gormandale that produces Biodynamic-free-range eggs. The main reason for the visit was to take a look at their movable chicken accommodation. We left with plenty of ideas and a couple of dozen eggs!