This is a series I want to start to keep track of the progress on the farm. Every month, I will show the progress on the farm.
Bean me up before you go go 😁
We planted those beans as early as January, and I could not even correctly follow the string that you see, our neighbour that is helping me with the field work has way more experience than me, and I could feel some tension when he saw my lack of precision:
"How am I going to go through with the tractor?" Robert says.
"What tractor?" I replied.
"Are you going to harvest everything by hand?" Robert insisted.
I answered to him swiftly his favourite catchphrase while smiling: "Impossible n'est pas Français". (Impossible isn't French)
We both smiled, and I quickly understood that he had bigger plans for this land. Since we arrived, the old man helped me with pretty much everything that is farm related, and has been very important in our lives.
We often joke about the COVID and the pandemic, but that day he was wearing a mask. I can't really blame him, the way the elderlies are being targeted by the government and the medias lately, I would probably feel that I need to wear a damn hazmat suit if I start listening to them.
After a while, he takes his mask off and I keep my distance. It's a tough time for everyone, and it's important to respect everyone's sensitivity. No time for small talk, we get into business right away.
"The land hasn't been used for a very long time, this should be a good soil. It's rich, when you hold it in your hands, the way it sticks together, means that there is a good amount of clay and moisture. You want your soil to dry a little before starting sowing. Plus, I've seen this place freeze in May once, so we should wait for a few weeks before getting serious. It should give us some time to prepare the land."
I listen every time the man speaks, he sometimes repeats himself, which is normal for his age, but I am learning techniques that you cannot just figure out on your own.
I probably know as much in farming as this little guy up there. Of course, I planted tomatoes and weed for 10 years in South Africa, I know how to boost a plant with Nitrogen during the vegetative process, and how to use low stress technique (LST) to my advantage, or how to transplant, but this is uncharted territory for me.
I already made one rookie mistake. I planted my beans too early, and they got stunted with 2 weeks of continuous rain that completely drenched our land.
"You cannot plan your sowing in advance, nature will have a plan for you at every turn" he says almost meditatively.
He was right, I thought I could apply my botanic knowledge on a greater scale, but very quickly realised that this was way above my paygrade. The land needed some work, and lots of it. He also claims that I will require pesticide because grass has been growing here for a long time, and "there are some good and nasty things in the soil". I wasn't happy with his advice, coming from a "permaculture culture state of mind", but I will decide of the day what I will use on the land.
At the end of the day, Robert is right about a lot of things related to nature. Sometimes he can feel a change in the air, and says out of nowhere: "It is about to rain". Meanwhile, it's a full sun out there, and no sign of change, for only to realise few hours later that he was right, it's now raining 😄.
Preparing the fence for the Dogs and Chicken
We have to quickly make a perimeter for the dogs coming soon, we haven't set a date yet as we wanted to ride the bull run and use that profit to pay for the travel cost. You would not imagine the price to bring to dogs in France, roughly between 4000 USD and 4500 USD, I kid you not. It will take everything that we have and even more, but we will get them eventually.
The fence needs also to be high enough to make sure they don't jump it, huskies tend to be explorers, we have a lot of land but I don't want to take any risk
Before even starting the outer skirt fence, we need a smaller one to teach the chicken how to go back to coop on their own, from the grass land. Lucky for us, our neighbour generously gave us a bunch of them from a vineyard farmer that lives nearby. I don't know how many cheese cakes my wife will have to cook to repay them haha, but we will think about it later.
Edit: There has been a change of plan; we will use smaller metal poles that get into the ground easier, and keep that big posts for the larger house perimeter.
Sowing
We started sowing some of the seeds, in tray, that I keep inside at night, as the weather can (very well) get cold again.
Tomatoes, broccolis; rosemary, garlic, lettuces, and a little bit of this and that. It's just a first trial, I still think it's a little bit early; you need that warmth to kickstart the sprouts.
Once again, thanks to our neighbour, we have the chance to access tools that will truly gives us an advantage and allow us to grow more food that I've ever imagine. Taking care of the 3 kids lately, I also have very little time to take care of the land, I can tell you that from the moment robots are available to harvest the land, I might take one to help us here 🤖
We decided to keep 2 meters between each rows, so the tractor will be able to pass through the rows and harvest with a machine, except for tomatoes.
Vines
This has been for now the most time consuming project, taking the climbing vines off the trees as they tend to suffocate them.
If anyone has a good way to get rid of them that doesn't require the use of roundup, just let me know in the comment section!
WILLOW TREE WATER
Our friend 
There has been a study about it.
There is also proofs that willow tree water increase the plant resistance.
Second round of sowing.
The first round of sowing went really slow, so I was hoping the second one would go a little bit faster, the temperature at night are still close to freezing temp, it's been also shown that sowing later than the advised time frame can bring tremendous results in term of yield.
As of today, nothing sprouted yet out of the bigger pots, however the lettuces and tomatoes, finally showed their faces 😍
I will probably give them some diluted willow tree water after a month grow, just to strengthen them.
First row of onions
Smooth operator
After turning the soil, we used a cultipacker, "that crushes dirt clods, removes air pockets, and presses down small stones, forming a smooth, firm seedbed" (google).
It will give the perfect smooth conditions to plant very soon.
Eye in the sky
We have our friend the buzzard, that has been gliding over the land for the past month, I would really like to get a clean shot for closer, but for now that's all I could get. They are a little bit smaller than eagles, but are known to attack much bigger preys, even chicken!
I've seen the buzzard since the first days of our arrival, and took it a sign of good omen 😄!
The land is just filled with worms, which is also a good sign.
I tried to keep the girls involved in the process, they had lots of fun collecting them. Soon I want to create a wormery, that will feed the chicken and create some amazing worm cast.
Aimée didn't like it as much haha
Spring is really here for good!
Or is it? As you can see, nature is sending mixed signals, we had the fig trees budding, same for the plumbs and pears, I was still on the fence and kept in mind what Robert told us about how the cold can sometimes come back out of nowhere.
And indeed, A week later, the frost came back with temperatures below 0. I had the opportunity to get some really great sunrise shots, but we will have to be aware of this cold front, as it will stunt the sowing.
That's it for today, I hope that you enjoyed this content, it is something that I would like to do once a month, it's a great way for me to keep our tracks of our progress.
Cheers!
Ed