It’s been a very strange summer weather wise. In July we had the 2 heatwaves where the temperature in the shade at La Taillede exceeded 40C. After that August was noticeably cooler which was a relief although unusual. September was dry and the normal autumn rains didn’t come until the end of the month. Now we are in November and finally it’s feeling like autumn.
We have been so busy this year that we didn’t really have time to do much on the agriculture front. We have had salad greens all summer and we did manage to plant a decent number of squash plants.
The soil here is not that rich unless it is worked on. Last autumn I had the offer of a lot of manure from a neighbour if I collected it. His tractor was too big to get into one of his barns so he couldn’t do it himself. Our small tractor just about fit so I I collected all the manure. I spread it on the terrace by the poly tunnel and turned it in before the winter.
As you can see below the squash harvest really benefited! I harvested 67 in total with the kids.
The kids really enjoyed looking for them in amongst the leaves, we collected them all up and they are now stored for the winter.
I then put the sheep in the field to clean up all the weeds and add some more manure that I don’t have to move.
Next year we are going to try and build the agriculture side of the project. I’m hoping to complete my online PDC this winter and have learned a lot from doing this course.