Tea at the Farm

Our daily ritual: boiling tea on a soda can stove at the farm:

And every time, Frederick whittles a new spoon as it comes to a boil.  Here's one in progress made from Norway Maple wood from the hedgerow of the farm:

Herbalist tea pots available for purchase on Bottle Gourd Herbs
Contact us if interested in having us custom craft a soda can stove or wooden utility spoon for you or provide you with resources on how to make your own: info@depermaculture.com  Stay tuned for crafts for sale at Bottle Gourd Herbs!

Soil Minerals

Inspired by the works of Masanobu Fukuoka and his students, the ethics and principles of permaculture and its applications around the world, the underground studies of soil fertility, the many creative ecological gardeners out there, and the overall philosophy of the lazy farmer, we work every day, a little bit each day, on our almost 1/2-acre plot of ground at Historic Penn Farm in New Castle, DE.  We are experiencing the evolutions that come with cultivation of land - the weeds that are born from the farmer's hoe, the opportunistic non-native invasives that take every chance at life on the full-sun woods' edge, the rabbits that inhabit the surrounding orchard grasslands taking interest in the tips of succulent cruciferous and beet family crops, and, strangely to us, the entire stems of young tomato plants, and the first signs of crop eating insects- letting us know that it will take some time before our implementation of soil fertility boosters will correct our soil imbalances.  We are on the most pocket change of budgets in this endeavor.  We hope to document and share some of the small investments that make large impacts on common issues of soil cultivation - the real work of farming.  First up: using mineral blends to balance soil chemistry.

While we would first happily digress into a formal introduction on soil minerals, we instead will point your attention to some online resources:

SoilMinerals.com
CropServicesIntl.com - and the book The Non-Toxic Farming Handbook
Acres USA Magazine

Soil chemistry balancing begins with a proper soil test with recommendations on mineral and biological applications specific to your soil's conditions.  However, when you have little to no budget, the second best option is a broad spectrum mineral meal.  Broad spectrum mineral meals include a host of natural rock and earth mineral sources together with biological activators such as beneficial bacteria and fungal species.  If your mineral meal does not come with biological activators, just find one that does!  SoilMinerals.com offers an Agricola mineral blend product, and CropServicesIntl.com offers a mineral meal called COMPLETE.  We at Delaware Permaculture have come to blend COMPLETE with rock phosphate and the trace mineral boron to address the particular soil needs of most soils of the Delaware and Southeast PA Piedmont regions and offer it in a product we call Bio-Pulvis found at the Delaware Permaculture Shop.

Applying mineral meals is like flouring a bread dough board or sprinkling fairy dust.  Safe to handle, just evenly disperse the powder on the surface of your soil then rake in or shovel under.  If you have raised beds, just water in thoroughly after applications.  If your beds are already planted and mulched, you can also sprinkle then water in thoroughly.  So here are some photos of us doing just this on our keyhole garden beds that were dug in with compost about 12 - 18" deep:

Note the light white powder dusting of Bio-Pulvis on the beds in foreground and behind

  

Adding Bio-Pulvis to mulched keyhole bed (can just make out the bean seedlings poking through)

First watering in to be followed by all day showers

Yes, it's that simple.  Later on, we will discuss foliar feeding of Bio-Pulvis with Fish Emulsion and Liquid Seaweed, so stay tuned!!  We welcome your inquiries at info@depermaculture.com

Illinois Illegally Seizes Bees Resistant to Monsanto roundup... kills the queens

http://www.realfarmacy.com/illinois-illegally-seizes-bees-resistant-to-monsantos-roundup-kills-remaining-queens#VpwIUpdxFzAdPT8K.01

Seeds of Death: Unveiling The Lies of GMO's - Full Movie

Getting Started at Historic Penn Farm

Located in New Castle, Delaware is Historic Penn Farm, a 310 year old, 112-acre private land trust of the Trustees of the New Castle Common, managed by Delaware Greenways. Currently a couple acres are in use by William Penn High School for a student assisted CSA and the rest of the land is cultivated in GMO modern conventional agriculture crops cultivated by one farmer and lots of equipment.  Historic Penn Farm's vision is to transition to sustainable agriculture practices, the most significant of moves would be the ceasing of use of GMO seeds, glyphosate herbicides and routine soil disturbance.  In support of this vision, we have decided to lease 1/2 acre at Historic Penn Farm to grow a diversity of open-pollinated, heirloom vegetables, salads, flowers and medicinal and culinary herbs in application of permaculture ethics and principles, without the use of any chemicals or spray applications whatsoever.  We support the healthy growth of our crops by amending our soil with compost and mineral supplements and mulching with rotted straw.

While off to a late start this season, our plot was disced by our neighboring farmer by the suggestion of management in April, breaking up the sod roots and leaving clumps and clods.  Without the aid of tillers, animals or machinery, we prepare our planting beds by hand with shovels and rakes.  Our beds take the design of keyhole garden beds to achieve as much planting area with the least amount of space in walking paths.  The beds are shaped freehand, making sure we can reach every part of the bed from some angle.  We begin by raking away the sod clods to the main paths, then dump compost on top of the soil and mix it into the soil with shovels.  We break the largest clods with a triangle hoe and shape and smooth the surface with different garden rakes.  Garden beds in mixed crops are mulched with spent straw hay and beds in salad greens are sown thickly to cover the soil surface.  

We are currently relying solely on rain for irrigation as a makeshift hose watering system supplied by management is pending repair and a wellhead implied in the lease is pending installation.  We have had some interesting trespassers and onlookers from our bordering shady back lane.  We anticipate a showdown with animal guests, and tentatively plan a low tech fencing system targeted specifically to rabbit and deer control.  We hope to direct successful harvests to cook meals for homeless communities in Philadelphia, PA and Wilmington, DE and to sell specialty products at Historic Penn Farm's Tract 6 Farm Stand.  Stay tuned for updates!    

 All the foreground area not covered in grasses was prepared for planting manually

 with these tools

 Weeding our first beds

Photo credits Frederick R. Dannaway