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Plukrijp.be vzw – Zetel: Trommelstraat 24 – B 2223 Schriek
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Upside-down the good newsletter

2023 – week 29

Upside down = instead of announcing what we plan to do
(& most often find out we do not need to do), we relate what we really did

The updated list of vegetables & fruit that can be harvested this week is available on our website under the heading “Current Harvest” :

https://plukrijp.be/op-dit-moment-te-oogsten

This week @ Plukrijp

We harvested the rye at the Hei with the sickle & scythe, made bundles & set it to dry in the Veranda.

We continue to harvest in the morning for the shop.

We cleared more of the short beds, preparing for winter cover.

We supported the paprikas at the Hei with the Florida weave method

We scythed part of low long bed 1 that we had seeded with a flower cover crop but that instead was overwhelmed with weeds, so we cut it back & put a tarp over it for the green matter to return to the soil & rest until we uncover & seed again.

We weeded the big weeds between the leeks & carrots at Hei, then scratched it.

We cleared the failed cabbage patch at Hei, scratched, & planted leek.

We harvested the rye in open tunnel 4 & planted Brussels sprouts & kale after as winter crops.

We weeded closed tunnel 1, 2 & 3.

We scratched the courgette beds in open tunnel 3.

We scratched between the germinated red beets & mustard, then seeded salad in between them where left empty space for a second round of salad seeding.

We celebrated Jojo’s birthday with a pizza evening. Thanks everyone!

A few words of Bram

Attention Availability

This week I had agreed with Maxim, Maud’s youngest son, that he would come and help us for a week. I took this as a combination of different possibilities that would benefit us all. Maxim, an 18 year old boy would help with the renovation of my caravans in exchange for some pocket money, this gave Maud a little more space to be here too and I had extra hands that I could use plus an opportunity to connect better to maxim. Once the week started, it quickly became clear that Maxim needed a little more guidance than I had thought. Most of the difficulty was in working independently and motivation in general. This caused some confusion for me, confusion about: things are not really going as I thought it would be. I can’t do what I had planned, Maxim gets a bit lost on the farm and starting to hide more and more from the group, Maud starts to get annoyed with other people’s comments, as if our composite family is about to fall apart. The discomfort was also clearly visible at the table and something had to be changed to get the flow back in the family life. I decided to let go of the idea of result, the idea that Maxim would do simple work somewhere so that I too could be busy elsewhere with a view to “more results”. From then on I made a mental change to be fully with Maxim and do the work that was needed together. My attention was no longer divided or in resistance to what was really there in front of me, namely a young person who is in need to do something meaningful together and to feel connection. Suddenly everything went smoothly again. There was suddenly a connection between us again that I actually longed for myself as well. We were together doing and the doing came from my fully attention to wanting to connect and finding that door. The goal of the work was less important, the work itself became the catalyst for connection. All that work, all our actions with the intent to perform… is quite lonely. So what I got as a lesson once again, was the importance of real attention. Real attention requires being available to that what is in front of me and that is precisely where the healing power of connection lies, because by being really available I have to let go all my other wantings on the side that actually are the source of my suffering.

Inspiring Video

The Script You’re Following Is Not Your Own

A few words of Niels

THE TIMELESS WAY OF BUILDING FERTILITY

A better way to think about composting is by seeing it as a nutrient cycle.

Stuff enters the cycle on the farm. Excess food from the wholesaler comes in every week, wood scraps and stuff the wind blows in. Sometimes we buy some lava rock. The stuff that’s already on site gets cycled by living beings.

Sawdust, branches, straw, hay, weeds, food scraps, ashes, clay and whatever else that is biodegradable is placed in the chicken coup where the chickens scratch, peck at, eat, trample and move the top layer to mix it with air, their manure and rainwater that sometimes falls.

Over time this layer gets covered and sinks. It is eaten by bacteria, fungus and molds that like the environment without air. This is the first complete transformation of the compost that happens at cold temperature Nitrogen, phosphorus and kalium along with a whole range of micronutrients are preserved this way. Cold compost takes longer, but retains more volume and nutrients.

Then the chicken place gets emptied, and in the moving process air enters again, which means the whole pile is eaten and transformed by microorganisms that thrive in an environment with air.

The pile then is covered by a layer of sand and tarp where it sits another year. The microbial life and moisture levels in the pile stabilize.

Then we put that pile in boxes (another mix, 2 in 1!) or something modular so we can move the nutrients around the farm to work incrementally back into the soil. We do that by adding a 20 kg box for every 5 square meters whenever we flip a bed.

This way we don’t have to think or worry about the compost. We just cycle what we have. We make the moving of the nutrients a structural operation on the farm, its just something we do every week, month, year. We sow and plant crops in the spaces where the soil is good and the sun will shine.

Give it time or an extra mix. Everything is biodegradable on a long enough time-frame and the more diversity of ingredients the better. If it almost looks and smells like soil, then its ready to be worked into the soil.

Stop overthinking “compost”, rather, cycle what you have, and your soil fertility will grow over time.

Inspiring Book

Fossil fuels and livestock grazing are often targeted as major culprits behind climate change and desertification. But Allan Savory, cofounder of the Savory Institute, begs to differ. The bigger problem, he warns, is our mismanagement of resources. Livestock grazing is not the problem; it’s how we graze livestock. If we don’t change the way we approach land management, irreparable harm from climate change could continue long after we replace fossil fuels with environmentally benign energy sources.

Holistic management is a systems-thinking approach for managing resources developed by Savory decades ago after observing the devastation of desertification in his native Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Properly managed livestock are key to restoring the world’s grassland soils, the major sink for atmospheric carbon, and minimizing the most damaging impacts on humans and the natural world. This book updates Savory’s paradigm-changing vision for reversing desertification, stemming the loss of biodiversity, eliminating fundamental causes of human impoverishment throughout the world, and climate change. Reorganized chapters make it easier for readers to understand the framework for Holistic Management and the four key insights that underlie it. New color photographs showcase before-and-after examples of land restored by livestock.

This long-anticipated new edition is written for new generations of ranchers, farmers, eco- and social entrepreneurs, and development professionals working to address global environmental and social degradation. It offers new hope that a sustainable future for humankind and the world we depend on is within reach.

Inspiring Music

Glass Animals – Gooey

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Plukrijp.be vzw · Trommelstraat 24 · Schriek · Heist-Op-Den-Berg 2223 · Belgium