Cloughjordan community farm - spring growth

Pat and the volunteers have been working hard through the winter, and with the arrival of spring the world has turned green once again; the trees are budding, the flowers are showing their faces to the sun as it peeks through the cloudy skies, awaiting the precious sunlight and sweet, cool rainfall. A new photo gallery is in the future of the CCF website, or so we hope, so keep a watch out for that when it arrives!

As always, if you would like to become a member, there are further details available on the membership page.

The post Cloughjordan Community Farm – Spring 2024 first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

The post Spring 2021 Newsletter first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

This month is now showing hints of Spring: hedges and trees are starting to sprout

buds, even some daffodils are appearing….and whilst it is not our most productive

sewing and planting month, our peppers and tomatoes have already gone into the

tunnels and large amounts of onions have been sewn into trays. Other mainstay crops

will follow soon and the next issue will go into more detail on crop planting. A new

Polytunnel is going up, to increase propagation and provide more planting room- see

Goi’s update on this tunnel on p.5 ; recipes to use up our root veg before we move onto

lighter recipes for Spring appear on p.10 and an article on our Pigs follows this.

Getting to the Root of it: some facts on our Farm Pigs By Raquel Dafouz

Last week, while some of our neighbours from Cloughjordan watched and with

supervision by the volunteers, Pat moved the pigs to the area where the onions were

last grown. Now the pigs have a new field to continue exploring and digging in and they

are doing an excellent job rooting up the ground.

The four pigs that are currently on the farm are male and are growing fast into healthy

animals; they are already 7 months old! Their feed is based on one half of pig nuts and

the other half oat cereals. The oats give the pigs much more energy and are digested

much better if germinated so, two days before feeding, the grains are immersed in

water so that they can germinate and provide all the nutritional benefits to our piglets.

The task of feeding them is carried out twice a day, in the morning and in the evening.

And… you know what? They love to eat while you scratch them behind the ear and leg!

This is something simple that helps to establish a bond and more trust between the pig

and the caretaker.

Read more…..

The post Farm Newsletter – Issue no. 4 first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

Issue no. 3 June 2016 – Click here to read or download

Peppa grazing happily in her field, early June morning 2016

Photo: EB

June:

The heat and dry weather these past weeks has left us in no doubt that summer is

definitely here and the kids, newly released from the confines of school, are looking

forward to even more sun for their summer holidays… but on the Farm we hope for

rain between the rays and moderately warm temperatures. After an unseasonably

cold April/start of May where frost threatened plants very late in the season (we had

them snuggling under fleeces even in the tunnels!) we headed straight into

spectacularly hot weather and drought, where four times daily watering was

necessary to keep the plants alive…we even had to water some field crops.

Read more….

The post Farm Newsletters – Issue no. 3 first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

After biding our time for the wayward weather to calm down, the sun has finally arrived to herald Spring proper. This month has been unseasonably cold and the sun’s heat sparse but over the last few days green shoots have burst forth in the polytunnels thanks to the new sun’s rays and in the days and weeks after St. Patrick’s Day we will be going into overdrive on the Farm…sewing trays and trays of seedlings, transplanting into pots, after that into the fields. Our irrigation systems are being cleaned and restored, channels dug for new fencing, old crops cleared, fruit beds weeded, soil turned over in the tunnels and fields…..after winter’s hibernation we are limbering up for the explosive abundance of life and growth in the madly busy weeks ahead. Read more…Issue 2 of Farm News

The post Farm Newsletter – Issue No. 2 first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.

It is February and the weather is still wild and wintry but at the Farm we are looking forward to Spring and already some planting is underway. In Celtic times, this is the time of year when the pagan ritual of Imbolc would happen- or the Rites of Spring.

Click Here to read more…Farm News-Issue No1

The post Farm Newsletter – Issue No.1 first appeared on Cloughjordan Community Farm.