Friday, May 13, 2016

Lower Khandroling Farm Update



Over the past couple of weeks Nary and Jeremy with Martin and Amanda have met some days on the farm to organize the greenhouse and shed, weed, prune, and dig. Jeff Smith did some tilling on the tractor. Here is the most recent update: 


  • Vlad took invited his herb teacher to take a wild craft walk looking to identify native plants and herbs on Khnadroling. He proposed a series of wild craft walks beginning during our summer celebration
  • Martin is now treasurer collecting donations to cover farm expenses. 
  • Bret and Lauri are preparing for the Khaita Dance performance in NYC
  • Jacqueline is working on Khandroling Paper Cooperative programs and events for the summer including a table at the River Walk festival in Shelburne Falls and specific dates for local farmers markets. She will plant some calendula, flax and horse raddish for the paper cooperative as wel as her own plot. 
  • There are now bees in some of the hive boxes inside the electric fence. Amanda is in touch with other beekeepers. 
  • One Hugelkultur bed has been started near the bee hives.The photo below is not ours but similar. If you are unfamiliar with this type of gardening, please follow th elik above to read more. On upper Khandroling we have many heaps of branches from our clear cut suitable for this type of construction. 



  • Pruning of the 3 apple trees near the driveway is progressing. There are 5 or more other apple trees on the other side of the house, alongside the creek that can be pruned.
  • There are three rows of blueberries that were planted in 2013. Posts have been installed to mark each end of the rows and blueberry bushes have been uncovered by weedwacking each of the rows. There are about 174 blueberry bushes that have survived. The next step is to pull out by hand the grass/weeds along the three rows so that the rows can be covered to prevent so much surrounding overgrowth and less effort spent on maintenance. In between the rows can be mowed. Weeding will be very time consuming and labor intensive, so as many hands as we can get out here, the easier it will be. We can plant more blueberry bushes in the gaps in the rows. Some bushes didn't survive for various reasons.
  • After we are done with those three rows, the lower three rows can be re-tilled and covered. Then we can work on transplanting the 50 or more blueberry bushes from other garden beds near the barn.
  • These are just a few of the things that have been done since the last update that was sent out. If you have any comments or questions for me personally, you can respond directly to this email or you can send them to geko@tsegyalgar.org. 
Jeremy and Nary are on the farm most says. Write Jeremy at geko@tsegyalgar.org at least 24 hours before you plan on coming out to the farm. Anyone who wants to plant their individual garden is welcome to do so. We have everything here. Just donate some time on other projects Nary and Jeremy can direct you to. 


Our next meeting is Thursday, May 19 at Lower Khandroling Farm beginning at 6:00 PM

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