Toktok

The latest rage here on our farmlet is toktok, an entertainment platform that delivers hilarious content in snippets from 3 seconds to 60 minutes. The audiovisual experience is captivating and worryingly addictive.

Every morning, the breakfeast ritual is a joy for the eye, when the four participants devour a melange of sprouted fava beans and grains.

The toktok system also delivers most excellent food ingredients.

Four hens in a row

We picked up four hens from our friend Susanne. The layers are experienced and know their stuff. Susanne is transitioning to a different breed, and these Marans-Bovans-hybrids had to go.

The hens are cautious and curious, at the same time.

Omlet Eglu Cube

After a year long on-and-off decision making process, we spent some mad cash to purchase a mobile chicken coop/house from the UK brand Omlet. There is a lot of information online about these henhouses.

The main reason we chose this one is that it is supposed to be easy to clean and easy to maintain. All the plastic looks terrible, but it is supposed to be sturdy and last for at least a decade. The main disadvantage with plastic is that it is difficult to repair and that it will break down into microplastics, some time in the future.

The Eglu Cube is supposed to house up to six large hens, but it looks crammed with four.

Nuts news

We continue with the nut growing course at Holma Folkhögskola, with excursions to different places. In the first weekend of June, we had the course here in Laholm.

Also this year we went to my friend Marc's place to look at his amazing nut trees that he has planted during his ten years at this place.

Walnut trees thrive in this place.

The walnuts are growing from pollination in May until harvest in September. This time of year it is possible to harvest green nuts to make liqueurs and pickles. This year we made just a small jar of sweet pickled walnuts and half a liter nocino liqueur. Next year more!

The nuts are gaining size.

Marc's place is a great place to see what is possible even in our Northern climate. He has several chestnut trees that bear well, as well as various walnuts, two different kinds of heartnuts and plenty of hazels. All on an acre (5000m2).

The course participants are inspired.

We also went to the town of Lund to lead a workshop on cooking food with nuts. We made a nut roast (based on the classic Crank's recipe) and we baked pancakes on an outdoor Muurikka kitchen.

It took some time to get used to this pan, but in the end it worked great.

Back home on the farm, the main work in the orchard is weeding, watering, fertilizing and mowing the lawns. And enjoying the successful grafts.

It is like magic when the scion sticks come alive.

Nut trip to the Netherlands

We organized a week-long study trip to the Netherlands for swedish nut growing enthousiasts. We visited seven companies, ranging from tree nurseries, nut orchards, a nut-oil presser, nut cleaner/cracker and an agroforestry design/implementation company. Lots of impressions.

We visited our old friend Wouter and his amazing food forest Ketelbroek.

The chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima) is happy here and produces well.

The hickory-pecan hybrid ("hican") grows well, but not much harvest yet.

One kind of business that we do not yet have in Sweden is a dedicated agroforestry design/implementation company like the dutch Agroforestry Supplies, run by Sjef van Dongen.

Sjef shows us a research plot where they trial ground covers. It seems like white clover gives the best growth and harvest.

Sjef and Wilma also run a nursery of a hectare, to grow out some of the trees that they plant.

We also had a long weekend to visit family and friends. And to visit some of the trees we planted when we lived there.

Almond tree in the Clemenshof community orchard, planted in 2017.

Walnut trees in the Clemenshof, planted in 2017.

Farm news

Every week, we try to fix something on the farm. This week it was time for maintenance of the lawn mowers.

After a year, some heavy denting. I guess this came when I accidentally mowed one of the traps for voles.

Now the berry season has started. Black currants, red currants and alpine strawberries produce well. Last year we planted 25 small trees of Amelanchier alnifolia and they already start to produce berries.

It is amelanchier-time.

We picked the first black currants as well. Yummy.

Friends

We enjoy meeting with friends and family, as the regular reader may have noticed.

Cousins on the Bosse and Bodil side of the family came to visit, with kids. We went to Kakor & Kackel.

Farm Expo

I went to the main swedish farm expo at Borgeby. It is a celebration of large tractors and technology. A small section devoted to organic farming, agroecology and a life-affirming future.

Welcome to the Borgeby farm expo.

I really like the test plots where they have planted various crops, so that visitors can see ten varieties of oats next to each other.

What was less inspiring was the chemical product companies that showed the effect of their various concoctions, pesticides and hormones.

There has been quite some breeding effort into making grains grow shorter, to make more seeds and less straw. This increases the yield of grain and reduces risk for falling over in rain events. The disadvantage is that weeds are not suppressed, since there is less shadow on the soil. Therefore, these grains are almost always grown in combination wiht various herbicides.

There are also hormonal treatments available to make grains grow even shorter. What could possibly go wrong when we put hormones on our food and into our soils and waters?

Wheat grown with and without hormonal shortening agent.

We are looking to make a mobile nut processing facility, to make it easy for nut growers to get their nuts sorted, graded, shelled and bagged. There was a Danish company that has ten grain-processing trucks, and they showed a grain sorting truck on the fair.

Danish company who comes to your farm to clean your grain and pick out the largest seeds for next year's sowing.