This new decade has certainly gotten off to a rather dramatic start! We have gone from extreme drought, to unfathomable threats of fire and now up to 160mm of rain on a single day. As a result, this season has proved extremely interesting and educational for Warrah’s young farming team.
The harvest continued all through the holiday heat with eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, capsicum, zucchinis, parsley, kale, salad mix, strawberries and silver beet. And even now with all the rain, we continue to maintain the usual supply of vegetables to our Shop, box schemes and residential houses without too many issues from pests and diseases.
This is because the dry conditions were unfavourable for the usual troublesome insects. We have even had such an abundance of eggplant that we have been able to sell it on to one of the distributors we usually buy from for the Farm Shop. In early February we began harvesting fennel, beetroot and heirloom tomatoes. Pumpkins and watermelon were planted in September, and once the vines die back they will be ready to harvest. We will be planting the last of the summer crops soon and the first of the cold season varieties.
The cows are also thankful for the rain now that the pasture is suddenly plentiful again. We were pleased to have no storm damage on the Farm itself. The Farm Shop was briefly ‘flushed out’ with rain water and we lost power along with the rest of the street. We managed to bounce back quickly and, with the help of a generator our regular routine of shop sales, packing house boxes and deliveries to collection hubs around Sydney and to Billabong Retreat continued uninterrupted.
In between it all, we were extremely excited to launch our new website – www. warrahfarmshop.org. au. We especially love the aerial views of the farm and the images showing the exciting opportunities for participants in Warrah Society programs.
