Greetings from Tyrnaevae
The plans for the upcoming growing season are almost made-up and I decided to concentrate on creating this blog for a change. I hope that my stories will give some new information about our farm and farming in general to all of you, my non-Finnish speaking followers!
After few days of rain and slippery roads, we got winter back! For a second I was worried about the cloves of garlic that I planted in late September. Luckily the soil has probably freezed quite well after the -30 degrees Celcius in January!
In Finland, the main areas for field production of vegetables locate in Southern Finland. The growing season in Oulu area is approximately 155-165 days long while in Säkylä it´s 175-185 days. Quite a difference, I say.
However, I have always loved fresh vegetables and since I gratuated from the Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OAMK for short) in the year 2004, I´ve had my own vegetable garden. After gratuation I first helped my spouse with raising stock on our farm, but at some point I got more interested in the field production. At that time I was also studying environmental sciences in the open university of Turku and thought a lot about how food production effects on both peoples health and the environment. I wanted to offer my children the kind of food that had likely less residues of pesticides and herbicides, and studied different philosophies of production too.
I was harvesting more crop from the vegetable garden than I needed myself, and since those who received the extras liked them, I started to increase the number of different varieties even more. So, for the past two years I have now sold fresh vegetables to local households as well as to a couple of stores and restaurants. The growing area for next season will be less than 0,5 hectares and I want to keep it that way for now. Don´t get me wrong, but my philosophy of farming is to keep the fauna and flora as diverse as possible by letting all kinds of bugs and even weeds stay on the field. It has actually worked well so far. That is how any natural habitat works, so why wouldn´t it work on the field, too.
Have a great start for the week!
After few days of rain and slippery roads, we got winter back! For a second I was worried about the cloves of garlic that I planted in late September. Luckily the soil has probably freezed quite well after the -30 degrees Celcius in January!
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| In winter I love to cross-country ski a lot. That is my way to keep fit. |
Shortly about how I came up with the idea of growing vegetables
In Finland, the main areas for field production of vegetables locate in Southern Finland. The growing season in Oulu area is approximately 155-165 days long while in Säkylä it´s 175-185 days. Quite a difference, I say.
However, I have always loved fresh vegetables and since I gratuated from the Oulu University of Applied Sciences (OAMK for short) in the year 2004, I´ve had my own vegetable garden. After gratuation I first helped my spouse with raising stock on our farm, but at some point I got more interested in the field production. At that time I was also studying environmental sciences in the open university of Turku and thought a lot about how food production effects on both peoples health and the environment. I wanted to offer my children the kind of food that had likely less residues of pesticides and herbicides, and studied different philosophies of production too.
I was harvesting more crop from the vegetable garden than I needed myself, and since those who received the extras liked them, I started to increase the number of different varieties even more. So, for the past two years I have now sold fresh vegetables to local households as well as to a couple of stores and restaurants. The growing area for next season will be less than 0,5 hectares and I want to keep it that way for now. Don´t get me wrong, but my philosophy of farming is to keep the fauna and flora as diverse as possible by letting all kinds of bugs and even weeds stay on the field. It has actually worked well so far. That is how any natural habitat works, so why wouldn´t it work on the field, too.
Have a great start for the week!
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| What´s your favourite? |
