Spring 2025
Somehow, it's nearly June and the next job on the farm will be making hay. Therefore, it seems timely to reflect on the last few months and establishing crops. One thing I enjoy about organic farming is the constant learning and adapting. Every season brings new decisions and a chance to try something different—and this spring has been no exception here at Fásta Organic Farm.
The winter saw local organic sheep visit the farm for a few months. As a stockless tillage operation, it's incredibly useful to be able to rotate livestock through the fields. The sheep grazed from November onwards, cleaning up annual weeds and regrowth in the multispecies sward (MSS), cereal and legume fields. It's a simple, low-impact way of managing weeds—and there's a bonus: a bit of natural fertility returned to the soil. It's a win-win arrangement that benefits both our farm and the flock owner.
One of the bigger decisions this spring was bringing back the plough for the first time since 2020. That wasn't taken lightly. I'd been working with an MSS since 2021, but I didn't trust any other method to fully terminate it ahead of sowing a new crop. The ground had done its job restoring fertility and structure, but now it was time to move on—and that move was into hemp. The ploughs turned up a lovely sod with lots of root biomass and worms present. Before ploughing some FYM from the horses were spread to help with returning some of the nutrients taken as Hay previously but also to boost microbial activity as the Manure was turned multiple time and produced a nice compost. It was ploughed in the first week of March and a stale seedbed was used to control any weed seeds which were turned up, the stale seedbed was about 6 weeks as there was no rush getting the hemp in. Lots of little weeds had germinated but were no match for my trusty 7810 and Tanco harrow.
I planted hemp under contract for HempTech Ireland. Getting set up to grow hemp isn't straightforward—it requires a cultivation licence from the Health Products Regulatory Authority, detailed maps, seed documentation, and an end-use agreement. I sowed the seed on May 2nd using a standard drill at 30kg per hectare, with a seaweed-based seed dressing to give it a strong start. I'm cautiously optimistic and looking forward to seeing how it performs by harvest in September.
Elsewhere on the farm, I've planted Isabel oats at 165kg/ha and trendy peas at 200kg/ha —both straight crops this year. Oats have been a staple, but with my usual buyer not purchasing this year, I'll be exploring alternative outlets. The peas did well last season and found a good home with a local beef farmer, so I'll likely go down that route again. Establishment for both began in March with the disc harrow, it then got a run with the harrow before the stale seedbed was ready, the weed burden is quite high in these fields after a few years of minimum tillage. My harrow has straight tines which means there is not as much coverage across the seedbed compared to some modern harrows with sweeps or shares. The comparison to the plough this year was interesting, the ploughed ground took two passes and resulted in a less weeds compared to three passes with "minimum tillage", food for thought.
With ploughing in some MSS, I started the rotation on that plot, this allowed to start fertility building on another plot. In mid-May, I sowed MSS again, this time enhancing a six-species mix from DLF with added clover, alfalfa, and sainfoin. The idea is to keep this mix in the ground for two or three years before returning it to arable crops.
The agroforestry system is also progressing nicely. Winter is pruning season, and I've managed to tidy up a couple of hundred trees but more to do. I want to minimise pruning and allow as much growth as possible due to the trees being a bit exposed, but I do need to think about heavier pruning and shaping over the coming years. There's a fantastic show of flowers and early fruit—especially cherries. Like the soft fruits (currants, blackberries, tayberries, and gooseberries), they'll likely need netting to protect the harvest from birds. That's on the investment list for next year. A heavy frost in April will probably mean no
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more updates from the farm.