Wanderlust and WWOOFing: Farm 5

Farm 5 is a bit like paradise. A brightly painted wooden house sits nestled surrounded by woodland, a large swimming pond in front of the building and the Vermont mountains in the distance. A beautifully worn old barn with a swing in the doorway sits alongside the "Taj Mahal" of chicken coops, full of clucking chickens, ducks and turkeys. The gardens ooze with life, flowers of every colour you can imagine and teeming with bees and other insects.

I said before that I'm learning something new from each farm. Well, farm 5 has taught me about biodiversity. It's a small farm, mostly for the farmer's own consumption, with bits sold at a weekly farmers market (her main business is selling seedlings in the spring). She grows mostly heirloom varieties, with the vegetables coming in so many shapes and colours (black and pink tomatoes, multi colour and white carrots, yellow and purple beans, vibrant red potatoes, bright orange beets), seeing the importance in maintaining the diversity of plants grown. She also grows the vegetables interspersed with and surrounded by plants and flowers. As she says "we're not a big farm, why do we need to plant only in straight lines?". The result? All the beds are full of colour and life, bursting with produce and flowers. The animal and insect life is incredible - toads, frogs, small snakes (non poisonous!), bees, beetles and bugs of every shape and size... I've never seen a garden so alive.

In addition, there's a few types of garden that are new to me. A "lasagna" no-dig garden where you layer different carbon and nitrogen rich substances in your bed and plant straight into it - a bit like growing as you make compost. Another interesting structure is a "keyhole" garden, where you put your compost material in a hole in the centre of the bed, and water that section, which in turn feeds the nutrients into the surrounding soil. I've also learnt that you can grow vegetables in straw and hay bales, treating them with a nitrogen rich solution for two weeks before planting (human urine works well!). A hay bale will last for a year, a straw bale for two. The results from all these gardens are incredible, and definite food for thought in an urban environment.

Days here have been relaxed. Looking after the chickens, ducks and turkeys has been a constant job. Apart from feeding and watering them, I've also had to deal with "bad duck", a duck who distressingly (and for no apparent reason) has been hurting the other ducks. So I've been knocking together new lodgings for him to allow him some freedom (the temporary solution was a cage - distressing for us as well as him). The rest of my time has been spent in the gardens - weeding, pruning, harvesting, planting. The nice thing about small scale gardening is that the work varies. Even when you're weeding, it's only small sections...

Apart from working, I've been swimming a lot. The pond here is a decent size and so I've been getting to do some proper swimming (as opposed to just lounging in the water). My weekend here was a nice mix of relaxing and doing things. Gwynne took me to a friend's cottage, to an event about the history of the Eastern Townships. It was great to learn something about the area, meet a whole bunch of interesting people, and get to swim in a lovely lake. On Sunday, I got the chance to go to a workshop put on by Gwynne and her boyfriend Doug about building stone walls. Doug builds drystone walls (specifically for gardens) for a job, and his garden is filled with the structures (including an amazing walled in fire pit and an outdoor kitchen). I got to attend the workshop for free, and took some photos so they had something to show for future events.

The farmer here is a wonderfully interesting woman called Gwynne. She used to be a film maker and still regards herself as an activist. Living with her has been a real joy, and she's graciously shared her culinary skills and wine rack with me. There was another wwoofer here for my first 5 days, but now it's just me and Gwynne, which is actually really relaxing and peaceful. I've been reading a lot and planning my next travels (Sherbrooke, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Detroit, Peterborough...). It's definitely been my best wwoofing experience so far, and I'll be really sad to leave. If I come back this way, this place will definitely be a return visit.