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Thursday, February 3, 2022
Winter is a good time to make compost. It’s not that huge amounts of suitable material to pile on compost heaps aren’t produced at other times of the year, but there never seems to be the time to fashion layered compost when there’s so much else to be doing. Compost is an environmentally friendly way …
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Tuesday, January 11, 2022
Avian flu has struck again. When we heard the news of the outbreak from DEFRA, we snapped into action to pen up our poultry. The hens were simple – they are quite easy going and adapted to their newly straitened circumstances philosophically. But the geese are a different matter. They like to spend all day …
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Saturday, November 27, 2021
TTD held its AGM a couple of weeks ago. It was a bit chilly – for reasons of good ventilation, it was held in the polytunnel rather than a pub. We had fifteen people there, which generated lots of good discussion. After reports about TTD activities, we talked mostly about future plans, two of which …
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Although Apple Day is officially on 21 October, we have already celebrated our Apple Days twice this year. Apple Day was launched in 1990 by Common Ground, a charity based in Bridport, intended to be a celebration of the richness and diversity of apples in our culture, and a recognition of the contribution of orchards …
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Sunday, May 16, 2021
We have finally got round to doing something we have been talking about for years – we have set up a rainwater harvesting system on the polytunnel. We have real problems of water at the farm and this year it may be worse because we have more people and have created more raised beds all …
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Wednesday, May 5, 2021
It was gorgeous at the farm today. The air was still chilled but the sun made up for it with its warmth and it really began to feel like summer might one day come. The soil is warming up and we will soon begin to plant things outside. Good Friday is the traditional time for …
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Tuesday, May 4, 2021
My Community Farm Experience –– Di Ashmore During lockdown, like most people, I had a regular daily walk towards Maiden Castle and then back through the surrounding countryside to Poundbury. I walked past the Community Farm so many times but didn’t realise what it was. It was a friend who mentioned it and gave me …
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Tuesday, March 30, 2021
Spring really feels like it’s waiting in the wings at the community farm. We planted daffodils around our new sign at the gate and they make it look friendly and welcoming. We’ve ordered our seeds and have already planted some in the polytunnel – carrots, beetroot, various salad leaves, spinach, and this week we planted …
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Monday, February 22, 2021
You’d think there wouldn’t be much to do at the farm on dreary cold February days, but we’re always as busy as ever. I read an article in the Guardian about hedges: (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/02/reservoirs-of-life-hedgerows-help-uk-net-zero-2050-aoe). We have certainly done our bit towards creating hedges in the past few years, having planted thousands of trees along fences in …
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Sunday, February 21, 2021
The RSPB are doing their garden birdwatch, so we thought we’d have a go at the orchard. We dug the pond just over eight years ago, and it has had time to get established and now supports a whole community of birds, insects and pond life. There is not a lot of standing water in …
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Friday, February 19, 2021
We started the year with bitter winds sweeping in from the north and the east, tracing frosted patterns over the grass and freezing the leaking pond over – anyone for skating? R and S were not daunted and made an impressive start on the entrance stretch leading from the gate to the polytunnel, clearing teasels …
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Report for Keep106 radio station On the night of April 1st/2nd, a large polytunnel belonging to Transition Town Dorchester (TTD), standing on the Community Farm off Middle Farm Way in Poundbury, Dorchester was seriously damaged. The plastic from the polytunnel, measuring 30x54ft, was cut off and left draped over the now exposed hoops. The polytunnel …
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The rain keeps coming down. It’s hard to know what to do when everything is so wet. This is really the time to be tackling all those winter infrastructure projects, ready for the spring. Except that it’s so wet! We have turned one lot of compost, so that we will have some good earth …
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Monday, November 4, 2013
Transition Town Dorchester were in an unusual setting last week, as we joined forces with Dorchester Benefice and Big Lottery funded Communities Living Sustainably in Dorset project to celebrate the annual One World Week at St Peter’s Church in Dorchester. The theme was ‘More than Enough’, and the event looked at how we are using …
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Judy and Kate went on a open day in Littlehempston, near Totnes, Devon, to learn more about growing hemp, a long held dream of ours, which we haven’t been able to realise because of lack of access to seeds and because we have to have a licence from the police to grow it. The day consisted …
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Transition Town took part in Try this…., a series of skills sharing events held in Dorchester in September. There was a total of 36 sessions, held in 16 different venues over six days, and they involved people teaching other people what they know and what they can do. So at the farm, we joined in with …
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Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Churches Together, an ecumenical group drawn from a variety of religious institutions in town, asked a while ago whether they could come and spend a day working at the farm. We decided that they could start work on a bee/butterfly garden, with space also for medicinal herbs and natural dyes, which we’ve been meaning to …
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With the help of the Mental Health Forum, huge numbers of courgettes, pumpkins and squashes were planted (rule – plant two and hope one dies). So when talk of guerrilla gardening was started, we had the ideal candidates for planting around town. Unfortunately there were weeks of hot dry weather, so the plants continued to …
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Sunday, August 18, 2013
We received funding from the Big Lottery to build a cabin at the farm, as a classroom, meeting room, or just a place to shelter from the rain and cold and have a cup of tea. We began fitting it together a few months ago, having built a foundation for it to stand on. It …
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Friday, August 16, 2013
Viva, Dorchester Community Choir, directed by Kathie Prince, came to the farm to sing a concert – well, why not? The music performed included a traditional Czech sheep calling song (deemed appropriate for a farm setting), a Scottish song sung while pounding tweed and an interactive African song. Long rattly seed pods collected from Gambian …
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