Hi dear all,
July rainy summer greetings to all of you! not in the least also to you who have joined us now this month!
About our farming: warm, sunny and dry June
It was a very warm and sunny June month also on the farm, during which we concentrated on different things. We continued the development of the greenhouse and as such continued to have greens in the bags including our first beans! Our tomatoes and cucumbers are now growing strong there. We also spent time on our food forest clearing the area out; planted a lot of berry bushes, trimmed fruit trees, and of course spent efforts on watering the area. We also planted on the fields – carrots, mangoldi, a variety of beans, potatoes, onions, summer squash – and are keeping fingers crossed the rains have been coming in time for them to grow! As you will all have heard about, the past warm weather conditions have been presenting challenges for all farmers in Finland. In general, our avomaatuotanto will now be coming out a bit later this year, as we focused our spring energy to our very first greenhouse season, and our edible forest – both of course two fantastic things to have enjoyed and cared for! Do read also the profile of farmer Jan, one of our makers and care-takers.
We had to deal with an electricity cut during one of the bag days. This made us for a first time postpone our bagg day to the next day as we did not want to do away with all the prepared dough for the bread and beans for the hummus. But as the electricity only returned later on that postponed bag day, it was not possibly for us to make the bread and humus, and we ended up loosing what was prepared anyway. It is in moments like this, that looking at things from a long term perspective are important.
Because, we have been seeing the bountiful side as well!
Sharing the bountiful : Peltojooga and Strawberries!
So we celebrated a few new developments last month : We had our first well participated field yoga & brunch session! which has already been coined by a journalist as being an “innovation in agriculture”:) and we of course can’t do anything else but agree with the journalist that this is indeed a positive thing. A second peltojooga session upcoming 8.7! (see below)
Also, cooperation was renewed with one of Oma Maa coop’s founding members Eero Mattila of Kaukon tila, and in this manner we were firstly able to enjoy blackberries from the freezer, but then also a good amount of this years beautiful strawberries in our foodbags (of the Polka, Bounty and Jansok varieties). In addition, a number of you already came to the farm and picked strawberries according to the favourable conditions our coop was able to offer (8 € / kg if you pick just for yourself, or you pick on the principle of 50 % for the coop, 50 % for you). This offer still continues! as long as the strawberry fields provide, and is offered to all members, current try-out members and satojakokaverit, but not to other kaverit :). Needless to say we are also hoping this sharing of abundance is motivating our (try-out) members to renew or continue their enjoying of and commitment to our cooperative process! We can not stress too much, that our coop’s food bags are to be seen as a developmental process in itself, along with the overall development of the cooperative.
Speaking of which 🙂 …
Orders for August foodbag open now!
This July month we are having about the same number of bag order as in June. From August onward then, we are hoping to welcome the food bag orders of as many of you as possible:) be it as a member, as a try out member becoming member, or also of course of any new try-out members you believe would be interested to join! We are hoping to come to some 80-100 foodbag orders – this will be necessary for our coop to come to sustainability level to be able to continue its operations. We are at a critical point in this, thank you all for taking this to heart.
In the below a few upcoming Oma Maa dates
You will note that on the talkoot form, you are also able to engage in a variety to Oma Maa promotional activities. You would be most welcome to engage also in that way in taking our coop forward!
Diversity
A little political end-note:) One beautiful feature of the working on the farm, is certainly also the societal and political discussions we have been having over morning coffee or lunch concerning, well, you name it:) but often of course regarding that what we are engaged in. Lifting here a particular issue we discussed during one of those moments : whilst putting a focus on the combatting of climate change is ofcourse an important issue, there is actually an even more core pressing reason in light of future life to farm and eat organic, namely the saving of our nature’s diversity. This is also what Oma Maa kumppanuusmaatalous is about!
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Oma Maa dates upcoming!
Sunnuntaina 8.7. Kundaliinijoogaa ja brunssi Lassilan luomutilalla
klo 9:00-11:30
The next talkoot at least on:
Sa 7.7.
Tue 10.7
Thu 12.7
You can sign up, offer or find a ride via the following form (link to that in the email version of this newsletter).
Read also again the complete overview of our talkoot workings.
Hoping to great you soon on the farm!
Ulla & Ruby
