Hallo!

My name is Elin and I am a small scale farmer. I take a course in market gardening and now in the spring and summer we would visit other gardeners, but because of the corona virus we can´t.
Instead I would really like to make contact with gardeners and farmers in other parts of the world and would be very happy if anyone here wants to share their stories with me and sow a seed of inspiration and new ideas I want to know everything, big and small, what you want to tell. For example; What do you grow? What climate do you have? Cultivation techniques? Are you self-sufficient? Do you sell your products and if so, how do you sell them? Why are you gardening/farming? Do you have any cultivation tips or tricks? Do you have any farm animals? Do you have a blog or a website? Feel free to show pictures of your place Please also tell me if it is OK to share your story with my classmates.
Let me start by telling you about me. Me and my husband have two small farms with about 7+5 hectares of land in northern Sweden and we rent some more land for hay and grass silage. We grow vegetables for our own needs and want to expand it a little so that we can sell vegetables. We have dairy cows, sheep and some ducks. We grow and have animals to be self-sufficient in food, get some money and live the life we ​​love. I want to teach my children to take care of the earth so that we can live a good life for many generations to come. Here are some pictures of my place in the world

sheep in summer pasture


Our cows sunbathing in the spring. As you can see we are working on increasing our arable land. The forest has been reclaiming this land since the last farmer on this farm gave up farming many decades ago. We moved here 2016.


Our field of vegetables. We have been growing vegetables mostly for our own needs but we want to be able to sell some to others aswell. We plow this field every year and make raised beds with the potatoplow to sow in. We sow the seeds directly in the soil and have two rows on each bed. This year we will try and presow the seeds and put them out in the field as plants, except for the carrots because I have heard they are hard to succesfully move as a plant. We grow carrots, various cabbages and turnips, beetroots, new zealand spinach, pumpkins and zucchini, beans and peas and also potatoes in another field. Hopefully we will have time to start on our terrace cultivation this year and I would love to have a herbal garden and also get the plastics on our greenhouse so I can get all the tomato- and pepperplants out of the kitchen :). I am also very intrested in perennial herbs and vegetables and in fruit trees and berry bushes and agroforestry (anyone here planted a tree guild?)





We have chosen to place the silage in the upper corner of the vegetable field because there are so many treeroots in the soil and very hard to plow. And I want to keep the birches healthy and don't mess with their roots every year. Sometime in the future we will make walls to the silage. Anyone who has any simple/cheap/functional/naturally beautiful ideas on how to build the walls?



We also make hay and put it in the haybarns with a hayblower. We dry the hay on the field for a few days and then we finish it with a haydrier. Due to the weather changes we experienced the last years with both cold and flooding summers and extreme drought we are looking for more resilient and perennial crops to grow for silage and hay. We want to try jerusalem artichoke, anyone who grow jerusalem artichoke and would like to tell us more about it? Other crop suggestions?

I hope someone wants to share with me and please ask if you have a question for me

With the best wishes for you all! //Elin