Hello everyone,
We have started the potato harvest to finance our trip to Scotland. We are harvesting in Marsaz (26), on Brice's organic farm, from 30 August to 10 September 2021.
Day 1: A good first experience for the 4 of us. We are looking forward to continuing the week. Potatoes, watch out, here we come!!!
Day 2: Despite the first aches and pains and the heat of this afternoon, the day went well. We managed to be more productive than yesterday and picked up 125 bags (10-15 kg per bag) or about 1.5 tons of potatoes.)
Day 3: The sun was out this afternoon, but that didn't stop us from filling 2 trailers during the day. A fifth person, named Emilie, joined us today and until Friday, to help us with the harvest (about 150 bags). We were also able to observe some Natterjack Toads (below) hiding between the potatoes.
Day 4: The sky was more cloudy today, which was very pleasant in spite of the strong heat still present. We were also tired from the previous days work, but still managed to be quite productive: out of the initial 48 rows of potatoes, we had 22 left this morning and only 13 left this evening.
We were also able to see more natterjack toads, a praying mantis and a few butterflies.
Day 5: We started the week in the heat again, but we still managed to harvest 9 lines (100 bags) at 4 on the day. We still have 3 lines of potatoes left which we will finish tomorrow morning. Brice will then put 2 of us on different small missions (squash, pumpkins, butternut, cleaning the greenhouses,...) until the end of the week.
Day 6: Today we finished picking potatoes! It was a very nice harvest of about 9 tons that we did with 4/5 people in 5 and a half days. We then carried out various small tasks: putting garlic in bags, putting potatoes in 5 kg bags, collecting squash,... At the end of the day, Hedi and Gaël stopped there, but Mathieu and Antoine continued with various tasks that no longer required everyone's presence...
Day 7: Today was a rather physical day. We transferred all the bags of onions and garlic that were stored on the farm to the cellar of the producer's shop in Bourg de Péage. That was about 100 bags this morning, in addition to the 40 boxes of pumpkins, and 170 bags this afternoon, that is between 2 and 3 tons of vegetables. It was a really nice day.
Day 8: This morning we weeded and completely emptied a greenhouse (before/after photo below) in which melon and cucumber plants were planted. We filled 2 trailers with green waste. It was funny when Milo (the dog) brought us back the unripe cucumbers that we threw away.
This afternoon we took care of the tomato greenhouse. First we weeded the paths between the tomatoes, then we cut the gourmets and hung the stems on wires as stakes. We now have hands that smell like tomatoes :D.
9th and last day: Mathieu finished the "patatanges" adventure alone, and finished by cleaning another greenhouse.
CONCLUSION :
The overall experience of working together as a group was very beneficial and helped us to work together better to prepare the project. We were able to raise the sum of about 1,740 € thanks to our work, which will constitute the main part of our budget.