Everything is Blooming

Hello Everyone,

 ‘Tis the season and all is blooming on the farm. All is blooming lovely. The torrential rain we had earlier has meant that all the crops have rapidly grown. We water (I know I keep going on about the watering!) constantly but there is nothing like the water we enjoy from the sky. It has got to be the amount dropped on the crops alongside the natural minerals within the water which creates the perfect growing conditions. Everything is luscious and green. 

The Crew have been doing a dam fine job of planting out into all the outside growing areas and within the tunnels.

More Mesclun, Brassicas, Leeks, Spring Onions and French Beans have all been planted out for the coming weeks and months. The Tomatoes have all been attended to and are starting to show signs of fruit. The Cucumbers have tiny yellow flowers showing. The Courgettes are also beginning to flower and have decided to grow an extra leaf each minute! It will not be long till the whole area of ground in each Courgette bed is completely green rather than brown. The 1200 Squash have also all decided to establish themselves in the Well Field and are coming along nicely. The Potatoes, well if the growing under the ground is as good as the growing above the ground it’s going to be a bumper crop of ‘tatties!

We hope you are enjoying the Sugar Snap Peas (christened ‘snappers’ in our house courtesy of grandson number two), those who received them in your seasonal boxes. I have simply steamed them for Bob and they are delicious.

Bobs favourite veg has to be the Pea. They will be ready for the seasonal boxes this week or next week. Those tiny little balls of pale green are as sweet as… Plus, each pod seems packed with peas…well the ones harvested for the testing crew (daughter, grandsons and Bob and yes I had the odd one or five) were delicious apparently. The above peas demolished by your ‘delivery boy’ aka Bob.

Hopefully, you will remember our conversation re Cabbage root fly and the damage and destruction they cause. The solution is nematodes. We were able to buy two lots of nematodes and they have now been placed into the areas most affected by these blighters. But, not enough nematodes to cover all the beds requiring some help.  Unfortunately, the suppliers of nematodes have no more till they are able to restock. As we have other areas affected by Cabbage root fly and need nematodes we have had to come up with a plan B…insect repelling fleece. This product is extremely expensive, so, we have only bought a small amount to use on a small number of our brassica beds. We have no guarantee that the fleece will do it’s job successfully. But we are giving it a go. We do wish the nematodes will be available soon.

Right now we are able to enjoy seventeen hours of daylight over the next week or so. We are spending this weekend with the little ones who are camping in the Orchard Field with their parents. We did enjoy food and a little tipple in the field, but we are certainly not camping as our aching backs are bad enough without laying in a field overnight…been there, done that, we like our beds! But fun has been had, "snappers" and Peas with Strawberries for "pud" were all harvested and enjoyed. Enjoy your freshly harvested goodies.

Take care,

 Ann👩‍🌾