Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Bob and I wish you all a very happy, fruitful and prosperous New Year.

Starting anything new is always a good thing. Sometimes it can be interesting. Sometimes it can be a challenge. Sometimes it can be just fun. We are starting our New Year with all of the above.

Over the festive period we had quite a lot of family and friends visiting and we did have a rest (sort of), we even watched a film! But we did spend an awful lot of our time talking and planning.

Bob’s previous job, before he ‘retired’!, was quite a huge job. One of his mantras was – ‘plan tomorrow today; plan next week this week; plan next month this month; plan next year this year’. He has brought his mantra right back out again. This is now how we are planning! We have a plan for this whole year! And it is running alongside our new ‘no-dig’ approach.

We now know which crops will be inside all seven polytunnels on a given date. We now know where each crop will be seeded or transplanted inside each polytunnel. This corresponds to a sowing and planting plan on our crop rotation plan. We now know when the soil will need to be fed. We now know if we need overhead irrigation or direct irrigation. This plan will fluctuate as the weather will play a huge part in the grand scheme…..having completed the polytunnel crops we now need to plan out the outside crops which totals twice the size of the polytunnel area!!!

But, we are very excited. Really interested in our new methods. We find it a huge challenge to adopt this new approach. But more importantly, we are having fun, especially when it is late at night and we are still discussing where to put the peas and beans!

Speaking of peas and beans……using our plan, we have been able to order ALL the seeds we will require for the year….because we did the planning! The seeds arrived and we have started to sow them in the greenhouse. So far we have sown 240 broad beans (above), 240 peas, 600 beetroot and a new herb to us – sweet cicely. Very happy to be back in the office!

Thank you for your continued support. Keep enjoying the Organic Produce.

All have a great week,

Ann