Summer Solstice

Hello Everyone,

This year has been unusual in more ways than one. It is officially the Summer. The photo above was taken on the evening of the Summer Solstice. Our daylight will be one second less each day and gradually be less and less each day. The real hot weather should begin from now, however, we seem to have had hot weather from the beginning of Spring and, fingers crossed it will continue.

The amount of rain we have had has also been sufficient (except for the intense ten days during Spring), enough to not need to continually water the outside growing areas.

Speaking of the outside growing areas…..they are, or should I say were, coming along very nicely. The garlic is ready to harvest, the onions, spring onions and leeks are vivid green and long, the beetroot is prolific, the potatoes are flowering, the summer and winter squashes are spreading like triffids and the brassicas are all out and growing many leaves. That is until we acquired a new couple who have moved into a hedge tree. Everything was going to plan….everything growing perfectly and overnight we realised that the Brussel Sprouts were disappearing bit by bit! The next time we looked some Broccoli and Calabrese leaves were getting smaller, not larger. Over a day and a half our new neighbours, who happen to be wood pigeons, had nibbled their way through hundreds of Sprouts and a similar number of Broccoli had been pecked at!!!! Out came the net tunnels and over that evening and some of the next morning, the whole Brassica area was covered with the tunnels…..back breaking but satisfying knowing that we beat those greedy birds. I can not believe that it just took two little pigeons to make me so annoyed. Hopefully the tunnels will rectify the situation and we will be back on track. As Bob says “lessons learned “.

The piglets are now teenagers and once again we have to deal with escaping pigs, like the two who escaped the pen AND the field and came running down the road squealing “we got out but we can’t get back in!”. This happened last week so it was decided that the girls and boys should be split into separate pens to try and have better control over them (laughs as she writes this)! Kate (mother) has now gone back into the pen with Royal (father). They really do love each other. There was such a lot of eye to eye contact and I am convinced they were kissing. A nice Father’s Day gift for Royal, to be back with his misses. Kate is probably delighted to be away from the teenagers too. Fingers crossed Mr and Mrs have a wonderful time with the patter of more tiny feet during early November.

Thank you for putting your orders in quickly, it is a huge help. The logistics of delivering to you all is always the challenge. But, we do hope we are providing a decent bag of organic goodies to you all. To those who may miss out, we are sorry – get your order in early to avoid disappointment.

Eggs are back on this week!

Keep trying, stay safe and be good,

Ann👩‍🌾