Visitors

Hello Everyone,

Bob and I hope you are all very well and happy to have some scorcherooo days this last week. It has been sooo lovely to have long, hot, sunny, days to help with the growing and the working conditions. 

We had more visitors last Wednesday evening…The Chrysanthemum and Dalia Societies from Northumberland and Darlington. Bob had already been to give a talk, but this was a trip out for the two groups to check out the farm and the principals we use, mainly ‘no dig’. They could not have picked a better evening, weather wise. It was a very informed and enthusiastic group of people and as ever we all learnt something in our discussions. They all had great gardening knowledge. Knowledge is something that every gardener, we have come across, willingly shares. Compared to the years they had been gardening, Bob and I are novices resulting in many top tips for us.

We have many visitors to the farm. This was a prearranged club visit, but we have enjoyed charity open days and we have had our own prearranged open days to coincide with the Soil Association’s ‘Organic September’. We are asked constantly if people can pop across for a visit but this can impact on our work schedule. We are definitely willing to share our knowledge (along with the knowledge we gain from other gardeners) which is why we have started our ‘vegetable growing courses’. We have had one and another is planned for this weekend. The day was such a good day and if you know Bob…he loves to give a talk. We take, ideally, eight but no more than ten on each course. We have decided to do a few more days in the coming months. This is because we feel there is a need to provide our knowledge not just for the summer season, but for different seasons to. We do very similar things during each season. However, we also have to adapt depending on the season and what Mother Nature throws our way. Our next lot of courses will be in the coming autumn season. The details are on the website if you are interested.

Everywhere on the farm is looking pretty good, even if I do say so myself. The tunnels are prolific, especially the tomatoes and cucumbers, oh! And the broad beans and coming soon, the French beans. The peppers are dandy. We are going to use a new technique while the peppers continue to grow over the coming weeks. This is the lovely Lucy’s idea…we are using training lines to attach each plant. Every year we have such a lot of huge peppers on each plant and inevitably, some branches snap due to the weight of the peppers. We are hoping the lines will support the plants and stop any breakages. Fingers crossed.

The outside growing areas are now complete. I would like to say completely full. But our Orchard Field still has a water issue. The beds which are still wet are not being used. Graham the Great is going to dig some ditches in specific areas at the end of the summer or beginning of autumn. A huge task which will need some thought. Maybe Graham can think about this over the next four weeks while he is off on…paternity leave and annual leave…he is a dad again!  Although he will probably will have his hands full with two little ones rather than think about ditches. 

One of my favourite things to look at when you, our lovely customers, place your orders, is to analyse the goodies you are buying. Thank you for all your orders and last weeks winner was peppers but closely followed by our new garlic. We have racks and racks of our Hexhamshire Organic Garlic (yes, we can call our garlic with this title as we have been using our own cloves of garlic to plant over the last five years hence you can give your garlic a name). The garlic is curing (drying) which will enable us to keep the garlic for many many months. Now, our garlic is ‘wet’ garlic as it is fresh. When we prep the garlic for you, the smell is amazing…enjoy!

Thank you for your continued support and have a great week,