Monday 24 April 2017

Harvest Monday and Eves Hill Veg Co

For a lot of us here in the UK the weather's become quite cool, with frosts and even possibly snow in the next couple of days. I saw a graphic of the cold weather moving down the east side of the country, right over Norwich, yikes. So this afternoon I checked on the potatoes - I could earth up the maincrops to protect the little bit of leafy growth above soil level, but the earlies were too tall already, with a lot of growth poking out and not enough soil remaining to rake up and over them. So instead I put some low hoops over the two rows and draped over a sheet of enviromesh, making sure none of it drooped onto the plants, as that can encourage frost scorch too, especially if the material touching the plants is wet. I did something similar with the strawberries, which are in full flower now, so fingers crossed.
 
The other day I noticed one of my garlics had keeled over a bit, so I forked it up to see if anything was obviously wrong below soil level. I couldn't tell if there were the beginnings of white rot, it didn't look too bad, but I'll keep an eye on the others. We could still eat this garlic though, including the stem, which is soft at this stage.
I like seeing the beginnings of cloves forming
It went into this hotpot that Jan made, tasty
In the lean-to I've still got some lettuces growing and a bit of rocket
In the freezer there's still lots of berries. I used some up in a couple of blackberry cakes, having been inspired by Dave's (Our Happy Acres) pudding last week. I forgot to take a photo until they were nearly all gone, and in this part of the cake the berries had dropped to the bottom, so not showing off my baking skills very well...tasted nice though.
Out in the paved front yard I have some tubs of plants, including a bit of mint. The mint does quite well out there as the yard faces north so it keeps cool usually. I had this as a mint tea...just add hot water and leave to steep for a couple of minutes. You might be able to spot some tiny aphids, which I did (mostly) wash off first.
I've had an exciting delivery....books! I had a voucher for the Green Shopping website, where there's loads of cool things. As I've been reading online about no-dig methods for a while, I thought it would be good to have something physical to refer to. I foresee many happy hours of browsing these beauties. I don't like getting many new things / more possessions but these were a welcome exception. I've also got my eye on some copper tools but I think they'll have to wait for birthday and Christmas combined.
Out at Eves Hill, the spring bed prep continues. Here we removed half a bed of overwintered chard and sowed dwarf French beans, then topped with mulch. The bed next door has broad beans sown a couple of weeks ago. There was quite a bit of nice new growth on some of the chard, so the best bits went to the veg bags whilst the rest came to us volunteers, yummy. (Some of it went in that hot pot and we also made a lovely chard & sorrel soup, with sorrel from the farm too).

Spring-sown salads are getting planted out, with fleece protection

The many trays of seedlings are doing nicely, like these in the polytunnel
Kohl rabi in the polytunnel looks good too
As do these lettuces
The busy seed-sowing table

I should be heading out there this Wednesday and also Saturday, when the veg farm celebrates its first birthday (there will definitely be cake), what a lot has been achieved in a year!

 

I'm running a bit late tonight as there was a Norfolk Organic Group talk on the 'Secrets of the soil' this evening...lots of interesting info...my main takeaway thoughts are: protect and feed the soil (soil life), mulch mulch mulch (preferably with organic matter), disturb the soil (and soil life) as little as possible (this also ties in with no dig), healthy soil life = healthy plants. When we harvest plants we're removing nutrients etc from the system, so it's important to replace them with compost, whether that be well-rotted manure or homemade compost etc (and preferably applied as a mulch rather than digging in). I never have enough compost, sigh!

 

And on that note, I'll bid you goodnight. Thanks for reading, I'm linking in as usual with Harvest Monday kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

 

20 comments:

  1. You have a lot going on! Love all the varieties!

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  2. You're right, there's never enough compost is there. Your new books look lovely, no-dig is something that really interests me. Did you see Charles Dowding on Gardener's World last Friday? His plot is divine. I follow him on Twitter and I was interested to see two similar little beds, one no-dig and one dug. The no-dig crops were visibly bigger and stronger. I still have some leftover fruit in the freezer as well. Time to make room for the new lot soon I think. CJ xx

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    1. Hi CJ, yep I saw Charles on GW, his plot is amazing. He has loads of helpful videos on YouTube too. There's a 'no dig gardening undug' Facebook group which is full of useful info with good admins as well (including Steff Hafferty) but it's very easy to lose many hours reading through all the comments, let alone for all the people who helpfully give advice there!
      Mmm, enjoy all the fruit :)

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  3. You should get on well with Roger Brook who has a blog called No Dig Gardener which is on my list on the blog sidebar. We were in your part of the world Friday and Saturday we went to Welney Wetland Centre and also to the steam gala on the North Norfolk Railway.

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    1. Thanks sue, I'll check his blog out. At the moment I'm more 'minimal till' (i.e. minimal disturbance) but working towards no dig, (that quantity of compost issue again).
      Oh great, I've only been to welney once as it's a bit of a trek from Norwich, shame it's not closer. Aha, it was the Poppy Line up on the north coast - lovely up there (The reserve I went to the other week was right down south on the county border.). When we get the Coasthopper bus from Sheringham (right next to the Poppyline station) it's always a treat to see a steam engine if we're lucky with the timing.

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  4. Green garlic is so good. I think I miss the green garlic almost more than the mature garlic now that I can't grow it any more (disease problems).

    Soil is such a fascinating subject. I read a great book about it last year - Teeming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Wayne Lewis and Jeff Lowenfels. I don't know if there is a UK edition, but I highly recommend it if you can find it. I have the Kindle version.

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    1. Hi Michelle, yeah I'm wondering how well the garlic will do, there are some signs of rust on the leaves too and they're a bit yellowy in general (after looking healthy all winter). May have to eat lots of green garlic! It's a shame you have problems. Are there any other garlicky flavoured crops you could try instead? (Over here we have garlic mustard and wild garlic, for example).
      Ooh that sounds like a good book, I'll have a look, thanks!

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  5. I do hope your taters and strawberries aren't nipped by the coming weather. I think the danger of frost here is past, and I actually set out a few early tomatoes. The soil talk sounds very interesting, and like you I never seem to have enough compost!

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    1. Thanks Dave, I've been down to check today, and they're fine so far, phew. I did get hailed on whilst I was there though! Apparently there was a smattering of snow in Norwich early this morning too.
      Oh wow, that's a good start for your toms.

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  6. Wow your plot it massive!

    And you reminded me I have blueberries in the freezer to use up, hopefully I will remember this weekend. I have just made another Turnip cake, made one last week and it was delicious - http://allotment2kitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/rutabaga-aka-swede-date-cake-with-miso.html

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    1. Hi shaheen, ah sadly that's not my plot (if only), it's a not for profit veg farm I've been volunteering at. Sorry, I should've said :) it's on two acres, with one acre currently in use. Big eh! I must take some pics of my own plot soon.
      Ooh yes, blueberries sound good. And turnip cake sounds great - so creative! I love dates too.

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  7. I love the look of your polytunnel, especially those khol rabi. Never would have thought of growing them under cover so thank you for the tip, Lou!

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    1. Thanks Kathy, it's the new Eves Hill Veg Co polytunnel which us volunteers helped put up - brill isn't it! We have Hannah (who runs the farm) to thank for the kohl rabi, all her idea :)

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  8. Fingers crossed that your plants make it through the frost ok.

    I laughed at the "mostly" washed off aphids - us gardeners are much more tolerant of extra protein in our diet :)

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    1. Thanks Margaret, all ok on the frost front so far, although I took part of the cover off yesterday for pollinators to get in, then heard too late that there may have been a frost last night, oh well!

      Ha ha, yep definitely get some extra protein in there.

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  9. I still have weeks to go before the risk of frost is gone. But just so you know, I have had quite significant frost damage from planting potatoes too early. In the two years this happened to me (I have only been planting potatoes that early recently), the above-ground growth was damaged to the point that I thought it had died, but did not seem to affect overall plant health and yield as it came back.

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    1. Hi Susie, thanks for this. Yeah I think frost damage on potatoes just delays them a bit - the tuber is big enough to put out more healthy growth afterwards. I had a bit of damage one year but they recovered ok too, phew.

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  10. I love seeing the dishes you and Jan make, the hotpot and blackberry cake looks wonderful. A friend of mine does the no till method which works very well for her, but she keeps rabbits and our town makes it's own compost.

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    1. Thanks phuong, that's so kind of you to say!
      Yeah it definitely helps to have a good source of compost. I'm getting a little bit extra to add to my heaps this year as I'm gardening for a lady nearby, and taking the grass clippings etc to the plot (walking them to the plot using my trolley!) rather than someone take them to the council for recycling.

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