Feeling a Bit Glum

Hello Everyone,

We have some glum and disappointing news from the farm. The first job of the day is to feed the chickens and on Tuesday morning Bob went to feed the chickens and unbeknown to us a fox somehow managed to enter the enclosed chicken run and clearly the vision Bob encountered was not a pleasant one. Bob’s next job of the day was to gather the flock and safely dispose of them. This was not a pleasant few hours for Bob and unfortunately I was of no help.

Clearly the fox was able to get into the chicken run and until we check on the perimeter fence properly we have no idea how this occurred. Once we have the opportunity to check we will also take advantage of an empty pen to revamp the three areas and also the chicken houses.

We will definitely have the time to decide when to carry out the renovations as finding replacements is proving to be a challenge. In the past we have bought organic ‘point of lay’ chickens from a farm in the South West. These chickens are twelve weeks old and just about ready to lay eggs. However, the couple from this farm are retiring. The next available business is a farm in North Yorkshire but unfortunately their flock has also been wiped out by a fox or foxes. As we would prefer to continue with certified organic chickens the Soil Association have suggested that we acquire day old chicks which can be reared using organic food and methods from, literally, day one. However, this would also mean that it would be nearly four months before the chickens begin to lay any eggs. We are deep in our thoughts as four months is a long time to be feeding and looking after at least thirty chickens without any return (we are a business after all). So, there will be no eggs until we confirm our decision. We will miss the girls and the tasty eggs they delivered.

Let’s have more uplifting chat:

We have harvested all of this year's Garlic and it is now in one of the Greenhouses "curing". We planted 100s of Garlic cloves at the end of last year, they stay in the ground for over six months of the year, and you never know till the day of the harvest what they will be like. Fair to say we are delighted with this year's harvest.

We have had visitors this week from another well respected (and Michelin Star) restaurant. They were suitably impressed with our set up and obviously the tasty fruit, vegetables and herbs we are growing. They understood and appreciated the methods and principles we use growing our organic goodies. We were very like minded in thoughts on sustainability, seasonality and making use of all elements of what we have on offer. They totally understood that we are not the average fruit and vegetable supplier as we enjoy building relationships and discussing the farm to kitchen process. We will begin a service to them next week.

The growing beds are now being ‘flipped’ from crop to crop. For instance, the Potatoes which you, our lovely customers, have enjoyed these last weeks were in Polytunnel 5. This bed now has been sown with fresh Carrot seeds. Root vegetable to root vegetable I hear you say , what has happened to the crop rotation plan? Well sometimes we think it is not totally essential to follow this rule. (We definitely see no problem with sowing lettuce after lettuce if the need arises). This bed had a huge amount of fresh compost placed upon it while ‘banking up’ the growing Potato plants. This has made the bed ideal for the Carrots to grow down into. We will just ensure that a root is definitely not planted into the ground for the next crop.

The Broad Beans have had the top of the plants trimmed away. This ensures that all the energy goes into the pods as opposed to growing more of the vine and leaves.

The French Beans are now about to become prolific and I can safely say they taste delicious. This is one of those vegetables which just appear over night.

The Runner Beans were planted out this week and by Thursday it was noted that these healthy plants must also be tasty as the back row has been demolished. A cute little rabbit must have found its way in via a little gap Lucy and I discovered in the tunnel corner. We used some of the Polytunnel repair kit to cover the hole. Fingers crossed.

The Tomatoes are now all strung up and the side shoots have been removed. They will need to be wrapped around the string at least twice a week during this speedy growing season. Each time they are wrapped it is an opportunity to glance at each of our three hundred tomato plants. We will be checking for side shoots or heaven forbid, blight, leaf mould or cracking.

While wrapping the string around each plant we are also disturbing the flowers which hopefully will enable the pollen to transfer from flower to flower…pollination. It also means that the plant is slightly stressed by the motion. Stress causes the plant to assume that it needs to provide more seeds, the result being more delicious tomatoes.

The Cucumbers are looking strong with plenty of tiny, tiny cucumbers appearing. Cucumbers are always prolific and I can’t wait to get to the point where they are appearing up and down the lines of Cucumber plants.

Well, from a sad start to a more positive end with the knowledge that there are more and more delicious goodies about to hit the Gardener’s Box.

Till next time, take care,

 Ann