Taking Pride In What We Do

Hello Everyone,

Bob and I hope you are all very well and if you have been away on your holiday, fingers crossed, you are refreshed and welcome back!

Now, you all know that the delivery boy, Bob, is good for a chat and while he was delivering last Thursday, one of our lovely customers passed a comment which we are delighted at. It was noted that we take such pride in the work that we do. This made me very happy. We do take pride in everything that we do. We do want to grow tasty produce. We do want the farm to look tidy. We do want to be organised. We do want to be efficient. We do want the Gardener’s Box to be abundant. We do want to provide a hospitable service. We do want happy customers. Thank you for noticing how we care. Thank you for all the positive remarks we receive.

Here on the farm we have continued to work the way we have always worked. Both of us can say that we did ok in our previous careers and have brought our systems and processes to how we work now. The growing of the fruit, vegetables and herbs part has been the knowledge we have had to study. We continue to learn by reading, looking at social media, talking to other farmers and growers but, more importantly, growing for ourselves.

So, with the pride in our work and continuing our education we are very lucky to have a lot of job satisfaction. Thank goodness coz this time of the year (not sure why I am saying this time of the year?) work is constant. We continue to tend both the inside and outside beds. The tomatoes and cucumbers are rapidly growing and need to be de leafed and any side shoots removed. Now there are plenty of fruit growing we will give each plant a feed. We use organic seaweed as a feed.

The Gardener’s Box and Restaurants take lots of produce from all the growing beds, clearly. As the crops are delivered so the beds become empty. We are now at the point where the beds need to be ‘flipped’. We are taking the time to clear the beds of spent crops and weeds, then consider if a layer of fresh compost needs to be added or if it still looks fine to plant or sow into the bed. We have sown more Spring Onions, Carrots, Beetroot and Radishes. The greenhouses are full of trays with Cauliflowers, Kohlrabi, Calabrese, Broccoli, Lettuces, Mesclun, Kales, Cavolo Nero, Florence Fennel to name a few. These will be going into the prepared beds when they are big enough to handle.

All of these vegetables will see us through to the Winter season. I will be sowing more seeds this month which will be the overwintering crops. As I say regularly, it is all in the planning. We are always thinking about what we will be doing in the coming seasons.

Meanwhile, back in this season, the onions sown earlier this year are now ready to be harvested. Those who had a box delivered last week did have these fresh onions. The onions are still wet but we will be curing them to make them ready for storage. The next lot of potatoes are ready for harvesting. We did not put them in the boxes last week as we have a good choice of fresh vegetables at the moment. Potatoes can be stored and kept for use later.

We have also being preparing for another one of our Gardening Courses on Sunday. This will be interesting as we have taken a few more students than we anticipated. I am sure it will be just as fun and chatty as the last one.  We do have more places on the next full and part day courses if you are interested. We have had some confidence boosting comments from attendees. Excellent news.

Well, we are going to be busy so I am taking my leave.

All have a great week and take care,

Ann