Unbelievable Weather

Hello Everyone, 

What a biblical week of weather!!!

Tuesday saw torrential water coming from the heavens. Our house was like an island. We were surrounded by gushing water flowing down the lane. The fields were wet before Tuesday, we were like the Somme on Tuesday! The Orchard Field had a huge newly created pond which overflowed across the field then out the gate to join the river flowing down the lane. The ditches up and down each side of the lane just couldn’t cope with the amount of water, so they overflowed onto the lane itself, so creating the river. There was literally just nowhere for the water to go to! We did have seepage in the kitchen, but nothing to worry about, it’s an old stone built house which will last way after we have gone. A little water will not knock this house down (we hope).

Harvesting inside the tunnels was a challenge…not from the rain but from the noise of the rain. It can never be underestimated how noisy torrential rain over a "drum like" tunnel cover is! Harvesting the outside crops was disastrous…we were all completely soaked through. The crew all did a remarkable job collecting the crops but we all had had enough of the rain by the end of the day. Above are some of the delicious inside grown cauliflowers. The outside ones were also harvested but they did need a lot of attention to present them in your vegetable boxes. They were quite muddy from the splash back of rain and Graham the Greats mucky, wet hands!

The coming next few weeks will see us have another challenge…our delivery van needs some TLC from a garage. We will be without the van which will impact the boxes being delivered at the end of this week and part of the following week. Our delivery boy (Bob) will do his utmost to ensure you do get your orders. My advice is to get your orders in really early today and next weekend. We will be closing the shop once we reach capacity. Fingers crossed, harvesting will be sooooo much simpler than last week…just being dry would be good.

The Lovely Lucy, when not helping to harvest, spent the remainder of her time in the Greenhouses. Sowing seeds and potting on established plants is a huge part of this season. We need to ensure that we have all the crops to fill up our inside and outside growing areas for the coming seasons. The best thing about the Greenhouse is the progress which can be seen on a daily basis…oh! and how dry and warm it is. 

So, we produce trays filled with little seedlings, then we have to plant them out. Even though it has been an awful week of wet weather, some seedlings have been planted out…the kohlrabi, chard and lettuce for instance…all planted out. However, it would be great if you could all perform a sun dance to enable us to have a big plant out and a direct sowing day real soon.

Today is also a special day - as it is National Gardening Day, and today the sun is shining so a perfect opportunity to get some gardening done, enjoy.

Don’t forget we are doing our two, one day Gardening Course in July to help you learn more about what we do here on the farm. Bob will treat you to his words of wisdom and I will fill you up with all our own produce for lunch. Look on our website for more details.

Thank you for your continued support and fingers crossed for better weather.

Take care,