July 2012, news and pics

We’ve had some promising glimpses of Summer during June, but not as many as we would like! The onions and garlic have grown very well this season, the second early potatoes were a bit slow but ready to harvest now and all our leafy greens are available again now (chards, spinach and kales). The courgette and sweetcorn plants are looking good and have enjoyed this last week of warmth and we finally started planting our squash plants last week, once we got a few consecutive dry days and most of them are in the ground now hoping for a sunny summer, (aren’t we all!).

Potatoes in flower, the real thing is beautiful, not done justice by my photography!

Potato flowers

Looking down over Wye, our early transplanted leeks growing in very chalky soils,
a lot less weeds here than in many of our crops this year

Onions that have been weeded lots!!
Al least some of the weeds are pretty.

Red onions

Weeds, weeds, weeds - We’ve been thinking back to last year’s exceptionally dry/hot spring and remembering how little hand weeding we had to do - reverse that this year, Martin does the bulk of the weeding himself using a tractor mounted steerage hoe, finger-weeder, and ridger as well as some pre-emergence and inter-row flame weeding. But any weeds that escape all that have to be hoed or hand-pulled, and there have been a lot of them this season. You get to know your weeds when you’re on your hands and knees in a bed of carrot or spinach, and categorise them as you go along, there’s the ‘good’ weeds such as fat-hen (pulls out easily, as long as it doesn’t get too big), fumitory (looks pretty), red dead-nettle (the bees love it) and then there are the ’nasties’ – nettles and thistles, for obvious reasons. There’s no going out in the fields in shorts and sandals on an organic farm!

January in Pictures

2011 was a 'funny old year' weather wise, mild and wet from January (after a very cold and snowy Nov and Dec), then very hot and dry in April, May and June. We finally got a decent amount of rain in July, and then some more and some more! A definite lack of sun and warmth through July and August, followed by a wonderfully sunny September and October was pretty good too (even I went swimming in the sea that first weekend!). And winter has been very kind to us as growers so far, relatively mild with few frosts, our winter greens are faring much better than last winter, no complaints there, too mild even to affect the whitefly that like to hide in the curly kale.

But it does seem un-seasonally mild, and the spring and summer did seem a bit mixed up, so a bit unsettling. Its much easier growing vegetables when the weather does what you expect!

No photo blog in Nov and Dec due to my camera not working, but back in action now, so I thought I would show you everything that we are harvesting on the farm at the moment (despite it being January, we still spend at least 4 days a week harvesting and packing for farmers markets, our box scheme, other home delivery and box schemes (including Growing Communities, Harvest 4 U, Sutton Farm and Local Greens),  shops and restaurants in Kent and London (too many to mention, see our website for a listing).

We sell at Wye, Whitstable and Stoke Newington Farmer's Markets, all of which only allow us to sell produce we have grown ourselves.



sprouts - not just for Christmas!



A selection of cabbages........

Celeriac, most is covered by straw for frost protection.

Beetroot, again, most of the crop is snug under a layer of straw

Carrots under fleece, with more under straw.

And here's the beetroot under straw.

Not much to see, but there are some parsnips in these beds, we have to search for them, not our best crop this year, as many didn't germinate in the hot, dry spring

Spinach

Green Chard

Rainbow Chard

Swede

Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Green Curly Kale

Cavelo Nero (Black Kale)

Red Curly Kale

Tha mainstay of our winter salad bags - 'green-in-snow' mustard leaf

Rocket, going to seed now, but the flowering shoots are great in salads.

Sweet Red Russian Kale, the smaller leaves are harvested for salad,
 and the larger ones for stir fry bags and mixed kale bags

Sweet Hungry Gap Kale, again the smaller leaves are great in salads (similar taste to pak-choi)

A glasshouse full of Claytonia, the cultivated form of the wild plant 'Spring Beauty'. Also known as 'Miners Lettuce, getting its name due to its use as a fresh salad green by miners in the 1849 Gold Rush in California

Red Mustard leaves, growing in a glasshouse.

One of the more tender winter salad leaves, Mizuna. This crop has already been cut once, and if the mild weather continues we will get another cut from it.

And the crops harvested in the Autumn and now in store include potatoes (under the covers),
 as well as onions and squash.

Over-wintered garlic, something to look forward to in the Spring (we do still have some stored, dried garlic too).

And a late crop of leeks ( we do also have some larger ones we are harvesting at the momet)

September, Spud Harvest Time

September is Spud harvest time, so far we have been harvesting them as needed, but all the maincrop potatoes should be harvested over the next few weeks now ready for winter storage. A sunny, not too wet September will keep us happy, the squash will ripen, the tomatoes and peppers in the polytunnels will keep cropping and we can harvest potatoes anytime we're not harvesting and packing orders.  

Potato harvester in action at Ripple, with one tractor pulling the machine, one driving alongside filling wooden bin as the spuds come off the belt, and 4 workers on top, sorting the clods and stones from the spuds.



Plenty of wooden bins still
to be filled, the 'Long Plantation' woods in the background.



'Amorosa' - reds and 'Valor' - whites



The harvester goes back to the workshop for minor repairs, Wye Crown claerly seen here looking up from 'Orchard Field' spinach, late sown leeks and kales under cover bottom right.

Stripy spinach - the central darker green rows are true spinach, and the outer, lighter green are perpetual spinach

Early leeks, irrigated back in the drought of April/May, and now ready to harvest,
looking pretty as a picture amongst the poppies

This year's squash crop is not looking so good after a relatively cool summer, many plants died in the cool conditions after planting, and those that are there still need more sun to ripen up.



Crown Prince squash, not yet ripe...



and butternut..

Whats Happening July 2011

First it was too dry, then too wet (no pleasing us vegetable growers!) but then conditions were just right, so the last couple of weeks have seen us transplanting in every spare moment, (well, when we're not harvesting, packing or weeding that is) and we're almost caught up now.

These leeks were transplanted (and then irrigated) during the 'drought' and are now doing well



We finally got good enough ground conditions to plant our squash (not too dry, not too wet),
what they need now is lots of sun

Less watering to do as the number of plants still in plug trays lessens

The 'Hungarian Hot Wax' Chillies get going

And the tomatoes start to redden.

Rainbow and Green Chard plants just transplanted, we should be able to harvest chard from these plants through to next Spring, as long as thwey survive the winter (once they get a bit bigger that is!)

Our frindly 'Hawk Kite' bird scarer keeping the pigeons off our kales.

Lovely, almost weed-free rows of Cos lettuce

Whats happening at Ripple in April in Pictures

The potatoes are in the ground




The seeding greenhouse is full, and we have transplanted some early crops of chard, beetroot and lettuce.







Autumn sown garlic grown outdoors in the shelter of our walled garden







Recent sowing of onions now up, most of this early sowing will be harvested as spring/green onions




Broad beans




Raised beds made ready for sowing carrots into




New season's salad in polytunnel




We still have leeks