NOTES FROM THE GARDEN 

SATURDAYS IN THE GARDEN

You are welcome to look round the garden at the front of the shop on Saturdays, but please do not pick anything or go inside the polytunnels.

June 2nd 2007 update

At the moment it is either far to dry or far too wet! Anyway, there is some progress although now the land is too wet to walk on.

Now we have lots of beetroot with the tops on to use like spinach, four varieties of lettuce, rocket and loads of spinach - the cafe menu has been spinach everything this week. all from the tunnels which are so useful at this time of the year.

Also available in the shop at the moment are lovely spring greens, the first beautifully small broad beans and there is talk of strawberries, fresh garlic, overwintered fresh onions and sugarsnaps soon.

The hungry gap will be over and we will glide (!) into the time when everyday a new vegetable comes into the shop - with oohs and aahs from us and the customers, as if we have never seen such a sight before.  This surely is the essence of seasonality.

April 2007

At last it stopped raining and the gardeners could get onto the land.  And now? We are wishing for rain again. Its very exciting this year as we are doubling the garden area to approx 20 acres.  We need more vegetables for the shop and the land needs to rest more too.  We are hoping to double the amount of onions, potatoes, carrots, brassicas and grow more of many of the other field crops too. More crops means a new irrigation system, in the summer months many man hours are spent moving pipes from one strip to another, so we are investing in a new system which should help on the time front and also give a much more even drink to the plants. You will probably be able to see it whizzing up and down the rows from June time.

At the moment a lot of seeds are being sown, seedlings pricked out and couch being dug.

Asparagus has just started, sold out the last two days, and we have coriander coming out of our ears.  If anyone knows a fool proof coriander chutney recipe please email it to me, we always seem to have too much or too little.

Summer 2006

Now the shop is brimming with broad beans, beetroot, climbing french beans, courgettes yellow and green, lettuces, potatoes that melt in the mouth, tomatoes; sun gold, gardeners delight and our old favourites black russian.  Black and red currants, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries are coming in from the garden and going out again at enormous speed. And phlox, sweet peas, zinnias, rudbeckia and dahlias are starting to be bunched for sale.

This must surely by one of the most exciting times in the english kitchen garden - our cooks in the cafe are at last spoilt for choice after a long hungry gap.

March 2006

After a long warm autumn, with good plant growth – the brassica patch really benefited from this – we were threatened with a seriously cold winter by some forecasters. It started, but fortunately failed to stay and apart from some damage to the softer (unhardened) growth - leeks and cabbage – all has returned to normal.

The autumn sown broad beans, having escaped the attentions of the mice (I’ve seen a couple of cats around about) and kept their heads down during the cold snap, are now emerging: a couple of months late but very welcome. The carrots are finished and most of the parsnip but now the kales and sprouting should get going as the days lengthen.
Last year the celeriac, calabrese and cauliflower did particularly well and the lettuce cropping eventually got going after the leather jackets had flown. (I’ve yet to find an answer to the leather jacket problem – so any suggestions are welcome). To help improve the long term condition of the soil in the polytunnels we undersowed the tomatoes, aubergines and peppers with trefoil. Good idea? – in the short term we established perennial weeds and the restricted air movement around the plants led to increased fungal attacks. Now working on some refinements for this year with different approaches for the differing crop requirements. 

In the winter the pigeons have become particularly ‘attentive’ to the brassicas, kales and sprouting especially. This has required us to cover them with mesh – again! I say again as shortly after planting last year the 1st brassicas were severely attacked by flea beetle so required covering (they were at the time just about managing to survive the pigeons). The beetles stayed around a long time, then along came the butterflies, so the mesh stayed on. On all summer; only coming off before harvesting started in the autumn. I think we will see an increased roll for crop covers of various types in the future!

This year we plan to plant more raspberries as they seem so popular, and to try to keep up with the demand for winter salads we hope to increase the area grown in the tunnels by a half. We are very much looking forward to our 1st harvest of asparagus this spring.

As I now delve deep into the seed catalogues trying to separate the fact from the flannel in my search for the best organic varieties, I wish you all a most productive year.

Soft Fruit       

Did you know you could still be eating our own organic fruit? We have frozen raspberries and redcurrants and plenty of blackcurrants. Blackcurrants are an excellent source of vitamin C which is particularly important in preventing disease. Useful through these winter months. Despite being boringly good for you I found some excellent recipes; blackcurrant and apple pie , blackcurrant fluff (an upmarket fool) and even as a sauce to accompany beetroot, made with 1-2 tbsp blackcurrant jam heated with the juice of half a lemon and poured over diced beetroot. Apparently good hot or cold! 

Meanwhile we still have some work to do towards this year’s crop! The raspberries are now neatly tied in and a new row planted. The Autumn Bliss will be cut down in February and a new row of them planted too. 

Then the bush fruit all needs to be pruned. The gooseberry bushes are well established now and should give a reasonable crop this year (assuming we don’t get another late frost!) and at last you can get out your gooseberry and elderflower recipes, etc.The strawberries are all weeded and tidied up and waiting to grow. We will be planting some more later in the spring, as we do every year as the plants only usefully produce for 3 years. JANE

Notes from the Garden - April 2005
Most of the work over the last few weeks has been done in the polytunnels. Clearing away after last year's crops, weeding, spreading compost, and rotavating; as well as caring for the over wintered salads. 
The early carrots are up and look very promising - look for these in early/mid June.
The early leeks have germinated well in their seed bed and it looks as if we will have more of this variety 'Hannibal' to plant than last year.
All the spuds are in the ground: this year we are trying a new First Early variety called Orla - let us know what you think. The change was forced by supply problems.
We've still not managed to sow anything outside yet (1/4/05) apart from broad beans. Much of the soil in the garden is still too moist under the surface - the clay content just over 20% and the recent rains -so trying to bury the over wintered green manure with a rotavator becomes a sticky business.
Our first lettuce of the year started to harvest over the Easter weekend and the spinach beet and swiss chard, over wintered in the tunnels, have performed well.
The over wintered onions, normally grown in the field but suffering significant losses, have done much better in the more protected environment of the garden and come June should show a much better weight.
The spring greens are here now
The tomatoes are shooting up and, as I was gently reminded today, need moving on into their 9cm pots before they get leggy and therefore more prone to fungal infections which can be a problem this time of year. 
o The main crop white onions (sets) were planted last week and as I write the red ones are in transit and should, if the weather holds, be in the ground by the end of the week. 
This summer the sweet corn will be grown in the field rather than the garden for the first time. The plan is to grow more, but this is a bit of an experiment as whenever it's been sown (rather than planted from modules) in the garden the slugs have eaten the lot….. time will tell.
Asparagus update - one year on, plants grew well over the summer and have been mulched and weeded this spring. Waiting to see how well they over wintered - was it too damp under foot?
The fruit bushes are about to burst in to life. They'll get their annual muck and mulch any time now and the beds are now ready for the new strawberry plants that are due next week. Keith

Garden Propagating
We are now several weeks into my third season in the garden and the young vegetable plants are already advanced. Each morning I tour the propagation tunnel and glass house to ventilate and water all the plants. I always have one eye on the very changeable weather conditions, its surprising how much a short burst of sun can dry out some plants so generally I make my rounds very regularly throughout the day to make sure all my babies are watered, happy and healthy. At the end of the day the plants are 'put to bed' meaning covering them with fleece, closing the hot bed sides and closing the tunnels to protect them from the cold and the wind. Louise.

SOFT FRUIT UPDATE
Everything is bursting into life again on the fruit plot. At the end of February we had a couple of sunny days to do the pruning and were well pleased with the results. The gooseberry, red and blackcurrant bushes are really establishing and taking shape now, the planting strips have been weeded to reduce the couch invasion and are now awaiting a good dose of well rotted manure. (courtesy of the farm). The regular dressing with this is gradually improving the soil as well as aiding fruit production. We plan to plant more Autumn Bliss raspberries this year as they are such a useful crop. I hope some of you found the surplus we managed to freeze for sale over the winter. The strawberries are 'greening up' and we have ground ready and mulch laid to receive new plants which will be arriving mid April.
Unfortunately we lost a lot of the crop last year due to the wet autumn. Maybe better luck this year?
I am afraid we still haven't got rhubarb this year, it was moved hastily two years ago to a very poor site to make way for the new tunnels and it is not doing well! However it is marked urgent this year and an area is planned and will be weeded and well mucked prior to winter planting. Apologies, but I hope you have enjoyed the extra tunnel produce. 
Meanwhile the punnets are counted and ready so we will just wait for the fruit to ripen. Jane


Notes from the Garden
April 2004
After a seemingly long cold start the new year is up and running - and we start playing 'catch up'.
The salads that have served us so well over the winter months have finally achieved their aim - and are flowering beautifully. 
The extra tunnel space we now have has allowed us some early lettuce. Although slow off the mark, these are now cropping well, as are the spring onions.
The tomatoes are waiting (some what impatiently) in the wings for the above to move on.
As the field carrots come to a natural end (we've been harvesting them for seven months), the early tunnel crop is now two inches tall and has just been hand weeded.
In the field although we've finished harvesting many of the brassicas, they are being left to flower and any over wintering pest predators are being allowed as much time as possible to migrate out of the crop before it is ploughed in.
The fresh green shoots of the main crop onions are growing fast, tempting us out for our 1st run with an old Ferguson steerage hoe (new to us) while the spuds seem to be keeping their heads down for a while yet.
Cultivations for the new seasons brassicas and roots are well under way - and no I've not sown the parsnips yet: the later I sow the less carrot root fly and cancker I get in the over wintered roots.
As I write this we have just planted our 1st asparagus plants (give us a couple of years and I'll let you know) and another batch of ever bearer strawberries.
The fruit bushes have woken up and will get a weed - muck - and mulch as soon as we can manage. 
In the last year we have harvested two hundred different varieties of vegetable, fruit and flower. 
Phew…This year …

Notes from the Garden - October 03
* What a long dry time it's been. Very glad to have water available in the field
to irrigate the crops.
* We eventually got our new tunnels covered - the last on the 1st of July.
The tomatoes transplanted that week, recovered from their very pot bound
state and are producing well.
* A significant "first" for us this season was the arrival of spider mite, they
thrived in the favourable conditions and the French beans, Cucumbers and
Aubergines all suffered as a result. Next year we'll be waiting!
* We've had our first taste of the black and red currants, the raspberries and
gooseberries - and very nice too, though the latter has us searching for
a remedy to the saw fly problem.
* The sweet corn grew on well from the transplants this year and produced a
decent crop; once that is we had replanted many and fleeced them
following the rather too close attentions of the rooks, and latterly
with the ground being so dry and hard the badgers have been foraging
farther afield and found it -fortunately after we'd picked the best.
* Although the carrots started the year poorly with some very erratic
germination in the garden plots (too coarse a seed bed and a dry spell) we
are now lifting some of the best ever, although it is from the ground most
suited to them in the rotation (it will come around again in 6 years time)
credit must go to those concerned for the excellent hand weeding job.
* The parsnips too are looking good (as above) and a trial sowing of a smoother
skinned variety is promising - provided it don't grow too long for us to get out.
* This year the swedes survived the attentions of the flee beetle and are
filling nicely.
* We've had excellent yields from our spuds with two new varieties to us, the
1st early Junior and the red main crop Raja both proving popular
* The selection and growing of cut flowers continues to tease, tempt and
teach, the anemones, Dahlias and Zinnias doing well.
* We're now clearing away early and mid season crops as they finish and sowing
green manures to keep the ground covered over winter and to hang on to
what nutrients we can.
* The oriental brassicas, the main-stay of our salad packs over the winter,
have just been planted out and the rocket, American cress and purslane
are coming up.
* The pumpkins and squashes are ripening well.
* Pssst - I hear that when it comes to beetroot this year - it's got to be big!
Keith

Pictures of the garden-9th april 2003



One of our three new polytunnels April03





Trenches for electrics and water to the new propagation tunnel now in action





New crops coming along               Our delicious salad packs now flowering!!





Louise watering spinach plants Watering seedlings becomes one
of the most important jobs for the next 4 months, at least 4 times a day,
7 days a week.
  




Our trusty tractor 





Hilary checking the progress of first carrots of the season-due may/june.



WWOOFING

I began Wwoofing here at Abbey Home Farm in mid March and even though the weather was cold and wet, I knew that I was going to enjoy my time here.

The scale of the garden is larger than I have been used to at other Wwoof placements. There are 10 acres of vegetable plots in cultivation which means there is always plenty of work to keep a Wwoofer happy.

For me, the opportunity to learn about the science and art of horticulture on a commercial scale is one of the main attractions of working here and Keith, the head gardener, is always happy to pass on some of his professional knowledge and explain the reasons for his methods.

The work to be done in the garden is varied, however some structure and routine is provided by the harvesting of vegetables for the farm shop which is always the first job of each day.

Obviously with the garden being run organically, there is loads of weeding to do, and there is probably not much that Wwoofers don't know about weeding, but that's far from the only work to be done and I haven't had a boring day yet!

Jamie Our long term Wwoofer 2000/2001

Abbey Home Farm - Organic Producer of the Year 1999

The Organic Farm Shop - Organic Retailer of the Year 2000