It's all go in the fields as always . July sees us finish the bulk of our summer plantings of Beans, Chards, Fennel, Broccoli and Spinach . The planting now focuses on growing crops to fill our cold store over the winter, such as Beetroots, Swedes and Turnips.
Potato harvesting steps up a gear now with the last of the new potatoes coming out over the next week and attention switching to our main crop which, after a late start and a dry spell , have reached a good size nice and early, allowing us to start the main harvest. A proportion of the potatoes are sold immediately , but most are stored in 1 tonne boxes in our cold store to supply us through the winter months.
The fields are now full of crops, all growing well ,and seeing the amounts and variety of produce ever increasing with the real peak of harvesting being hit in September, despite the recent lack of rain, crops have been yielding well. One of the challenges of the dry weather is that it tends to bring crops on in a hurry, so where we try to plan successional planting to provide continuity in crop lines , we have found multiple plantings coming at once in gluts. This has meant that almost every minute available is spent harvesting to prevent any crops going over, which has resulted in not as much time as necessary being spent on tending and weeding. As a result some of the weeds are getting away from us, so if you have a spare moment over the summer break , we'd love to encourage you to try out volunteering in the field and help us wrestle the weeds back under control, as well as seeing and learning how the produce in your boxes is grown.
