First Harvest!

Saturday 20/07/13

Volunteers - Dwayne, Keris, Liz & Katie 

We have been so lucky with the weather for our first growing season. After a chilly start, we have had consistent sunny spells and showers conducive to fantastic growing conditions. The beautiful sunshine of the past few weeks has meant that watering has been labour intensive, but we are finally seeing the fruits (or vegs) of our labour!

Potatoes

Having heard that others have harvested their potatoes already, so we thought it was time to do a test sample of ours. Here are the Wilja potatoes, originally planted out in early March. Its been a long time coming, but they are looking fantastic. 

You can see the size of them when you compare the scale next to Dwaynes (admittedly large) foot. These are great as earlies (new potatoes), but we are hoping for something a bit more substantial and therefore will wait for the main crop in a few weeks time.

These ones however made a fantastic potato salad & a few roasties with a joint of beef! 

Sweet-corn

My favorite and most pride filling part of our plot is the sweetcorn, it has been magical watching it grow so large in such a short space of time. If I had the time Im sure I would be able to see it grow before my eyes. We are starting to see the cobs forming on the side of the plants which is very exciting. 

Runner Beans

We have planted out some runner beans on wigwam shaped bamboo and the rest on an A-Frame design. This year is about experimenting & finding the best methods of growing. I personally think the wigwam looks cool - I wonder if we could make a full adult sized one for next year as a summer house...........

Courgettes (or Zuccini) 

The Courgettes have been the fastest growing veg on the plot. They are now sprouting 2-3 courgettes a day. They will be turning into marrows in no time. We have planted three plants in the tunnel and three out. A higher yield is expected in the tunnel. Experiment!

Cabbages & Leeks

The cabbages are doing ok. We have had a few slug attacks, but the pigeons seem to be at bay by having covered them with netting. 

There seems to be some white fly on one of the cabbages.......Im not sure what this means. Much more research of disease is needed!

Lady bird chilling out on the butter nut squash

Tomatoes

Currently the tomatoes have formed fruit. We have seen a couple ripen, but are eagerly awaiting the rest to ripen. We have beef, red cherry, yellow cherry varieties. We have only planted tomatoes in the poly tunnel. The main lesson we have learnt is to train the tomatoes as they grow as we have seen large heavy branches form which we now cannot support. Next year we will create support strings & ensure that we pick off branches to stop the outward growth. 

Peppers (or capsicum to all you ozzies out there) 

This is one of our most eagerly awaited crops. Peppers are so expensive to buy in the shops now, that it feels a little bit like growing gold! 

Onions 

We have red and white varieties growing. The winter ones we planted as an experiment seem to have taken better then the summer ones. 

Fennel

Fennel is something which I have never even eaten, let alone grown. They seem to be doing well now we have planted them out, after starting them off in the polytunnel back in May.

Below is a selection of the harvest we collected today. Things are really starting to flourish and we are really pleased with the results. The next problem is to work out the logistics of getting this food to the plate!

Broad beans, French beans & sugar snap peas. Garlic, Courgette, Radish & Wilja Potatoes! 

Making nice progress

Tuesday 09/07/13 

Liz went down for a photoshoot!

Sweetcorn 

Runner Beans

Cabbage

Potatoes

You can just about make out the potato plants in between the weeds!

Everything's gone crazy!

Monday 08/07/13

Volunteers - Liz & Katie 

So after the usual drill of watering inside the poly tunnel, we decided to water all the plants on the outside, as it's been terribly dry weather. 

More suckers have been pinched off of the tomatoes & we've also started to plant out the leeks. 

Unfortunately, we've had problems with aphids and black fly in the broad beans, but after spraying them with a washing up liquid solution, it seems to have kept the blighters at bay.

Here are the black fly.........

Boo. 

The Ever Expanding List of Things We're Growing

This is just an update on what we are growing and how everything is getting along, since we've had the poly tunnel it has made everything a lot easier and due to the conditions in the tunnel its proving difficult to keep on top of everything.

so the potatoes are coming along nicely
we have a few different varieties growing, including Wilja, Maris Piper, Charlotte, Desiree. Here are some of our King Edwards popping through

Also planted out in all elements we have red & white onions, shallots & garlic which are growing well and dont seem to have minded that cold snap we had too much.

Here is our latest volunteer Mirka helping with the unglamorous but vital job of weeding the onions.
as you can see they do look a lot better

We also learnt a little tip from one of the other plot holders that we can over plant the onions and pull them out early and have them like spring onions which in turns creates more space for the remaining onions to grow big and plump.

Our beans and peas are out and are establishing themselves strongly
here are the broad beans looking all neat and tidy

here are the runner beans, sugar snap peas and french beans enjoying a lazy sunday afternoon.

Thats the slow gentle pace outside of the poly tunnel inside is a completely different story
here is everything that is ready or nearly ready to be planted out

Beetroot

Courgettes

More Cabbage & Broccoli

Sweetcorn

Within the poly tunnel we have raised beds and they contain even more plants.

We have lettuce that is almost ready

Tomato plants - here are the beef variety

and here our chili's

The poly tunnel is full of seedlings from herbs, flowers to keep the insects happy, onions, leeks, sprouts all growing ready to be planted then harvested.

So thanks for those donations of plants, seeds, tools and volunteer hours, we wouldnt of gotten this with out you, but we still have a lot to do!