We're making good progress with the new growing season, with thousands of baby plants already sown in seed trays to look after and early direct seedings of both salad and spinach sown in the fields at the end of March. We’ve also planted most of our potatoes, made a start on planting onion sets, and will soon be transplanting new season's kale, spinach, chard, lettuce and parsley.
Wye Orchard – sadly our year of using space in one of Wye Orchard’s glasshouses has now come to an end and we just need to finish harvesting the green garlic and salad from there. Wye Orchard have plans to grow organic aubergines, lettuce, bell peppers and more this season though, and we hope to be able to source some of these for our box scheme. The glasshouses are on Occupation Road in Wye and were formerly used by Wye College for research.
The UK ‘Hungry Gap’ is here (that time when stored crops are coming to an end, but the new season’s crops are not ready). In the fields, we still have leeks, cabbage, swede, green garlic and limited leafy greens/salad leaves and some onions and beetroot in store.
Garlic is in abundance in spring, wild garlic leaves are in peak season right now and we also have some early green garlic, which, due to their small size, look a bit like small leeks at the moment, so if you’re not sure if you have a leek or a garlic, give it a sniff! Use the green garlic as you would a spring onion.