July and August gave us plenty of rain, so we struggled to get ahead on weeding and finish our late block of transplanting. We had to do lots more hand weeding than we would like, as although it is a satisying job that quite a few of the staff enjoy, it's much more time consuming than Martin killing the weeds with tractor mounted weeders!
September's sun will have helped the squash and sweetcorn ripen and also enabled us to pick up the last of the onions nice and dry ready for storage over the coming months. We had some very misty mornings, which were helpful for harvesting the greens and salad before the crops and the workers got too hot. The cucumbers grew well lduring the hot week and needed picking daily!
Now that the onions are all harvested, we will get stuck into the maincrop potato harvest whenever time and weather allows. We’ve planted lettuce in a polytunnel ready for winter salad bags, and have a glasshouse ready for planting up with other winter salad leaves.
All the fields in the vegetable rotation are full now with the last of the outdoor radicchio, lettuce and chard transplanted last week. The weeds keep on coming but it's been easier for Martin to control them with the tractor mounted weeders in the dry week. And we're happy to have a ground covering of the less problematic weeds amongst established crops. The fumitory amongst the green curly kale looks particularly pretty at the moment.
The wildlife pond has been much quieter than last year, as it has been such a wet summer there is plenty of water elsewhere. Pigeons have been the most frequent visitors during the day and a fox at night. A buzzard has been pictured a few times as well as apolecat/ferret hybrid. We've also had a couple of nice pictures of a grey partridge - photos to be posted soon!
