It was a particularly warm start to October, which is nice for working in and great for the tunnel crops but of course, not good as part of the global picture of climate breakdown.
During October we harvested the remainder of our squash crop and started planting garlic. The garlic is planted in the autumn, giving it a head start when the ground warms up in the spring. It’s the only outdoor crop that we use compostable plastic on the beds. Garlic can’t compete with the weeds as it grows so slowly and doesn’t cover or shade the ground at all, and as the clovers are planted fairly close together it can’t be hoed so we rely on the plastic to keep the beds clear of weeds. And as we have very stony soil, we can use stones to weigh the sheets down.
We are now members of the Nature Friendly Farming Network, giving a voice to UK farmers and growers, organic and conventional, who aim to farm for the benefit of nature as well as producing food. Find out more on the link below
https://www.nffn.org.uk/about-us/
We’ve had an owl visiting the pond regularly recently, as well as a buzzard, a fox and a polecat, which helps us out as they predate on the rabbits, pigeons, rats and mice that like to eat our crops in the field given the chance!
Thanks to all of you that came on the farm walk at the end of October, it was lovely to meet customers, old and new, and the weather was much better than forecast.
The farm survived storm Ciaran OK, just a few branches down and a few blocked roads on the Thursday East Kent delivery route. And Thursday morning harvesting was challenging!! The fields are saturated now though, so we can’t drive the vans into the fields for harvest at the moment, which slows things down quite a bit.
I’m sure no-one needs reminding that we don’t wash any of our vegetables (especially now it’s so muddy in the fields). Even if the leafy greens and salad leaves look clean it’s always best to wash them, you may find a stowaway slug or even worse, caterpillar poo!