There was quite a dramatic shift to autumn weather right from the start of September with plenty of cool, misty starts followed by sunny days with plenty of rain early on in the month, and more brought by Storm Amy at the start of October.
September is a month of abundance, and when we’re not busy with the day-today harvesting and packing we work around the weather either harvesting potatoes or squash. With the squash, we start by cutting the squash from the plants and placing in rows so we can drive the tractor between the rows when picking them up into bulk bins for winter storage. Ideally the squash have a few days or more of sunny weather between cutting them from the plants and picking up to cure them. And whilst we often need to row them up in the rain, it’s much better to pick them up dry.
The leafy greens are great at this time of year, still growing well and big enough to bunch. And with cooler temperatures the bunches don’t wilt so quickly, but we always advise customers to refresh in a bowl of water or stand the bunch in a vase to refresh if needed, before storing in the fridge.
Another October job is to plant the garlic. The ground has been worked and sheets of compostable plastic laid down. Then it’s a very enjoyable job on a sunny afternoon, to break up the heads of garlic into individual cloves and plant the cloves by hand. Then we put stones and clods of earth on top of the plastic to stop the wind ripping it up.
We frequently see red kites, buzzards and kestrels around our fields and last week a hobby was seen in our Crundale fields, sadly not looking very well, which is probably the reason it is still here and not on its way back to Africa.
