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Latest news from Ripple Farm Organics.

Displaying 41 - 60 of 148
Posted: Tuesday, 1 March, 2022 - 14:04
Storm Eunice took down quite a few trees and large branches, broke a few more panes of glass in the glasshouses, blew off an already damaged polytunnel cover and left us without power on one site for 48 hours and on another on and off for a week. The leafy greens got a bit battered too but we did ... Read more
Posted: Thursday, 3 February, 2022 - 10:23
Although January started unseasonable mild, we had plenty of frosty mornings throughout the month, which have taken their toll on the leafy green crops. When they’re scarce at this time of year some of them (chard in particular) are harvested leaf by leaf! January was particularly dry too, not a ... Read more
Posted: Tuesday, 18 January, 2022 - 17:56
November Great spotted woodpeckers, green woodpeckers, a songthrush, a yellowhammer, chaffinches and more made an appearance in November as well as a fox, a stoat, a polecat, a mouse and a swimming rabbit! Male sure you click on the individual pics to get the commentary. November's medley of pics ... Read more
Posted: Friday, 7 January, 2022 - 17:29
Thanks for all your cards, presents and good wishes at Christmas and wishing you all a Happy New Year. The mainly mild weather between Christmas and the New Year made for a relaxing break, no worrying about frost damage or wind damage or hungry pigeons, although New Year’s Day did feel strangely ... Read more
Posted: Monday, 6 December, 2021 - 14:33
Our wildlife enthusiast has been busy collating pics from the Ripple Farm trailcam from September and October, and here are the ones that made it through from the 1,000s of images captured. It's great to see our small pond so well used and to see some of the more secretive wildlife in action. No ... Read more
Posted: Thursday, 2 December, 2021 - 09:46
Christmas 2021 and New Year 2022 Arrangements Christmas Box Contents - The box delivered on 23 December will contain all you need to accompany the Christmas meal - carrots, parsnips, potatoes good for roasting, onions, sprouts, and probably a green cabbage and/or cauliflower and possibly some ... Read more
Posted: Thursday, 2 December, 2021 - 09:34
We had a relatively mild and dry November, which made harvesting more enjoyable, and meant the leafy greens and salad leaves kept on growing. Storm Arwen changed that though, bringing winter in with gusty winds and freezing temperatures. At this time of year, when we’re not busy harvesting and ... Read more
swede
Posted: Thursday, 4 November, 2021 - 10:17
It’s all change in our glasshouses and polytunnels with the summer crops cleared out and winter salad transplanted and sown. And out in the fields we have planted more than half of our garlic crop, the bulbs are split up and planted by hand so quite a slow job but one we can do whatever the weather ... Read more
Posted: Tuesday, 26 October, 2021 - 11:05
It was great to see so many of our vegetable box scheme customers at our October 2021 Farm Walk, especially after no having one in 2020. We met at the bottom of the fields at Wye but as we don't have the use of the workshop anymore we weren't able to offer refreshments and apple bobbing etc. That ... Read more
Posted: Monday, 11 October, 2021 - 13:48
We dug a couple of small ponds at the bottom of the fields at our Crundale site in the winter of 2020/21, mainly to provide water for wildlife to drink during a hot summer. The summer of 2021 was actually a fairly wet one but plently of wildlife found and used the pond anyway. Here's a few pics ... Read more
Posted: Thursday, 7 October, 2021 - 10:17
We were very thankful for the sunny September to ripen the squash and the greens, cabbages and leeks were ready for the October rain so we’re thankful for that too. Shame it was too dry and now too wet to use the big potato harvester, but we can’t ask for too much, and some of the staff enjoy ... Read more
Posted: Tuesday, 21 September, 2021 - 11:18
This is our 2nd year of scattering a seed mix weekly for 8-10 weeks starting in May as a supplementary feed for turtle doves. The turtle dove is now the UK’s most threatened breeding bird. Its population has fallen by 94% in the UK since 1995 but one or two can usually be heard and seen around the ... Read more
Posted: Friday, 17 September, 2021 - 07:40
August flew by as we were still busy with late transplanting and weeding even though harvesting was fairly quiet as it’s holiday time for many. It feels like the fields and polytunnels are bursting with produce right now, the sweetcorn is ready along with summer squash and some of the winter squash ... Read more
Posted: Saturday, 14 August, 2021 - 08:56
Ripple Farm Organics and Regenerative Agriculture Regenerative agriculture is the being hailed as the best way to produce food, whilst at the same time improving the soil for future crops, increasing biodiversity and sequestering carbon. Whilst the term is relatively new, most of the principles and ... Read more
Posted: Tuesday, 10 August, 2021 - 11:35
We’ve finally caught up on transplanting, some of the squash may not do too well due to being transplanted so late but most other things will soon catch up. Martin has been trying to squeeze in as much mechanical weeding in as he can when the ground is dry enough but we keep getting showers though ... Read more
Posted: Friday, 4 June, 2021 - 16:26
It finally stopped raining at the end of May and we now have lots of baby plants ready to transplant and lots of weeding to catch up on! Anything we planted before May’s rain kept on coming has grown OK but not as fast as the weeds have! We’re having to do a lot more hoeing and hand-weeding than we ... Read more
bee on red dead nettle
Posted: Friday, 2 April, 2021 - 16:54
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, ... Read more
Posted: Monday, 15 March, 2021 - 15:36
We’ve been filling in gaps in hedges around the fields we rent in Wye, and this winter this has included more than 200m of a double row hedge along the edge of ‘Orchard Field’ on the boundary with Coldharbour Lane, planting around 1,200 native UK grown saplings. We planted a ‘pollinator’ mix from ... Read more
Posted: Monday, 15 March, 2021 - 15:33
Great to see lots of people enjoying the snow but one week was enough for us! We harvested what we could on the Saturday before it snowed, cancelled some of that week’s orders but managed to pack and deliver the veggie boxes and harvest enough for Farmer’s Markets. The beetroot still in the ground ... Read more
Posted: Monday, 15 March, 2021 - 15:31
We feel like we’re getting some ‘normal’ winter weather this year with plenty of frosty mornings (and amazing sunrises), although still lots of wet, milder days too so the fields are very wet, of course. We’re just grateful that we have chalky soils that drain well – we’re not looking forward to ... Read more

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