The summer drought finally ended with rain at the start of September and more since, so our winter crops have a chance to grow a bit more, although it came too late for the potatoes, squash and onions. Our squash are all harvested now and safe from frosts in the warm store. We still have potatoes in the ground and will harvest more whenever we can, we are currently harvesting 'Belmonda', a drought tolerant variety we grew for the first time this year. Belmonda is very tasty but we won’t be growing it again as it didn’t seem particularly drought tolerant and has more wireworm damage than the others. The wireworm damage mainifests as small black pock marks, and we try and grade out the worst of the damage.
The green leafy crops and salad leaves are all looking good now, they all prefer the cooler autumn temperatures and plenty of rain.
We have cleared the first polytunnel of summer crops and it is now planted up with winter salad , and we have taken delivery of our seed garlic, which we plant in the Autumn so it has a head start for growing in the spring.
Farm Walk. We will be hosting a farm walk again this year on Sunday October 30 at 2pm, although it will just be a walk without the usual refreshments and apple bobbing etc this year. Please meet at the bottom of our fields, accessed from Occupation Road, Wye. The nearest postcode is TN25 5EN (sagging.hillsides.voted on what3words). Occupation Road is off Olantigh Road, and is a rough road going past Wye School: there is limited parking along here and some parking on Olantigh Road as well as a car park in Wye. It’s a 15-20-minute walk from Wye train station to the fields. There is a very basic compost loo in one of the fields, but it is not very easily accessible. However, there are public toilets in Wye, near to the Co-op.
The Ripple Farm watering hole. Visitors in September seen on the trail camera included a buzzard, pigeons, magpies, an owl (Tawny we think), robins, blue tits, chaffinches, yellowhammers, linnets, red legged partridges, a pheasant, rooks, crows, blackbirds, song thrushes, foxes, a badger, a hedgehog and rabbits. Pictures on the link below
It's National Hedgerow Week, a celebration of the role hedgerows play in providing habitats and food for wildlife, as well as fighting man made climate change by storing carbon. The hedgerows around our fields have been allowed to spread out and grow taller since we took on the land, and we've planted 2 new hedges during the last 2 winters and had some stretches laid last winter.
