Spring is definitely in the air

At last it really feels like spring has arrived. The birds are singing, lots of spring flowers are out, the sun has warmth in it and my spuds are poking up nicely (though they are late).

This week has been intense on planting and sowing - carrots, beetroot, parsnips, potatoes, asparagus, rhubarb, green manures and loads of crops in modules in the glasshouse. I haven't got time to write much, but here are some photos from the farm:


Plants in the cold frame raring to go - Broad Beans, lettuce, kale, chard, rocket, mizuna and mustard











Veronica in flower - one of the lesser known hedging plants, it can make a useful hedge if well trained and has beautiful flowers that bees love.; It doesn't really have the wind break abilities of Pittosporum or Euonymous though, our two most common hedge plants.









No-dig beds in the market garden site - all the beds have an inch of compost and now won't be cultivated. First crop to go in will be lettuce (imminently), which will be picked as needed through the season. Each plant will keep cropping through re-growth after picking, reducing the area of land needed for a profitable crop.

Sowing spring crops

Now the weather is warmer and the daylength longer, it's a key time to be planting and sowing spring crops. I've been busy preparing ground for the direct drilled (sowed) crops in particular, such as carrot, beetroot and green manures. Here is a picture of my new toy, a Stanhay seed drill, circa 1984 and will probably last me out! They're solid bits of kit that drill crops very precisely.

Here, believe it or not, is a field of carrots. The machine is actually put here for effect because I drilled this a few weeks ago; the tiny carrots are just poking through now, but will pick up quick and in a month's time will rocket away. Once they get a bit bigger I'll hoe the field to knock back the first weeds, then put fleece over the whole field to prevent carrot root fly. The fleece will probably stay on until all the carrots have been picked later in the summer.

The seed drill was an incredibly important invention, allowing the move to row crops - meaning weeding was possible and seed was used more efficiently. It's very simple but very effective. The row is opened up at the correct depth, a seed dropped in the furrow from a hopper, a chain covers the furrow with soil and the back wheel firms over the soil.

All of it is driven from the back wheel, through a single belt. Meanwhile, the next row is being marked out for you; get the first row right and all the rest will be straight! These exact machines can be bolted on to an attachment for a tractor, mounting as many as the tractor can pull through the soil.

Simple, appropriate technology.

Soil Association symbol

Scilly Organics was the first Soil Association symbol holder on the Isles of Scilly, achieving full organic status in 2004 after a 2 year conversion period. But what does this symbol mean to us and what does organic mean to you?

For us, the Soil Association symbol is a reward for following and implementing strict standards on food production, and a guarantee of integrity and quality of our fruit and veg. Did you know that organic is a legally-defined term, and organic farming and growing the only legally-regulated form of food production in th world?

Organic sales in the UK now exceed £2bn per year and over 3.5% of farmland is organic across the country, with SW England and West Wales particular strongholds.

When explaining what organic is, I always like to stress the positives. Whilst we don't use artificial fertilisers, pesticides or GMO's, for me it's more about what we do do. We use natural fertilisers on the soil -seaweed, green manures and compost. We look after wildlife, aiming to improve the ecology of the farm, which in turn reduces pest and diseases. And we use human and mechanical means of weed control - mulching, hoeing and hand weeding.

These approaches combine to produce good food, healthy soil, wildlife and an aesthetically-pleasing landscape. We hope that you recognise the symbol as a sign of quality, integrity and trust.

We are proud to display the symbol - we have to keep careful records, be inspected once a year and adhere strictly to all the organic standards - all this so that our customers can trust all the food we sell.

To dig or not to dig?

Perceived wisdom amongst gardeners is that you dig the soil over every winter/spring in preparation for spring crops. Likewise, farmers plough fields and do secondary cultivations such as rotavating or harrowing. It's almost taken as read - that's how it's always been done, so why question it?

There are many good reasons for digging or cultivating. But there are equally as many bad ones, largely relating to soil health. See, the problem is, we just don't understand enough that soil is an incredible ecosystem - complex, rich, diverse and supports life when treated well. The standard to which many farmers treat their soil is truly abysmal, seeing it as nothing more than a medium in which to grow plants and pour on agro-chemicals.rivers), is quite incredible - and yet most people disregard its vital importance. A single teaspoonfull of healthy soil contains billions of organisms!!

I decided to start an experiment last year to see just how good no-dig growing is. I've been inspired by the wonderful Charles Dowding, who is a real pioneer of the no-dig approach, having an excellent 1.5 acre growing site and has written an excellent book, Organic Gardening. To think that just a 6 inch deep layer of soil, across the world, supports almost the entire human population (bar products from seas and rivers) is incredible.

In the picture is a field of lettuce, taken last June. The three beds on the right have lettuce grown through white plastic, to minimise water loss and weed invasion. On the left are two beds that have just a layer of mature compost (about an inch or two's depth when laid), and then not cultivated.

There was no difference in the growth rates between the two and it was noticeable that whilst (of course) more weeds came up on the left, they got fewer through the season, because the soil wasn't being turned over. It also looks a lot better and doesn't involve any plastic.

For this reason I will be expanding the area I use zero tillage, looking carefully at the effects it has on soil quality, water holding capacity and weed burden over time. I'll come back to this subject in the summer.

Planting and sowing by the moon

Biodynamic farmers work by a philosophy quite unlike any other farmers and growers. It's like organic growing, but goes much further by viewing the farm itself as a living organism that can be improved and strengthened by working with cosmic and lunar forces. It is a very powerful movement that originated in Germany in 1924 by Rudolph Steiner, and now proponents exist worldwide.

On Scilly we see the effect of the moon on the tides twice a day, every day. Trillions of gallons of sea water being pulled around the planet, what an amazing force that must be - here a difference of over 18 feet between high and low water at spring tides.

So surely that lunar influence also strongly affects the land? Of course, because it's not obvious means most of us don't notice it. Indeed most people don't see the moon. But outside here tonight, as I write, just a day after full moon, it is so bright outside it's like daylight - an enormous difference to nights at new moon, where it can be really pitch black.

The biodynamic movement has long known about the strong lunar effects on plants and animals. Huge amounts of research have taken place to correlate lunar and planetary influences, and the effects these have on plant growth.

The culmination of this research is the wonderful Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar by Maria and Matthias Thun. Its produced every year and details how the moon and planetary phases affect plants every day of the year, and consequently when is the best day to sow or plant certain crops.

I've decided I must stick by it this year, as I've only really dabbled with it before. It's a commitment for sure, but I'm very interested to know what difference it makes. The biodynamic farmers swear by it and who am I to just dismiss it without really trying it properly?

A blog on Biodynamic preparations will follow at some point!

If you'd like a copy of the book, go to Floris Books. It's a very interesting read even if you're not intending to follow it.

Snow on Scilly

The first proper snow on Scilly in 22 years has fallen. Compare the photo on the last blog with this one!













My first spuds are planted below this blanket of snow! Fortunately they're not poking their shoots up yet, which is a good job. I imagine these temperatures will slow them down a little bit.

Why we like the winter storms

Stormy conditions are unwelcome to most people, especially those connected with farming, fishing, tourism and transport. Over last weekend we experienced some gale force Northerly winds that lashed the Northern shores of Scilly and created quite a lot of swell. This has the effect of ripping seaweed off the rocks under water, which then washes in on the beaches.

We use a lot of seaweed, in the order of 150 tons per year. It is now piled up on Great Bay and we're busy carting it off to be spread on the fields. It's a combination of silage grab and trailers that mean we can do this operation quite efficiently and maximise mechanical assistance.

In the days of old, of course, it was very different - all the island men had at their disposal was horse and cart, pitchforks, and hard labour. This must have been an incredibly time consuming process; to think 2 people can shift 3 tons of seaweed, from beach to field in about 15 minutes, it probably would've taken them all day to do that amount.

Seaweed is a great soil improver that really builds organic matter and bulks up our very light soils. It is sustainable and only costs us the fuel to move it from beach to field. It is put on the fields fresh, spread to about 6 inches thickness and left to rot. After about 8 weeks, assuming there's been some rain, it has rotted to the stage that it is OK to cultivate...simple as that.

Thank goodness for the winter storms...