Painting the stall

Today has been sunny, dry and mild - a good day for painting the veg stall in Middle Town. A fresh coat of paint, a job I normally hate. But I am using Auro paint, a plant-based, non-toxic mix of oils, resins and colours that smells of citrus! It's made a good coverage and I'm very pleased with it. A pleasure to work with.



















Winter on Scilly can be beautiful, as this photo from today, looking over towards Tresco, demonstrates.

In praise of kale

Kale, Brassica oleracea, is a seriously good versatile crop. It comes in lots of different leaf shapes, colours and textures, from the wonderfully indented, dark and tasty Calvo Nero/Nero di Tosacno (see left) to the lovely purple-veined and vigorous Red Russian and the very green and curly Pentland Brig.

It tolerates a lot of cold, yet grows fast in the summer too. Growers like it particularly because it keeps producing leaves up the stem. You just pick the older leaves lower down, leaving the newer younger leaves to carry on growing. It's not uncommon for a kale plant to be still cropping 8 months after the first picking!

There are fewer more nutritious crops than Brassicas. They contain a range of vitamins (E and B complexes), carotenes, vitamin C and some protein.

Snow comes to Scilly

So the weather has changed from mild and stormy to cold, cold, cold. Of
course the entire country is pretty frozen but it's unusual to get snow
on Scilly that settles.

Today it snowed and settled, though appears to be slushy and will melt
without too much encouragement. Nonetheless it's covered all the fields,
leaving me finding it difficult to locate those cabbage, kale and
beetroot that I need to find to pick tomorrow!

Seaweed, gales and rain

As I'm writing it's dark, windy and wet outside. We've seen a lot of wind recently, last week some gusts of 60mph and a fair amount of rain too. Autumn is in full swing and throwing it's worst at us.

There is one bonus - it means the seaweed is coming in nice and thick on the beaches. Each year we use in the order of 200 tons of the stuff to improve the soil and provide fertility for next years crops.

It sounds a lot, which it is, but this soon rots down to a fraction of its fresh bulk. We use a combination of foreloader and trailer to haul the 'weed off the beach, tip it out on the fields and spread it to a layer between 6 inches and 1 foot thick. This will rot down with the autumn and winter rains; after about 8-10 weeks it'll be rotavated in to the soil.

So far we've got about 100 tons up (30 of this done with a pitchfork and trailer!), so about another 100 to go. Judging by the forecast there won't be a shortage of seaweed around yet!

The harvest month

September tends to be a good month for growers...a more relaxed time and a chance to literally savour the fruits of our labours.

As the evenings draw out the sun still has some warmth and the clarity of light is often much better than the warmer summer months. Young swallows are cramming in flying lessons, preparing to fly south for the winter, leaving us until next spring.

There's an abundance of crops, including:

• Spuds
• Squash
• Peas
• Tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Basil
• Mixed salad
• Beetroot
• Onions
• Calabrese
• Kale
• Cabbage
• Peppers
• Melons
• Leeks
• Parsley
• Mint
• Spinach

The stall will stay open for a bit yet, though by the end of October there will be very few visitors about to buy anything, so we will close. Then the work starts to plan for next year when, of course, everything will be better and nothing will go wrong!!

A mixed bag for July

This month started off with high temperatures and dry days, followed by some very unsettled weather, heavy rain and strong winds - we even gale force one day in the middle of the month. Now however we're back to more settled and dry conditions, though lately there has been a lot of fog and very high humidity (but no rain).

Most crops are growing well, bounding away with the warm and wet conditions. On the stall at the moment are:

• Early and Salad Potatoes
• Cherry tomatoes
• Cucumbers
• Mixed salad leaves
• Melons
• Parsley
• Mint
• Kale
• Cabbage
• Spinach
• Peas
• French beans

One of the most enjoyable sights over the past three weeks or so has been linnets and goldfinches munching away on thistles and fat hen that have gone to seed. It's a classic dilemma of weeds versus wildlife - the weeds will give me a weed problem, but it's just not right to deny these birds a major source of food.

Hot and dry, now some welcome rain

June has been a very dry month here on Scilly with temperatures regularly above 20C, which is fairly unusual for such a maritime climate. That's made growing a bit difficult, though some crops have thrived including potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and strawberries.

A wide variety of produce is available on the stall at the moment, including:

• Bunched carrots
• Second early potatoes
• Waxy salad potatoes
• Mixed salad leaves
• Cucumbers
• Strawberries
• Basil
• Parsley
• Oregano
• Kale
• Courgettes
• Garlic

The stall is in Middle Town beside the road and is stocked up at 9.30am every day and open until sunset.

The blackcurrants planted in April have settled in well and produced quite a decent crop for their first year - though I value these far too much to sell just yet!! Next year...

The cherry tomatoes are coming on in the tunnel and hopefully will be ready for sale in a week or so. The cucumbers are ridiculous, 8ft high with a heavy crop on - best ever.

Today has been a day of steady rain, about 3/4 of an inch which will be very useful and hopefully have soaked in well. Could do with another dose of rain in the next few days and then we'll be able to make a bit of progress again.