Strawberries

The first strawberries of the season are ripening - I picked the first ones about a week ago, but now they're coming to full swing. It looks like a good crop this year, loads of flowers which the bees have been all over, so fruit formation is good. With the warm temperatures and sunshine there should be plenty of lovely sweet strawberries over the next week.

Hapil is a variety not really grown by the big strawberry growers - it doesn't suit their requirements of long shelf life and lots of transport. It is, however perfect for us - ripens evenly, good sized fruit, funny shaped fruit (!) and most importantly a beautiful taste.

Of seaweed and lettuce

It's unusual to be gathering seaweed in May, but with the recent bouts of heavy swell and strong winds, a lot of seaweed has been ripped off the rocks around the islands and deposited on the beaches. Here is a load on Little Bay - at its best there must have been more than 50 tonnes there, of which I only managed to get about 8! Still, better than nothing and it'll go towards making some good compost, mixed with old hay, grass clippings and weeds.

Although the air temperatures haven't been especially warm, there's been plenty of rain with some bursts of sunshine in between. Most plants seem fairly happy with this and have consequently grown quite fast. The first lettuce planting of the season happens in late March and I've been picking for about four weeks now. They're looking and tasting really good.

Another good early crop is Chard, which comes in an amazing array of colours, from the solid and dependable white Swiss chard, through pink, orange and yellow to this lovely Ruby. And an interesting fact about the coloured chards - their roots are also coloured! This is very unusual amongst common vegetables.

This time of year the flowers are perhaps at their best for the whole year. At the moment are the first honeysuckle flowers have appeared and their scent is absolutely delightful. It always reminds me of warm summer evenings - sadly very few of those recently, but a complete pleasure all the same.

And of the cultivated flowers, mustard is really flowering well at the moment. This is in the orchard and being enjoyed massively by my bees, whose hive is in the field right next door. Bumblebees are also loving the mustard as well as other insects. Sowing green manures, such as mustard, really does have multiple benefits - for soil, wildlife... and people.

First potatoes

Because it's been cold this year the first potatoes have been about two or even three weeks later than planned. But at last the first earlies are ready to dig and looking good. This year, for the first time, we've grown a variety called Swift as well as the usual Maris Bard. Swift have certainly lived up to their name and are at least three weeks earlier than the Maris Bard.

They taste lovely and are yielding quite well at the moment. Last weekend we had over 3 inches of rain, followed by some more in the week. This has been interspersed with days of sun (like today), which means growth rates are really good at the moment...that goes for both crops and weeds!!

It's also a pleasure to see the first carrots standing proud in rows. They're not all that far away from pulling...I reckon the first bunch of carrots could be in the third week of May. The carrots are grown under fleece from day one through to harvest. There are three reasons for this - keeps off rabbits, carrot root fly and it keeps them warmer.

This is such a lovely time of year - everything is growing like stink, but it does mean some long days for the grower.

Apple blossom

In April it seems like every plant wants to grow like mad. If it's not flowering it's reaching for the sky. This month we've got an incredible array of flowers out and it never ceases to amaze me just how vigorous the growth is this time of year after months of cold weather and short days. Once the vernal equinox is passed it seems all Nature's stops are pulled out!

Here is some beautiful blossom taken in the orchard - this is Adam's Pearmain, one of the earlier trees to flower, with the other not far behind. Next door to this is the newly planted orchard - just four months ago this was covered in bracken, brambles and gorse. I cleared it, cultivated it, sowed a green manure and planted about 25 fruit trees - mostly apple, with a couple of pears and plums too.

I actually meant to sow sweet clover here, but the seed got mixed up and I ended up sowing mustard!! Woops - it's made a lovely covering, but won't last for more than 4 months. Never mind, try again in the autumn. And the bees are only about 20 yards away so they'll be all over it at flowering time.

Here's another photo of flowers from the Island, including Narcissi, wild garlic, oxalis and gorse. What a glorious time of year...if only I had the time to stop for more than 5 minutes to enjoy it!

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.