What's on the stall now

The dry spell through June certainly gave us some problems - leafy crops protested and growth rates slowed down massively. Therefore there's a bit of a gap in continuity of salads in particular. Conversely, squash, courgettes, sweetcorn and melons have done very well in the heat...Now we're back to unsettled conditions and have had a decent amount of rain.

So on the stall at the moment you can expect to find squash (amazingly early!), wet garlic, carrots (still tasting amazing), beetroot, kale, chard, spinach, sweet peas, courgettes and potatoes - of which we have two varieties, one being delicious waxy salad potatoes.

This is the time of year when we're doing the last sowings in the glasshouse for autumn and winter crops. All the winter brassicas are coming up in modules and will be planted out later this month. These will be picked from November onwards.

Today is a sunshine and showers day with a fresh wind. It's much better working conditions, being around 18C, rather than the 25C of a couple of weeks ago.

Squash, flowers and wildlife

June seems to be the month when all living creatures are at their most active. Plants thrive on the long days, which feeds insects, which feeds birds, which make the most beautiful music for us to hear. So it when you grow green manures like mustard and Phacelia, which are positively teeming with life, it feels like you're contributing in a very direct way to the web of life.

Standing next to the Phacelia on a warm or sunny day the noise is incredible, a constant low-level noise of buzzing insects. Scilly has a very high level of bumble bees, proven by the concentration of the insects on these plants. Somewhere underneath here are 200 rhubarb plants!! They're doing alright, but could do with a bit more light. But I'm not cutting down the Phacelia yet...

In the next field, following on from the early spuds, are a lot of squash and courgettes. The first squash plants, which were planted in mid-May are now firmly established and starting to run and produce flowers. I would expect these to be ready as early as August, with the main crop ready in September/October. Looking forward to the first roast squash already!

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.