Rambling #165

Back in February, I was talking about endless grey skies and lamenting the lack of sunshine. As ever, the phrase 'be careful what you wish for' is very apt. Suffice it to say, we spent a lot of time watering. With the weather breaking last weekend it feels like we might have made it through to the other side of this long, dry and frequently hot spring and summer. Our irrigation system (reliant on mains water) has been tested to its limit and I have realised that we need to build up a reserve during the winter - assuming, that is, we will get lots of rain. Again, be careful what you wish for! The main concern is that, although we can keep the crops watered, it is much harder to establish our green manures that are the basis for next year's fertility and do so much for overall soil health.

On the plus side, we have had a bumper crop of tomatoes and with lots of people on holiday during August we have dished out double rations in the remaining boxes. The sweetcorn and squash have also done well. Other winter crops like leeks, celeriac and brassicas should really start to take off now it is wetter and cooler.

Our work will now concentrate on gradually stripping out the summer crops in the polytunnels and sowing seeds for the autumn and winter greens, salads and herbs to replace them.

Thanks to everyone who was able to donate their box over the summer holidays. This has meant we have been able to build up a bit of reserve, so we can send useful amounts of veg to Heyford food bank over the coming months. Just to remind you, rather than donate your actual veg box/fruit bag we convert the value into, for example, sacks of potatoes or boxes of tomatoes. They have also asked us to supply eggs if we can.