Rambling #170

The dry weather has been ideal for our earlier crops. We’ve been spreading compost, cultivating the soil, and now have our early potatoes, onions, and beans sown, along with lettuce, beetroot, carrots, chard, and spinach. Where there will be later crops, we’re letting ‘green manures’ grow a little longer. These fast-growing plants—clover, vetch, ryegrass—will eventually be mown down and incorporated into the soil, adding organic matter and boosting fertility. In the meantime, their cover helps suppress weeds, and their roots draw up minerals that short-lived annual crops can’t easily access.

In other news, the time has come for us to try growing strawberries. I’d planned to keep this a secret, imagining a day next summer when we could unveil some lovely red gems. Either that or—following a crop failure—quietly move on without anyone ever knowing they existed! But I’m told that jeopardy makes for a good story... So, we’ve bought 300 young strawberry plants, which we’ll grow on and plant out this spring. However, we won’t be seeing fruit this year. Instead, we’ll remove flowers to encourage the plants to focus on root establishment and producing runners (new plants). Hopefully, this will set us up for a more productive strawberry patch in future seasons.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to fill in our survey and give us some important feedback and insights. 83 people responded, which means we will be donating 50kg of potatoes to the food bank in Heyford Park. This process has prompted us to develop a series of FAQs, which will clarify some of the questions raised through the survey. We will share these with you in due course.

Thank you for continuing to support local, small scale horticulture. Recent world events have highlighted the need to reduce our dependence on artificial fertilisers, as well as the importance of greater food security for our communities. But supply and demand for locally-grown, organic food is still woefully inadequate in this country.

Best wishes

Mark