It was supposed to be raining hard on Friday morning – but all the work shares were out on the Go Local Food fields in the windy sunshine busily planting out. Ian said that the ground had been dry enough for him to get a lot of rotovating done on Wednesday and Thursday so there was plenty of space to be filled.
All the broad beans had come out of the poly tunnel where they had been growing on and were being planted out in blocks of five on last year’s potato beds. That should give us the first early crop then. Those which had been planted on Thursday looked fine and happy but the netting had blown off overnight. Perhaps we need a better solution to holding it in place said Ian as it’s going to be windy for a few more days yet. They were being followed by broad bean seeds going straight into the ground to provide successional crops. Mind you, there was a comment that we do have a lot of mice so the work shares were told to sow fairly thickly.
Further down the field Jude and Joan were on their knees planting out onion sets at speed. They sent for Ian to get the tractor and rotovator fitting to work on the next area for them as they were well ahead of themselves and it wasn’t coffee time yet. He’d only just had time to take a large box of nice knobbly artichokes down to the roadside hedge for planting out.
It’s also time to take out the kale which is now passed its best, beginning to flower and going to seed. All of the kale which is fit to eat will find its way into the next crop shares of course. So as the winter crops come to an end, the new season planting is well under way. The process of keeping the crop shares coming throughout the year doesn’t stop even if there is a hungry gap where the old is gone and the new is not quite ready.
Go Local Food Ltd 