Fantastic weather today, warranting some photos of progress.

More areas have been covered with straw to hinder weed growth.

Some plants have overwintered under enviromesh.

Compost creation continues year round. Fresh compost continues to be added to enrich the soil and manure rotovated in.

Dead leaves are continually removed. For this year’s harvest, some seeds are being sown direct, while others sown at home, are transplanted; here broad beans into a polytunnel for an early crop.

Winter – still a busy season, chiefly of preparation for this year’s harvest (hopefully). Outdoors, removal of weeds encroaching into beds, manuring and covering with mypex or straw. In the polys, weeding, manuring and construction of supports for cucumbers; and a take-home box of leeks, curly kale and the last of the parsnips.

A week later and sieved soil and manure is starting to fill the new carrot beds.

However crops still require covering. Enviromesh was discovered to have come adrift on one side of a no-dig bed, resulting in chopped off stems. I guess rabbits enjoyed the parcel and other plants. Whether they will regrow?

Last week two cabbage plants remained in one bed, uncovered; not a good experiment. This week, one remained, the other merely a half stalk… Probably the deer had an enjoyable meal.

It may be December but there’s a lot to do, eg sieving and combining old manure with soil from a now empty bed, for addition to new carrot and parsnip beds.

Other veg growing and being harvested include red cabbage and romanesco cauliflower.

We were greeted at the farm by this view – and it was cold. However the earth was still capable of being dug.

All the tomato plants have been removed from the polys and distributed to ripen at home or used for chutney, etc, and there are still plenty of goodies in the take home boxes.

On removing the mypex sheet on one bed, rat runs were discovered, so the soil had to be redug.

The brussels sprouts are plumping out ahead of time, as the stems are not usually ready until sharing at Christmas. Unfortunately the leaves are being attacked by mealy cabbage aphids. Possibly a massive garlic spray next week may help but …

We harvested a few sizeable leeks but we’ll need to wait for the rest to mature.

Tomatoes continue to ripen on the vines, while others have been hung in one of the polys, in order to remove the plants and clear the ground.

As October draws to a close, the leeks are progressing well, garlic has been sown and enviromesh added, to prevent birds uncovering them.

Harvesting continues to take up much time but the results are worth it; fresh beetroot (the last of the crop), swede (also the last of this year’s crop), cabbage, parsnips (the first to be harvested this year), carrots, cavalo nero, parsley, chard, spinach, tomatoes, chillies and lettuce.

A rainy morning didn’t stop seven of us from turning up at the farm, which meant that among other jobs, the sweet dumpling squash were harvested, the first year we’ve grown them and a success.

Homemade, well, allotment made compost helps with our endeavours and our take home box continues to look colourful 🙂

Harvested – super sized potatoes and again, multiple veg in the take home boxes, including celeriac (although some had been eaten, despite the protective nets).