For your amusement, and to show a taste of life at the Diss Community Farm, here is a very short video taken by Gary Rothwell. It is a time lapse of us all putting up the bean poles and planting the beans.

Yesterday, good weather again. I say “thank goodness”, ‘though the ground is so dry; oh well, rain’s forecast for Monday – Bank Holiday Monday, but the weeds won’t have a day off from growing.

So metal poles were cut to size, squash transplanted outside, with plastic rings around them to create a micro-climate and stronger supports erected for the beans in the hope we’ll not have a repeat of the wind damage suffered last year.

Rotovating, planting, strimming and of course the never-ending weeding.

When I arrived at the farm for our usual workday on Thursday, I first looked at the leeks I had been planting and watering for the past few weeks. What I saw horrified me. The whole section, my 3 rows (on the right) and the rows of shallots were covered with a lush growth of weeds. What is worse, my leeks had just started to grow and only a few were slightly visible. The best I could do was to weed between the rows, to the extent I could see them, and hope I was doing more good than damage. Here is the result. I hope that next week the leeks will be visible enough that I can weed within the rows.

I think these photos speak for themselves; hoards to be done but time for a coffee break as well and all in glorious sunshine.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

We’re well into Spring now, and the farm is doing well. The polytunnels are full of salad leaves which are currently our main harvest, but lots of seeds and other plants are in the ground too. I have put in 3 rows of leeks. Lots of wood ash has been placed on onions and other crops that like it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I want to highlight the coffee break today, as it is always an important part of our work sessions. It is where we discuss progress and make decisions and where we bond. One of our newer members, the other Gary, has a coffee business and usually brings a choice of two specially brewed flavours. Other people bring other treats: this week it was cake and rolls.

We found a groggy bumblebee in one of the polytunnels, barely able to move. As it happens, Penelope had just seen a video about this on FaceBook which said you should feed them on a sugar solution, from a spoon.

She did that, and the bee drank and drank. It soon recovered enough to fly around, and then landed on Penelope’s back.

We are only have workdays every few weeks, now, in the depth of winter, but today it was half term, so we had a couple of children for the first time in a long while. After some early rain it was a bright sunny cold day.

We are in very good shape for the winter, with not very much to do. We are beginning to plant broad beans in the polytunnels, and onions outside. We still have lots of leeks, some cabbage, kale, and celeriac. We are covering lots of areas with black sheeting, laying out a new 5 course rotation, with permanent walkways between the beds.

We had our coffee break in the big new polytunnel. The compost is doing well. We closed off one pile and opened a new one. They are only taking a couple of months to rot down to good, usable compost.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A hardy bunch turned out yesterday, for our last working day of 2015. The emphasis was on preparing for the winter and next year. We did a major tidy of the shed, including cleaning of many of the tools. The third polytunnel is just about ready for use. We still need to make one more door. We put straw down between the rows of strawberries, after thinning them.

We still had a good harvest, with stalks of brussels sprouts, lots of leeks, Jeruselum artichokes, various greens.

Our new member, (a second Gary) sells speciality coffee and has been bringing down a couple of flasks for our breaks, and Anya brought lovely little Christmas pies.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Another ‘all hands needed’ task this week when we put the cover on the new polytunnel.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.