Thank you to everyone who stopped to talk to us yesterday at our stall on the farmers’ market. Several of our members were on hand to explain our purpose of growing together and sharing the results.

Produce harvested this week was in display to underline the benefits – and all for around £1.50 per week that we pay for seeds etc, plus a few hours of your time. Certainly less time than would be necessary if you were to take on your own allotment, judging by the comparison that we were able to make with seasoned allotment holders. Well worth considering if you have limits on the time you can dedicate to growing.

We met a number of people who seemed to be attracted to our mission, and hopefully some will be sufficiently interested to follow up with a visit to see us at Winfarthing.

Our thanks go to the festival organisers for the opportunity to take part

Saturday 15th October will see members from DCF exhibiting as part of the Diss and Harleston Food & Drink Festival 2016.

We are planning to bring a selection of current produce, and information about us. We will be outside the Post Office from 9.00 until 13.00 and we greatly look forward to meeting people visiting the festival.

Please feel free to drop by to talk about growing veggies, and if you might be interested in joining as new members, we would be delighted to explain how that can happen.

In the meantime here is a photo of today’s crops.

Remember the leeks pictured in May and the supports and beans planted in June – they’ve grown

Colourful peppers ripening.

Tomatoes still being picked and more to ripen

Pumpkin

Calabrese covered but still the pesky little slugs and snails slide in.

Radish and rocket growing in a no-dig bed.

“Movement” of straw bales.

Patches of colour are brightening the allotment, from seeds sown especially to encourage beneficial insects such as bees and from the fruit and veg produce.

Ragwort and Phacelia

Plenty to do – No. 1, weeding.

Colours are appearing. Plants loved by bees are flowering, companion planting is proving to be beneficial and veg are increasing in size.

Insect pests are deterred with sheets of Enviromesh, while layers are added to our new no-dig patch.

but every bit of weeding gives what we’ve planted more of a chance to flourish.

Proof – these photos. Strawberries, tomatoes ripening and the first of this year’s sunflowers.

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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.