‘Twas the season of plenty...
Hammonds
End as summer ends
We’ve had a great summer
of growing at all our sites, increasing the amount we have grown in the first 8
months of the year by an impressive 30% (252kg) to over a tonne of vegetables.
At Hammonds End we
are approaching the end of our summer crops, where we have grown more
courgettes, chard, cucumber, fennel, beans, calabrese, salad, potatoes and
spinach than the previous years. The cooler summer (especially the nights) has
meant that some of the polytunnel crops have done less well and we did lose a
lot of the strawberries to the squirrels and broad beans to the crows (more
defences needed for next year!)
It has been a funny year
of weather: July had the hottest recorded day and 40+ mph winds with extreme
variation between day and night time temperatures. The lack of rain has meant
we have been kept busy watering but the new polytunnel irrigation system has
made this easier and we will continue to improve this over the winter months
for next year.
Summer
Crops: Squash / Sweetcorn / Polytunnel 2 / Borlotti beans
With summer behind us the
main task is now keeping the leeks, purple sprouting broccoli, kale, swede,
chard, cauliflower (no sign of the threatened Europe wide cauliflower shortage
at Hammonds End!) and winter spinach relatively weed free and covered up from
hungry pigeons. We will shortly be planting out garlic and onion sets and have
also started to sow the winter polytunnel crops of pak choi, winter lettuce,
rocket, turnips, carrots, spinach and beetroot to see us through to next spring.
In the now empty beds we
have sown a green manure (both phacelia and field beans) which will keep the
soil protected over winter, smother the weeds and provide some goodness to the
soil as it composts down. In addition, the bees are really loving the phacelia
flowers.
Bees
and the Phacelia Green Manure
The plans for the winter
include putting a new cover on Polytunnel 3 and continuing to develop the
Polytunnel rainwater harvesting (for when it does eventually rain!) and crop
irrigation systems. We will also be strengthening the strawberry bed defences
to try and keep out the squirrels next summer.
Hixberry
Lane has had a great summer
with good harvests of a number of crops.
Onions have done well both those grown from sets planted last autumn and
those we sowed as seed in the spring. We
also had a bumper garlic harvest. Conditions seem to have been perfect for beetroot
which we have been harvesting weekly since mid-July.
Other crops we have
been particularly pleased with have been fennel and kohl rabi.
There
is still plenty of veg to come – leeks, squash, sweetcorn, sprouts, red cabbage
and swede. We are also trying out late
summer sowings of some quick growing crops including Chinese cabbage, pak choi
and kailaan.
Our Incredible Edible
gardens inevitably have a bit of a lull in the summer months - the ground gets
extremely dry and sessions are quiet while people go away on holiday. But
nevertheless, they are ticking along with a steady stream of herbs, berries and
salad leaves available, and a few courgettes, beans and tomatoes too.
Russell
Avenue Site in Summer
We are very grateful this month
to Morgan Sindall Construction, who as part of their volunteering scheme, have
replaced our broken tool storage box at the Civic Centre garden and created new
woodchip paths in the forest area of our Russell Avenue garden. These paths
provide important structure to the space and will be a great help in developing
our forest garden in the coming months. We would love for more volunteers to
join us in developing the garden, so if you'd like to help please come along to
any of our sessions (dates on the website - http://www.foodsmilesstalbans.org.uk/p/blog-page_3.html ) We
also have an open day coming up as part of the Open Food Gardens programme, on
26th October 11am-1pm, when we hope to be able to show you lots of seasonal
food for late autumn and winter - come along if you can!
Did you know we have a small
free library of books about permaculture and growing-your-own at our
Russell Avenue garden? You are welcome to borrow them or swap one for a similar
book - for access just come along to any of our Russell Avenue sessions.
Russell
Avenue Library and Morgan Sindall “path laying” team
Harvest Festival: it was
lovely to see so many people at the Harvest Festival at the start of September
for an afternoon of chatting, eating, drinking and a challenging treasure hunt
as well as the opportunity to show off our site to St Albans and Harpenden
Mayors.
Harvest
Festival in Full Swing
Friends of Foodsmiles are welcome to come to work informally at the farm
whenever they need some hearty exercise and company (and probably cake too)! It
would be great to see you so please come along and say hello - there is always
plenty to do! If you are interested, please contact us and we can let you know
when we are working on site. You can also go on our 'active friends' list and
receive our site newsletter if you wish to do this regularly (membership@foodsmilesstalbans.org.uk).
And a big thank you for Ayletts for continuing to
supply compost and equipment to us.
Date for the Diary: Foodsmiles Open Day at Hammonds End on 28th
September between 2 and 4pm as part of the St Albans Food Festival. Do come and
visit as we say farewell to summer and prepare the site for winter.
Finally following the site managers' homemade wine tasting
at the Harvest Festival, Jayne has agreed to share her secrets:
At the Harvest Festival a few members asked me to divulge
my recipe for making wine so here goes.
First buy a demijohn, air lock, tube for syphoning and
yeast (maybe). All these are available from Wilkinsons at a very reasonable
price or from ebay.
For blackberry or rhubarb wine add 3 pounds of fruit to 3
pounds sugar in a big plastic box or bucket with lid. This is creating a must.
Leave the must for about one week to break down and become juice. I help it
along with a blender.
Then add a sachet of yeast and cooled boiled water and
filter out the fruit to fill the demijohn. You do not have to add yeast if the
wine is fermenting well by itself. So I add it for just blackberries but
sometime I add a carton of pure grape juice and then I don’t add yeast.
Attached the air lock and let
the wine bubble away for about 12 weeks. During this time you can syphon the
wine if it is not clearing or has a lot of fruit/sediment still in it. After
the wine has stopped bubbling then it can be bottled and is ready to drink in
another four weeks.
Some wine makers use campden
tablets to stop the wine fermenting, I don’t as I prefer the less chemical
approach.