Hammonds End in May
Following the wettest
February on record at Hammonds End we finished the winter season with a
fantastic cauliflower harvest, 30 cauliflowers all ready at the same time!
The Winter Harvest Cauliflower
The site dried out
quickly and we were off to a flying start with a very productive spring
planting day where we planted out 20kg of potatoes and the broad beans and
sowed the early summer crops: calabrese, leeks, chard, spinach and beetroot
just before the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions were brought in.
Spring Planting Day – “sign” of things to come,
potato planting and Broad Beans some weeks later
Covid-19 has had a
significant impact on our operation as “not going out” and “social distancing”
has restricted the number of people on site to a few members. However, with a
very small hardworking team we have managed to continue harvesting and distributing
vegetables to “hubs” in St Albans and Harpenden for members to pick up on their
daily exercise. Recent harvests have included 180 lettuces, and plenty of
beetroot, rhubarb, rocket, kale, chard, spinach, kale and purple sprouting
broccoli. See the end of the newsletter for some fantastic pictures showing the
contents of recent boxes.
Lock-down harvest being prepared for distribution
to members
The spring crops raced to
a rapid (earlier than hoped) end as the extremely dry, warm, and sunny April
and less regular harvesting meant we lost the battle with nature as the crops
produced flowers at the expense of leaves.
During lockdown a very
small team have been keeping the Hammonds End site under control and most of
the crops sown on the spring planting day are now out in the beds. The onion
and garlic planted in October have grown well and the first leaves of the
potatoes are starting to show though. Unfortunately, the unexpected mid-May
frost has “burnt” the tops of some of the potatoes leaves but these will grow
back delaying the harvesting for a few weeks (which in the current climate is
not necessarily a bad thing!). We have also planted out beds of chard, spinach
and beetroot.
Garlic, potatoes and spinach
The parsnips, calabrese
and cauliflower are also planted out and other than needing more watering than
usual (when did it last rain?) are all growing strongly under their mesh
coverings. We use an ultra fine mesh which keeps out aphids, butterflies (caterpillars)
and flea beetle which would damage the leaves if we left them in the open
limiting the harvest. Whilst not pretty, it is preferable to spraying the
leaves with herbicides to kill pests.
The rhubarb and
strawberries are growing well but we need to get a net over the strawberries
before mid-June to protect the crop from birds and squirrels. We have a frame
up (reusing the old frame from polytunnel 2) but getting a net over in a
socially distanced manner is going to be a challenge.
Newly planted calabrese under mesh, and the rhubarb
and strawberry beds
The polytunnels have now
almost been cleared of the winter crops and are slowly being filled with the
summer cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, aubergines and sweet potatoes. The
irrigation system is partially working but we still have a bit of work to do
getting it linked up to the new large water tanks which will reduce the need
for time consuming manual watering.
Polytunnel
cabbage, carrots and spinach for the early summer harvest
Polytunnel aubergines, sweet potatoes and tomatoes
And finally we have
“furloughed” a few beds this year as with the reduced people power we can’t weed
and plant quite as much as usual, covering them with “mypex” which will keep the
weeds under control for when we want to bring them back into use later in the
season. This really makes a difference as the final picture shows.
Spot the difference – clear ground where the ground
has been covered with mypex
I am hopeful that in June
we will make a limited return back to Hammonds End for members though this will
initially involve only one person on site at a time to maximise social
distancing. Watch this space!
Our Hixberry site has
kept going thanks to the efforts of a small number of members working
individually and taking all their own tools.
As a result the site is in good shape and planting is on track. In response to the current situation we have
made a few changes to the growing plan.
For example, rather than try some novel legumes this year we are
planting more of the basic crops such as chard that provide a regular harvest
for members boxes. We hope this will
compensate for the slightly reduced planting at Hammonds End.
We struggled with cut
worms at the start of the growing season.
Cut worms are the caterpillars of various moths. They live in the soil and feed on young
plants at nights cutting them off at ground level. They are more common in soil that has only
recently been cultivated so we hope the problem will diminish in time. We have found that covering individual plants
with a plastic bottle or cup improves the situation at lot although it is not
100% fool proof.
Hixberry crimson
flowered Broad Beans and overwintered Onions
We have been harvesting
rhubarb and the globe artichokes are starting to produce. We are keeping our fingers crossed as it
looks as if the strawberry crop should be good this year and we may have our
first blackcurrants. The overwintering
onions have grown really well and the broad beans have plenty of flower. One of the varieties we have grown this year
is called Crimson Flower and it looks a picture. Other crops we have planted include beetroot,
turnips, brussels sprouts, Chinese radish and carrots.
Hixberry emerging
Beetroots and the Strawberry bed
Our
Incredible Edible gardens have been a bit neglected during lockdown, but thanks
to our volunteer waterers they’re still growing strong, and now that
restrictions are a bit more relaxed we’ve been able to plant chillies,
courgettes, squashes, tomatoes and more for the summer season. Now to tackle
the weeds! We are delighted that the Aboyne Residents Association has funded a
sturdy tomato support frame and growbags for the tomatoes at Russell Avenue,
which will be a great asset.
The New Tomato Frame at
Russell Avenue
Both Incredible Edible
gardens feature a ‘forest gardening’ planting style which includes a lot of
uncommon edibles which our visitors have found hard to recognise and providing
enough information on the plant labels has always been a challenge. However, we
can now introduce our brand new Incredible Edible Plant
Index, on the
FoodSmiles website, where you can look up any plant from the gardens by name to
learn a bit more about it. We’re now in the process of relabelling everything
clearly with its name only, and we hope that you will make use of the index
when you visit! (We’re still adding photos to the index, but this will be done
soon.) You can read a bit more about forest gardening in our October 2017 blog post here.
Our ‘One Plant Promise’ campaign started in April and aims to find out how many
people in St Albans are growing their own this year and encourage more people
to give it a try – if you haven’t signed up yet we invite you to do so on our website here. You’ll get a monthly email full of
growing advice and tips, you can join in on our social media channels, and you
can ask us your growing questions any time!
Flowers blooming and
some of the new plant labels at Russell Avenue
And finally, our Veg Box Picture Gallery: a selection of the January to May veg
boxes - thank you Tony
