Garlic planted

For first time we have planted a crop of garlic, we used the poly tunnel frame, south facing about 20m long and 1m wide. The three most important factors are

1. They needs one month of 10c or less
2. They need water during the growth period
3. They need maximum sun before harvesting, this will be achieved in the south facing site. We planted through woven plastic to suppress weeds and conserve moisture if we have a drought next year. The planting holes are made with a propane burner. Spacing is 5" within the row and 10" between the rows.
Garlic are split into two groups, the Hard Neck varieties which tend to be beyyer flavour but do not keep past Christmas,we are planting three of those namely Sprint, Germidor and Corail. The Soft Neck varieties will keep longer and have a milder flavour and smaller cloves we planted one variety of these Arno these are the varieties that you often see plaited due to the soft neck which is more flexible.

Classes in organic vegetable growing

I have been running a series of classes for gardeners interested in organic vegetable growing. Rather than print out reams of notes I promised to publish my note for the course here. So to see the notes either click on the title above or follow this link:

http://knol.google.com/k/introduction-organic-vegetable-growing#

to find the notes. For those on the course below this page are the pictures of raised beds as used in the Bio Dynamic Care Community in Botton.

An inspirational visit, Botton Camphill Community

We have just returned from an enlightening trip to North Yorkshire. We visited the Camphill Community at Botton village. 10 miles from Hutton le Hole over the North York Moors at 1,000, you drop into a valley, most of which is owned and farmed (700 acres in all) by the Camphill Community. There are 600 villagers working on the gardens and farms,guided by co workers and apprentices

The first view of the village as you come off the moor, most of the land you see is farmed by Botton Village.
All the farms are run on Biodynamic lines although the needs of the villagers are put before rigid agricultural and horticultural practices. Each farm has a task either dairy cows as seen above, beef, vegetables and Stormy Hall which produces and packs a wide range of Biodynamic seed.
Temporary tunnels are used allowing various envirnments to created for each crop, above are hoops for the 2m and 4m wide tunnels. Below is the land anchor used fro the larger tunnel
We came across various tools not normally seen in the UK, one was a French fork with two handles used to break up the soil but not turn it over. Another was the Dutch hoe seen below, it has a small handle on the end of the shaft which fits the hand and improves efficiency and comfort in use.
Stormy Hall grow separate vegetable crops from the other farms lower in the valley, presumably to evaluate varieties and isolate them for seed collection. Seen here are a Leek crop and Red Cabbage. The Leeks were doing well but spaced 12" apart in the rows compared to the 6" spacing we use.

The specialist vegetable farm lower in the valley used raised beds and are in the process of building more, they have cloches over some depending on crops and conditions.
The inner garden is laid out with mainly ornamentals and is a walled garden providing a beautifully peaceful environment for villages and co workers alike.

We found the village an inspirational place all the people we met were friendly and immensely proud of what they were achieving every day. The atmosphere was one of peaceful purposefulness. The whole ethos of the place was one of care for each other, care for the landscape and care for the animals within it.

New Market at Jewellery Quarter

We have started a new market at Jewellery Quarter in Birmingham, it has been a steady start so far but there is real enthusiasm from the organisers, all based in the local community. I have never seen so many Jewellery and gold shops in one place before. There is a residential community who have been used to supermarket shopping. Hopefully we can provide an alternative to the high food mile, cold stored chemically induced food.

We will be attending until the December market and make a decision then whether to continue.
The dates for the markets this year are November 21st, December 5, both Saturdays.

Millies progress

Borders Collies are the most active dogs I have come across, so taking an acceptable picture has proved impossible so far. Still here are a few to show how she is coming on.She is now just over 7 months old, she has been introduced to sheep at first in an open field with another dog to keep the sheep together. The result was I can only describe as an Ovine bomb. Sheep scattered to the four corners of the field, Millie chasing, tail up having a great time. I changed tack and did some work with our sheep in a small paddock this was better but still spent time getting sheep out of field corners and did more running than is healthy for my age.

Today I built a round pen from borrowed sheep hurdles augmenting our own, to give a circumference of 50m give or take. This has been a massive improvement, reducing stress on the sheep and me.

Initially I worked her round the outside of the pen with me and sheep inside. Trying to keep the sheep balanced to me and teaching the commands away and come by. Then we worked with Millie, me and the sheep in the pen, so far so good. Much more relaxed with good results from the session.

More updates soon

Good week

A good week in the life of Hopesay Glebe Farm, The harvest of onions completed in double quick time, all now in the poly tunnel drying off. Looks like we a reasonable crop of about a tonne, will last on our markets till about April.

We always grow our onions from seed and hand plant through a biodegradable mulch. This gives us improved storage over onion sets and reduces the risk of introducing white rot to our cropping area. We do see a handful of onion plants with rot but with rotation of the crops have managed so far to keep it to a minimum.

Update on some outdoor crops

At this time of year we are moving from summer to winter crops, the change over depends on weather through autumn. Good weather at this time of year will make a significant difference to our annual profits, especially after the poor weather in July.

Spinach has been going well and we have made our third cut, with a potential fourth if the weather goes well.

The beetroot have been growing slowly but as most of our customers prefer smaller roots
The beetroot planted back in June has been doing well except for the short tail vole damage which has been reduced when we removed the mesh crop cover allowing predators access. These include owls and our expert rodent control manager: Black Cat




We had three batches of Leeks this year the smallest plants are from plants sown in May in a polythene tunnel, the largest are those sown in a frame in February with the only protection from a mesh cover. we will check which type does best later in the year.


Red onions are ready for drying off, the tops have bent over we will be moving them to the tunnel to wither the tops.
We used multi sown onion cells this year, we aim for between two and four seed per cell, from the results the muti sown modules have worked well, we are getting about 25% more per m2.


One of reliable crops is summer flowering Purple, it doesn't need vernalisation to set flowers, with a cool autumn we should get three or four more weeks from this crop, provided there is no early frost.