FEBRUARY 2008

At last an update on our newsletter!Firstly can I apologise for the huge delay in bringing this update to you.After the huge disappointment that was the growing season of 2007 we now look forward,raring to go, and hoping for a little more sunshine and a lot less rain this year.Seed sowing has already begun with our peppers,chillies and aubergines just popping their little heads up.Spinach salads and radish have been drilled in the polytunnels and will crop earlier than expected if the weather stays this fine and warm!Our oriental salads are just ready for harvesting.Expect them in the bags soon. My guide for when to start sowing out in the open is the hedgerow.As soon as the hawthorn has burst into life I know it's time to go with the earliest of sowings.Time these early sowings badly and lots of time and effort can be wasted

We would like to welcome our customers to the fifth Reality Bites Newsletter. As you may have noticed our website has undergone a bit of a change. This will make it easier for you to get more information about ourselves, find it easier to contact us and order boxes and most importantly give us feedback to ensure we get better at what we do!!

Well what a summer we have had, or complete lack of it. The amount of rainfall in June and July was something we have never experienced before. It has seriously affected our crops and made it a very trying growing season.

Due to the lack of rain, we have held off planting some of our field crops, as the ground is just too dry. We have been  spending the time concentrating on weed control.

People often wonder why some organic produce demands a higher price than conventionally grown vegetables. Well my answer to this would be, come and spend an afternoon with me weeding and you will see how time and labour intensive this is.  To grow good quality, healthy vegetables every weed must be removed from all growing beds so as to not compete with the vegetables for soil nutrient, moisture and space. For conventional farmers this involves mixing up some chemicals such as weedol or roundup (and i wonder why there are so many warnings on the bottles!) and liberally dowsing everything.

DIQUAT - this is the most commonly used herbicide. If you would like some more information on this then please look at http://www.pesticideinfo.org/Detail_Chemical.jsp?Rec_Id=PC33217#Toxicity

This is a TOXIC chemical - you are advised to seek IMMEDIATE medical assistance if in contact.

Now, surely a hoe is a far safer method of weeding?

Over the last few weeks we have spent considerable time weeding our parsnip beds - which had become over run with chick weed. This is a job involving a lot of concentration, as often the parsnip tops are actually smaller than the weeds. We have also managed to tame our carrot beds, spinach beds and fennel. But it is a never ending job, as soon as you have turned your back they have started growing back again.

Thistles are another real problem for us. Being a perennial weed, with very woody roots which can stretch for metres underground they are so difficult to completely eradicate. Even if a tiny portion of the root tuber remains below ground, the thistle can throw out new growth tops. These plants are very greedy for soil nutrient so must be removed as soon as possible. This involves wearing thick gloves to protect from the spikes, and digging down to remove as much of the tubers as possible. Being a skilled thistle puller, i can remove several hundred in a morning.

As far as planting goes. We have managed to plant out our sprouts (first in, last out), calabrese, lettuce plants, courgettes and squash. We spent most of yesterday rotavating and putting up or bamboo wigwams for our runner beans and climbing french beans.

Well, i'm sure that all of our customers know how much of a good grumble us farmers like! It almost makes us feel better, especially when we are grumbling to another farmer or grower. This month sees no exception to this. The grumble of the month is 'when on earth is it going to rain again?'  We have seen over a month without any rain at all, and this makes our job a lot more challenging. Obviously last month we were grumbling abut how wet it is, so you may have noticed that we never seem happy. Well we are always happy! But it is our right to have a good grumble each month, so i wonder what next month will see as our grumbling topic.

April is one of the busiest months in our growing calendar. We have had a very busy few weeks. Our tractor has been working over-time, with Tristan at the helm. He has managed to prepare a vast amount of land which has already been direct sown with carrots, sweetcorn, peas and fennel.

We have prepared our potato ground, and using our newly acquired potato planter,  which is pulled by Tristan on the tractor, Adam and myself have planted up all of our potatoes for the year. This year we will be growing Sarpo Mira, which is a new variety only just available from Hungary.  http://www.rhs.org.uk/Learning/publications/pubs/garden1104/newsgeneral.asp  Please take a look at this link to learn some more about this exciting new variety. We are also growing one of our customers favourites, Milva. This is a delicious yellow waxy variety that is one of main crop potates. We are also growing some varieties which are 'old fashioned' varieties, that normally commercial growers stay clear off, but we like to grow some interesting varieties for our customers.

Along with the potatoes, we have also planted our shallot, red onion and white onion sets out in the fields. This is a very time consuming crop to plant, as every single set needs to be planted by hand in very accurate rows. So we use bamboo canes and string to ensure we get accurate beds. After planting these we need to cover them with protection immediately, otherwise the onions get raided by the rodents out in the field and plundered. We dont mind them taking a few to feed their families, thats part of organic farming, but as long as they leave the majority of them for you!!

There has also been a lot of activity in our greenhouses. We have started to clear all of our old lettuce beds, so i am really sorry to say we will be coming to the end of our salad packs. But dont worry we will be growing them out in the field very soon. We will of course be selling our cut and come again lettuce plants at the farmers markets, so you can have a go yourselves! The reason we have been clearing the greenhouses is to prepare for the highlight of the year........tomatoes!!! and peppers, aubergines, chillis and cucmbers. So most of this week has seen myself perched very precariously up some step ladders hanging string supports ready for our plants. We will be planting our tomatoes out from Thursday, it is a very exciting time and really looks amazing to see the greenhouses full with these incredible plants.

All of our sowings we made in preparation for the farmers markets are growing great! We will be attending our first farmers market in Leamington Spa this Saturday, so please come along and see what fantastic plants we have to offer you!! This year we have even more exciting and unusal plants to tempt you with, such as artichokes and cardoons.

Its been a very wet start to 2007, i am sure that you've all heard that its been the wettest, hottest, coldest year since time begun, but i must say that i never remember it being this wet for this long in January before.

But at last, over the previous couple of weeks it seems that Spring is on its way.  It always brings immense relief when the soil starts to dry out, and we can begin to cultivate the ground to begin planting.

Within the large polytunnel we have a great bed of mizuna, wild rocket, garden rocket and pak choi, which if your lucky enough to get one our veg boxes you will have enjoyed as part of our oriental salad pack. Next to these we have another bed of spring garlic, and some broad beans (well in truth there's not many left after the pesky mice had their fill!)

In our smaller greenhouse we have more oriental salads growing, whilst in our large double span greenhouse we have some whole lettuce (nearly 1,000) and some spinach.

Please note if you subscribe to our email newsletter you will be emailed an html copy of this document along with This months vegetables document which gives some fantastic recipes!