We rejoiced at the arrival of the rain last week, after almost 2 months of none falling at all! The dry weather was great for getting on with building our 6 new permanent beds and getting the market garden ready for the 2025 season, but we were very happy when the skies opened and gave the land a good drink. We are also quite glad to not have the daily evening chore of running drip lines to irrigate the beds, the rain is now doing it for us!
The vegetables are growing happily both outside and in the polytunnel. We will be harvesting all of the tunnel broad beans this weekend and planting in the heat-loving veg – tomatoes, chillies, basil and cucumbers. The outdoor veg is all looking good, the perks of the dry weather means we aren’t battling slugs like we did last year (the ducks are helping with that too!)
Spring onions, bulb onions, garlic, broccoli, chard, lettuce, broad beans, peas and beets are all on track to be harvested for the first of our boxes going out at the start of July. The poached egg flower has taken over a couple of the beds and we are feeling guilty about needing to terminate most of it in the next couple of weeks as the bees are absolutely loving it…there is so much wildlife around at the moment and the predators are doing a great job of keeping the pest population to a minimum.
We have also been enjoying our newest tool – the wheel hoe! A big part of managing weeds in a no dig market garden is using hoes, but hand held tools can be hard work on the body, so we are thrilled that our new wheel hoe is making the regular job of cultivating beds and paths a much easier task (though it is still a fair work out – most farm work is!)
