We spent most of last week weeding and tidying the croft, it is looking very nice, almost park-like in places! The hedges and trees have really grown a lot this year, the wind reduction is really noticeable now. Our plan for next year is taking shape, we’re going to have a smaller, flat raised bed area and two new ploughed areas. The way to turn the back field into big beds for growing in seems to be to plough, add lots of organic matter, grow tatties for two years then try something else, like broccoli or beetroot. Hopefully after that, ploughing won’t be necessary again and we can just keep mulching with the usual mix of compost, old hay, leaves and seaweed. The fashionable growing method at the moment is “no-dig”, this involves spreading manure or compost on the surface, rather than digging it in. This works fine and is easier but we find that in order to get to that point “a bit of dig” is unavoidable. So ploughing’s on the to-do list for the Autumn along with a million other things.
I don’t think this is the best ever year for brassicas, but all the undercover crops are doing well. Lots of big red tomatoes now and some Orange Banana (great for frying.)
This week’s Croft Shares have the following:
Small – Tomatoes, courgettes, sugar snaps/peas, potatoes and tree cabbage.
Medium – Tomatoes, courgettes, mange tout, French beans, broccoli, chard and blackcurrants.
Large – Tomatoes, courgettes, sugar snaps, French beans, potatoes, kale, broad beans, onions, and salad leaves.
The blackcurrants are particularly good this year, they’ll be appearing in the Shares over the next few weeks. They are really good in an apple crumble or just stirred into yoghurt.