Battle of the Paths

Hello Everyone,

Bob and I hope you are all healthy and happy. We are happy and relatively healthy…just want to lose our Winter food tummy. I am looking forward to the new season and the foods it has to offer. It is at this point that I feel I am over the filling dinners and puds. I want fresh tasting light nibbles, salads (savoury and sweet), lots of Mediterranean style cooking and tomatoes. The Winter fillers have served their purpose, keeping us warm. I want to eat the Spring and Summer seasons offerings (and fingers crossed, loose the tum!).

Walled Garden

We have seen excellent progress this past week, here in the garden. There is now an extremely thick wood chip path between the growing beds. This wood chip is from the trees and shrubs which had to be removed from around the walled garden. The trees were decaying, dangerous or in the way of the new Freyja Project development. The shrubs were all mainly ‘goners’. Bob and I don’t feel bad about having to remove all this shrubby growth as we have planted out at least three hundred trees within the walled garden already. When we complete the meadow and gardens surrounding the restaurant and hotel area, we will have planted many more trees and shrubs than we removed. 

As you can see from the above picture, it is definitely beginning to look organised and ready for some planting. Yay!!! Fresh compost will fill the gap between the wall and beam edging but we will take extra care not to bury the base of each cordon tree…we do not want to cause decay or damage as we are expecting great things from our fruit trees this year! During the Autumn season I will plant Spring bulbs along these edging beds.

The bottom left-hand bed is going to hold the soft fruit bushes…currants and berries of all colours, shapes and sizes. Bob and I spent most of Wednesday sourcing new bushes which will be going into that fresh compost asap! or when they arrive. They have been bought with the anticipation of some sweet goodies from Alex and his Crew later in the year. Just saying…but Bob and I are up for the challenge of taste testers and I do hope you are reading this Alex! 

The two next beds will be part of the crop rotation planting plan. We are undecided as to which bed will have which types of crops as yet. We try and practice a crop rotation plan so we do not deplete the soil of all the nutrients available, giving the plant the best growing opportunity. Pests have less chance of survival if we alter the crop we grow each year. There are some vegetables we are not worried about rotating, for instance lettuces and mesclun. These are not in the ground long enough to cause depletion or pest issues. We don’t feel we have to be rigorously strict.

Each very large bed will be subdivided to make smaller (but still very large) growing beds to accommodate the variety of vegetables we will be growing. Each bed will have a wood chip path between each of them. Not only will this look pleasing to the eye and a natural medium but is advantageous to growing as it retains water. It composts down over time which in turn can be placed into a compost system and used yet again.

This year the beds are going to be a ‘test case’. We do know we have a ‘frost pocket’ at this end of the garden. We also want to see the wind direction, if we are about to be inundated with slugs around the walls, if pigeons move in, will rabbits sneak in and not forgetting to concentrate on how the fruit and vegetables grow as we should have extra growing weeks within the walls of the garden. The extra growing time is the largest advantage of gardening within a walled garden. We are, once again, learning.

The Farm

Two deliveries of wood chip arrived here on the farm this last week. They have, both, already been used. The Pond Field, as you can see, has a great covering between each of the outside growing beds. 

It has been a real dreary week…wet and icy…Lucy and Graham have been kept warm shovelling the chippings into the trailer, driving to the spot to be covered, outside or inside the polytunnels, shovelling into a wheelbarrow then laying the path. That would heat the body up!

The result of laying the paths is a tidy and more professional appearance. I am, without doubt, a bit of a pain. I do like straight lines, tidyness with everything in its place. The wood chip satisfies my need of this. So, I am happy.

The chickens, on the other hand, are not so happy. After spending months in the Orchard Field, they are now back inside the large pens built for this occasion. Bird Avian Flu is back with a vengeance. The whole of England is back in chicken quarantine which means that all domestic and commercial birds are on lock down till the foreseeable.

YouTube Channel 

Well! Not sure how my chat about the coming weeks episodes are to be described. Apparently, I am going to be on screen! Oh! My! Goodness! I am actually not comfortable being ‘on show’ but needs must sometimes I suppose. Anyway…Bob and I chat about planning, something we are constantly doing. We can only work when we have a plan. Enjoy watching. 

We are still astounded and delighted by the number of people who have subscribed to the channel. Who would have thought it…our Ann and Bob sort of on the telly!

Have a great week and think - this time next week it is light till 5.30! Hooray!

Take care,

 Ann