Salad Onions

Hello Everyone,  Monday is the first day of September, the first day of the Autumn season and also the season of ‘what do I wear today?’. I enjoy living in a place which is seasonal with the chance to feel the different climates Mother Nature has to offer. This coming season can be glorious but it can also be chilly…what do you wear? A change to appropriate clothing is required.  We also tend to have a change in our diet, which can very often be a welcome change. Sunday, being the last day of the school Summer holidays, we have the family coming for lunch. Time for a change and we are having a Sunday roast with all the trimmings, including Yorkshire puddings. Now looking forward to comfort eating and cosy jumpers.   Hello Autumn.  The Farm  The seed sowing is now complete for 2025. The greenhouse is full again with trays of, soon to be, seedlings. The ones sown last week already are seedlings, which always amazes me as to how, from a tiny seed a real plant forms…amazing! So, we have all the orientals, mustards, pak choi, spinach, lettuces, celtuce and kohlrabi sown.  We have also direct sown some seeds. There are some crops which do not transplant into a growing bed - carrots, radish (and parsnips but these were sown last March). Other seeds we need soooo many that it is simpler and less time consuming to direct sow - turnips and spring onions. This last week Bob has directly sown the radish, turnip and carrot seeds in situ. We are still making use of the Summer crops but we are turning towards the comfort foods of red, green and white cabbages, kales, cavolonero, potatoes and broccoli to provide meals. We will soon have the sprouts, winter squash, leeks, celeriac and parsnips to cook with.  Menus are changing and how tasty will that be.  We are preparing growing beds, making them ready for the new  winter crops which are germinating in the greenhouses. The Crew are ridding beds of French bean and cucumber vines and also cut and come again plants of mesclun and celtuce. The ground is then cleaned of any weeds and a gentle hoe to level. Fresh compost maybe needed. The ground watering system is made straight. The bed is then ready to be replanted with any plugs of seedlings ready. Just as the mid Spring season is a hectic time of planting out, so will be the next few weeks. In an ideal world, all should be planted out before mid Autumn. Fingers crossed we reach that target.  In the meantime, before we are consuming future winter vegetables, we still have our colourful tomatoes and where would Summer be without courgettes. We are hoping that our sweetcorn will be ready and available for you all, our lovely customers, next week. We should definitely have corn by the week after.  The way to tell if corn is ripe and ready takes a few simple steps. Firstly the hair needs to be brown and dry. The cob needs to be full and firm. The most important test is testing the corn kernel itself. The husk is pealed back and a kernel is squashed between fingers allowing a milky liquid to ooze. If all this happens then the cob is ripe and ready for the Chef’s Box.   The Walled Garden  The truth is absolutely nothing has happened in the Walled Garden for this week. Graham the Great has had a well earned break last week, so work came to a stop at the garden.  We are a very small team who spread themselves far and wide. It is never a dull moment at either site of Freyja. We will always have a list of tasks and that list may change and decrease. However, it will never be complete. We work with the seasons. It is the season which determines the major tasks in hand. For instance, now we are entering the Autumn season, we will now tend to the guttering on the polytunnels. If you remember, last winter we did have very heavy snow which collapsed the guttering as the snow slipped from the roof of each tunnel. We will now fix it in readiness of the next snowfall. It was pointless doing such a task during the Summer as more pressing tasks were required to be completed.  We determine our jobs as and when they are required to be seen to. We have learned not to put ourselves under pressure as jobs will get done. So, Graham being on holiday is deserved and nothing being done at the garden is not an issue. Saying that, he was a miss and we will all be glad to see him back.   When Graham does return on Tuesday, he will always notice (as any Crew member does notice) how a week can make such a difference. Plants will have grown, crops will have been removed, the barn swallows have fledged, it is cooler or warmer and they are wearing the wrong clothes, it is darker or lighter in the morning, the chickens have been moved to a new area or the leaves on the trees are changing colours. Time moves very quickly at times and here at Freyja it is more often than not really obvious.   Thank you for your continued support and kind words.  Till next week, take care,  Ann

Hello everyone, Well, so far, the Chef’s Box is going well as we reached capacity in both opening weeks. Thank you for returning the cardboard boxes. We do want to re-use the boxes over a few deliveries. Any other paper disposables for example paper bags can be recycled or placed into your compost bin. The preserve glass and lid can be returned. Where possible we use paper bags (or no bags at all), where this not possible we look for products that are biodegradable. The bags we use for protecting and storing any leafy vegetables, for example chard and salad leaves, are biodegradable. This means that you can place them into your recycling bin after use. The bags do keep the contents fresh and crispy for quite a while, if they are placed in the fridge. We always try our best to care for our environment, here on the farm and in the Walled Garden. That is the main reason we follow two main principles; organic growing and a "no-dig" approach to cultivation. We want to continue considering Mother Nature’s world by helping you to easily put the disposables in as friendly way as possible. Any ideas for us to improve are appreciated. The Farm Talking of reusing, recycling and reducing – composting is our method of doing all the three Rs. As we are harvesting each week for deliveries to both you, our lovely customers, and the Restaurants it will be no surprise that we create a huge amount for composting. Our process is as follows: ·       A list of produce to be harvested is compiled. ·       A member of the Crew picks one produce type, ticks it off the list, then goes to the specific growing bed where it is being grown. ·       The produce is then harvested, this could involve de-leafing the plant, removing the whole plant or picking them from the plant. ·       For all the “greens”, for instance Chard, will be checked and harvested. ·       The “harvest” is then brought to the preparation area and placed in cold water to remove the “field heat” – this is the natural heat of the plant, and we want to take that heat away which shocks the produce and prevents it from going limp, meaning it stays fresher for longer. ·       The fruiting vegetables, for example Tomatoes, are carefully picked and stored in a tray. ·       During this process any discarded leaves are placed into one of our large composting bins – we have eight. ·       Any vegetable which has been placed in cold water are then drip dried or placed into punnets or bagged into one of our biodegradable bags. ·       At this stage the produce is kept cool ready for going into the boxes. ·       The amount of excess greenery is vast, and the compost bins are always full, especially during the summer season. Occasionally we will add a layer of cardboard into the composting bins. Grass cuttings and leaves from the trees can also be added at any time. ·       We cover over the top of the compost bins and watch it sink, dramatically reducing the height of the waste as the decomposing process takes place. Over time (usually a year) the waste decomposes to become a nourishing, rich material which can be used on our growing beds. ·       It is amazing how quickly the garden waste turns into organic matter. The worms and micro-organisms have a field day (sorry) breaking down the contents of the bin. All this organic material is turned and we wish we had the time to turn it from bin to bin more often. However, once it completes the de-composing process we end up with “Black Gold”, that’s the plan! We continue working in the fields and tunnels. The crops are looking grand, and we have planted out lots of crops for the winter season. Lots of seeding has been started and I am cracking on with even more seeding. These are the crops that will be harvested in the New Year….2026! Can you believe it! There will be spinach, rocket, lettuces, mustards, pak choi and oriental vegetables such as mizuna. We want all these to be planted out by the early autumn period to enable them to establish and grow before winter takes over when little growth takes place. The Walled Garden I am beginning to sound like a broken record, but lots of activity has been happening, this involves lots of groundwork to enable the aesthetic work – greenhouse paths, terraces, steps are all in progress. The behind-the-scenes work seems to be never ending but, as we always say, it is all in planning. The orchard has lost two trees. This is glum news, and we are unsure as to why. We have looked at many different scenarios, but we keep coming back to the same situation – all 250 trees have been treated in the same way. We just must accept that some trees just do not work out. Those trees will be replaced in the dormant winter period. We are still happy with the other 248 trees we have planted, so not a bad percentage loss. Well, as I did say, I am going to crack on with my seeding. My office will be the greenhouse at the farm for the next few days. Till next week, take care. Ann

Hello Everyone,  Another glorious week as we get closer and closer to summers end. We have to make hay while we still have the heat during the day and we have had plenty of that. It hit over forty degrees in the tunnels which is unbearable to work in however there is always plenty to fill our time with in the outside growing beds…  The Farm  It may seem that with all this wonderful heat the crops would play the game and madly grow. The opposite is true for some seasonal vegetables. Various leafy greens just stop and protect the leaves they have. Chard is a good example of this, which seems to be on a break from growing. We have watered slightly more than usual to entice some action. But no, the plant waited till the cooler weekend to produce some growing leaves. Other plants, like lettuce and celtuce have been parched and drooped in the heat. They, too, are back after a good drink and cooler conditions.  All polytunnel activity happens at the start of each of the very hot days particularly when we need to harvest for the restaurants and the box scheme. We plan each week what needs to be harvested, this week we had to plan the ‘when’ for harvesting. We do like to collect and prep all the fruit and vegetables as close to delivery time as possible, that is just before our ‘delivery boy’ (Bob) leaves. We hope you are enjoying your boxes and thank you for all your kind words.  We have also had to plant out into the tunnels. This task was also done really early to avoid the hot sauna in the tunnels. As you should realise by now we are big planners and in the plan we ought to be planting out vegetables for the winter, now! This is what Graham did with the over head watering system on in polytunnel one to cool him down every now and again when he just stood under the shower. We now have nearly all the brassicas in the ground which will see us through the winter months.  We have also filled both an outside and inside growing bed of Bambino potatoes. We have timed it so they will be ready for the festive season and a Christmas dinner. Fingers crossed on that one.  As ever, the summer squash (courgettes) and winter squash are prolific. Bob and I have sliced courgette fried in a good oil and then served with Parmesan and pine nuts sprinkled over each night at the moment. Simple but delicious. These growing areas have had a good tidy The winter squash will be allowed to harden in the late summer sun before we store them to be used during autumn and maybe into winter. We also have all the onion family curing, ready to be stored and used in the coming months.  The celeriac, leeks, kales, cavolo nero, parsnips and brussels sprouts are all growing nicely, with tiny little cabbages growing on the sprouts. There is a lot to look forward to. This we are very happy with as one of our greatest challenges is to have abundance throughout the year and the late winter and early spring months.   Tomorrow, Monday, is when I complete the final seed sowing session of the year. These are the over wintering crops which are the challenging late winter and early spring crops. More on this next week.   The Walled Garden  Graham generally spends at least one day each week in the walled garden, normally Friday. This week he took the strimmer. Even though areas of the garden appear to be a building site, other areas are grassed and the strimmer is ideal for these higgledy-piggledy pieces of ground.  Graham also continued to move the compost into the greenhouse beds. Thankfully he did work on the Friday as it would have been cruel (and probably illegal) to have expected him to work in the heat wave during the earlier part of the week.  We have harvested the plums from the Orchard Field at the farm. We will consider harvesting the laden trees in the walled garden this next week. Lots of the plums will be going to the kitchen for chef to preserve. Just like the strawberry jam, it will be a taste of summer during the winter months.  The football season is back, the school summer holidays have only a few weeks left, autumn is around the corner. Time is moving along far too quickly. So, enjoy and make the most of every moment.  Till next week, take care, Ann