News From the Field | Canalside Community Food - Part 6

May 2009

Since last writing, we’ve come through the Winter and are enjoying a truly splendid Spring. It’s been fairly dry but peppered with rain that has kept the ground workable. Right through March and early April the share was simply bulging at the seams with everything out in the fields desperately needing picking before it went to seed. There’s no holding back at this time of year, it’s a real Spring bounty with last years plants lapping up the warm weather and putting on rapid growth. We therefore saw both varieties of Kale in the share regularly during this time accompanied by some impressive shares of Purple Sprouting Broccoli that we were particularly pleased with.

It’s a nervous time for us growers as we try to juggle the harvesting so as to keep a steady flow of veg in the yurt each week. With crops running out one after another we start to keep a keen eye on all those early crops that we’ve mollycoddled in the polytunnels and outside under the fleece. As well as all this, we had the extra task of fencing our third field from the rabbits before being able to plant out the first Spring Cabbages. But we’ve been able to focus our time much more on the job of growing vegetables this Spring compared to last year when we were erecting the last two polytunnels.

With the Hungry Gap upon us, it’s time to look forward to the crops that are coming on; both the Onions and the Potatoes are progressing very well now with the first early spuds just starting to poke their leaves out of the ridges. The Onions were planted on the Spring Equinox by a large group of volunteers before the Mabon social.

Inside the polytunnels it’s all turning around too; the salads and greens are coming out and the summer crops of Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Peppers and Aubergines are rapidly being planted. In between these crops and in every spare space we’re squeezing in quick successions of radish and oriental leaves to keep us going. Excitingly, the new polytunnels erected last Spring have allowed us space to grow some early Mange Tout Peas that are almost ready to start harvesting and some extra early baby bunched Beetroots too. These are the sort of crops that will hopefully see us through the leaner weeks before June leads us towards the real bounty of Summer!

February 2009

Well, with Spring on its way and a bit of time on our hands whilst the fields were covered in snow, we were able to get really stuck into the first full days seed sowing over at Ryton Gardens at the end of February. Danny and I spent a long day in their sowing shed, bench heater angled at our hands, sowing a multitude of seed varieties mainly for early crops to cover the dreaded hungry gap. Amongst these will be Spring Onions, Baby Bunched Beets, Lettuces and Spinach. With some 14,000 seeds sown during the day we certainly left their greenhouse fuller than when we arrived!

It’s certainly approaching that time now when we start to focus on the many tasks of the coming season whilst trying to maintain a steady flow of fresh veg for the share over the leaner months of April/May. Just recently the weather has really warmed up, with several days feeling almost Spring like. This has prompted the drilling of our early Peas and Carrots in the polytunnel.

So what’s to look forward to? Well, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the new season of Purple Sprouting Broccoli for some weeks now and we’ve finally been able to start putting it in the share as of this week. Also we’ve varieties of Cauliflower due to begin cropping any time now too. The Leeks have begun bulking up and should be in the share for most of the Spring having unfortunately been largely absent in the Winter months. Really it’s a matter of waiting for the warm weather to let everything begin growing again.

Happy feasting folk!