Things always quieten down for me towards the end of August. My customers have gardens bursting with produce ready to be harvested and any empty spaces have been filled with veg that will over winter such as leeks, brassicas and parsnips. After all produce has been harvested I recommend sowing green manures which will cover the soil and add nutrients come the spring. This quieter time comes as a relief after the busy spring and summer months and I take the opportunity to have some time off and sometimes go away. This year I went to Cornwall and then to the other end of Britain and the Isle of Colonsay. In Cornwall I visited The Eden Project and below is a photo of their colour coordinated veg garden which sits right along side their bakery/cafe:
I stayed with friends on the Isle of Colonsay and they proudly showed me their veg garden. It’s astonishing that their veg has grown so well – in the photo below you can see that the Atlantic sea is about two hundred metres away with no wind break between. The wind is their biggest difficulty with veg growing but the judicious use of glass bottles (plenty of large whiskey bottles collected from the island’s bar) to make raised beds with a protective edge around them and plastic bottles used as cloches means that the soil warms up well in the sunshine and young plants are protected from the wind as they start growing. Fertilizer is collected in the form of sheep droppings from surrounding fields and barrowing loads of seaweed from the beach edge.
Back in Norfolk I’ve been making raised beds, putting up a large polytunnel, and doing winter pruning on fruit trees along with giving my customer’s gardens a good clear up so that I’m all ready to start again in just a few weeks time with seed sowing. I’ll be making my seed orders to Tamar Organics, The Real Seed Catalogue, the Organic Gardening Catalogue, and Suffolk Herbs soon – if there are any organic veg, herb or fruit plants that you would particularly like to see on the market stall please let me know and I’ll do my best to source them.
I like to buy unusual things from your stall – things I wouldn’t grow myself – but things that will still grow quite well outside in an average Norfolk plot of land. I can buy Mr Fothergills’ seeds from Morrisons, but that doesn’t interest me – when you offered the ‘sprouts for christmas’ or the ’10 leeks for a pounds’ – that was interesting. My sprouts for christmas are flagging, but I think I planted them too near a hedge – the leeks are still to fatten up, so reckon I’m producing baby leeks for christmas lunch, in a cheese sauce. Regardless – they were exciting, different and cheap. That’s what I want.
Hi Mandy
Thanks for your comments.
It’s interesting that you say that. I often get asked for ‘Gardeners Delight’ tomatoes at Farmers’ Markets but so far I’ve resisted selling seedlings that you can easily find elsewhere. I aim to encourage people to try plants that are new to them or unusual. I think we need to keep heirloom and local varieties going in the name of biodiversity.
Sprouts can be temperamental – I’ve yet to grow any good ones in my garden at home, although plants from the same batch of seedlings have done well in some customer’s gardens this year.
Bryan