Kirsty and I were very fortunate to have a welcome break in mid July and had a two week ‘staycation’ , on our return to the garden, everything had flourished in the capable hands of our enthusiastic volunteers directed by Ali the volunteer coordinator.
The harvesting of the produce was about to ramp up with lots of veg being available but first we had to prepare for opening the Garden under the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the 27th July. This has involved lots of communication between all involved in the project to enable the garden to be as safe as possible with all the usual protocols put in place.
In terms of the gardening activities, apart from the continuing harvesting, the main work involved weeding and tending the growing crops and monitoring for pests and diseases, also clearing the harvested beds and sowing further catch crops and green manure.
Of course there was a fair amount of problems for me to highlight for our upcoming pest control workshop on that subject! You can watch a video of it here.
Perhaps the worst to flag up, by way of an apology for anyone who encountered dodgy veg, was the presence of cabbage root fly larvae riddling the interiors of otherwise very healthy looking baby turnips. This was completely new to me and it just goes to show that you’re never done learning when it comes to hands-on gardening!
Another example of this was the presence of Keel Slugs inside lovely looking tatties, the only clue to their presence were tiny holes in the tubers.
A strict quality control measure is now in place to screen for affected tatties so please don’t be put off and apologies again if you encountered this unwelcome extra protein!
Plans are in place to take forward other development projects for the coming months, more details of these in next month’s update.
The team have been busy devising how we can safely make sure that people can still get lovely (inspected) veg.
