Hey Popeye - bring it on

This year we are growing a different Spinach. It is a spinach called Lazio (was it selected by Phil because it sounded like an Itallian football team?) and this is THE ONE! Phil is always very reluctant to grow vegetables that he does not like to eat, even when he knows that other people love them. Last year's spinach, though popular with our customers did not get Phil's seal of approval, who just had one reluctant mouthful. But this years Lazio could have changed all this. Reduced with a small knob of butter and a splash of Shoyu Soy sauce, and he ate the whole serving without flinching. Dear reader. You probably don't realise how significant this is. I have spent fifteen years trying to get Phil to 'eat his greens'...well actually to try and tempt him with the delights that is Spinach and FINALLY he likes it!!

This Lazio is gorgeous. I want to eat this every day now, I cant get enough of it.

Click here for a load of spinach recipies. Though I will be experimenting with Saag Paneer later this week.

More on the Bran Effect

Pam has very kindly provided us with some Bran.... and tells us that it is bran, as in what one gives pet rabbits not bran flakes as we humans might eat for breakfast !! Bran, for slugs, can be bought from a pet shop very cheaply.

Will report back from the Bran trials in due course! Thank you Pam.

Top Tips for Slug Control

Well, I think that Bran flakes are delicious and a great start to the day, but apparently so do slugs. According to one of our Fulking customers putting piles of Branflakes near your crops is a good defence of your lettuces. Slugs will choose to eat the Bran rather than your plants, and you can go round each morning and collect them up as they guzzle on it. I am definitley going to give this a try, especially in our polytunnels where there are relatively few slugs, but those that are in there are monsters.

What you do with the little blighters once you have collected them from their Bran Breakfast is completely up to you...no recommendadtions from us, though if you keep chickens there could be an obvious answer!!

Anyone else got any slug tips?

Five Potato, six potato, seven potato... more

That's alot of potatos. Last year's potatos were a great sucess but digging them up through the concreted earth was really tough so we hope that this year the geotex will mean that the soil stays moister and they will be easier to dig up. It was a great relief when they were planted as they had spent several weeks chitting in trays in our living room.

The wind in the willows

The willow that we planted only three years ago is magnificent and beautiful. However, when it has rained it soaks you as you walk past and it flicks droplets onto you. Not anymore, Jason kindly twisted the worst offenders into a charming arch. I'm going to have a go in some other places too. (Arch modelled by Fin!)

New Salads for a new Year

This is our first year of growing in a polytunnel. Wow, they grew at a rate of knots and we have since learnt that the tropical climate that live in is not suitable for all varieties. But salads are on the menu again and we are waiting for everything else to catch up.

Phil has developed a fantastic irrigation system, using these IBC tanks and gravity. Watering the plants in the polytunnels is literally turning a knob and then coming back fifteen minutes later and turning it back again. It uses a fraction of the water that we have in the past as it drip feeds right next to the plants roots, under geotex.