Pumpkin John

We already miss John so much and have leant so much from his calm and kind ways. We thank him for all the opportunities he has given us and hope that we can honour his legacy. Our thoughts go out to his family. It's still hard to believe that he isnt there anymore, spreading manure, sharing a joke, watering the pumpkins, snipping the hedge. We really miss him and send him our deepest love.

Greek Goddess or Football refugee?

Here is Anna Marie separating Garlic ready for the boys to plant. In the background Phil is talking John through the crop plan for next year.

What a lovely sunny November day - You can see our willow windbreaks sneaking into the picture on the right. We are tightening up the fences to keep the nibbling deer out for good, as they have had a good munch over the past few months!

Why is Anna Marie working on her own?...Well the boys are listening to the football on radio five live and not being much fun, so she has stropped off for some peace and quiet!

Teaching a dog new tricks

I'm not talking about Paddy, who is planting Garlic with Phil in this picture. But about Finn, who has learnt not to walk on the beds in the field. Rather than getting from A to B in a straight line she has to zig zag accross the field following the path system and not running over Phil's finely tilled beds. All is well and good until someone turns up to visit and she gets excited and forgets herself and charges across the field to see them! Hmmm

This picture shows the third day of garlic planting. Within just a couple of weeks they had set good roots and we now have little green tips showing! We have planted about four times more than we did this year as it has been such a successful crop for us and it keeps well and sells well.

Bhaji's into eternity

Well, we won't be running out of onions for a while! We have four crates worth in our office at the moment, which should see us through to the next harvest! For curry-heads like us a bottomless supply of onions (and garlic) is fantastic. I suspect we will sell some soon as I think we actually have more than we need.

Carrot success for Sunflower Veg

These carrots had humble beginnings...As I discovered this Summer, planting carrots is actually really fiddley. The seeds are tiny and a wind-up to separate and plant. Just when I was nearly finished Paddy and Mousey turned up and before long Mousey and I had thrown/pushed each other into the freshly planted beds (I don't think Phil saw thankfully!). When the seedlings came up they were very patchy (due to me not paying enough attention when I was planting I think) and we were considering whether to replant completely. But they they turned into the most fantastic crop. We have had Carrots with every meal since August, and later this week they are all coming up and going into Tea-chests full of compost so that they will last through to the Spring.

BTW take a closer look at the dog in the top picture. I think she looks extremely suspicious!

I'm not slagging off supermarkets...but

Blueme Dave took this size comparison picture of our garlic compared to a supermarket garlic. I know size isn't everything...but when it means you can get away with chopping one clove rather than five...then size counts for alot. What's the secret to the supersize garlic? Phil the master-gardener seems to think that it is to do with the seaweed that we put down and the early planting.

Anyway the cycle is complete as our house is full of garlic ready to go in this year....we are just waiting for a break in the rain.

Sunflower Vegetables

It is almost a year since the first fork went in! We are dining on extremely tastey carots and onions and garlic and spuds and they took next to no effort to grow! The main effort has all been in preparing the field with compost, seaweed, lime and after the green manures have done their magic...Rock dust! Phil and I have spiralled through euphoria, stress, comedy and sweat. Phil should take alot of credit for everything that he has achieved in the past year. He has really stuck too it in the icey cold and the burning sun. John's support has been amazing. He has cleared a staggering amount of his collection of plumming and building equipment and general tat to clear space for Phil. He has also built Phil an office and a tool shed! And Shelia has been really supportive, sharing her space with the newcomers!

We have been blessed with many helpers and supporters and Mousey and Paddy are definitely our key helpers, with help from Paul, Leah, Bridget, Gordon, Peter, Giles and more!

Finally we have found a name for our business that we both feel good about!

SUNFLOWER VEGETABLES

Lovingly grown, chemical free vegetables for local delivery
3 Acres, Woodmancote, Near Henfield, West Sussex BN5 7ST 07913562036

The domain name is a fiver for two years so that makes it a goer!!

Hedgie's Hampers

How cool is this!! This was a hamper for Jane as promised...a little bit of everything! In the same week we made our first vegetable sales both wholesale and retail!! We are still struggling with a name for our business. Meredith came up with some good ones but we seem stuck with one of the original ideas..which unsurprisingly pivots on the word 'Hedge'...

Hedge Vegetables
Vej from the Hej
Hedgies Veggies

You get the general feel of it!?

Really Phil needs to make the final decision but all comments very much welcomed!! The right name is out there!

How many Vegetable Patches have their own Theme Tune?

Yesterday we got a DVD in the post. It has to be seen to be believed! Here is a link www.irrational-arts.co.uk/Farmer.htm . Please download it and take a look at how clever our Jane is. It is a film showing a particularly idealised version of life on the veggie patch (just under three mins). I love it! The music is by the infamous Melanie..a crocheted poncho type from the sixties...can you tell? I've been humming it all morning and I think it has to be our theme tune now! I expect Phil would ideally have wanted a theme tune that was a bit more funky with a techno groove etc...but the theme tune came and found us rather than the other way around!!
A hamper of brocolli, cauliflower, potatoes, garlic, onions and salad will find its way to Jane I think!

Kung foo cauliflower wazza wazza

How can a whole month disappear? June has been a hot dry month that has, for me, swept by. I have been fired several times by Phil for being a slacker and not doing my jobs preperly down a the field...But if I hadnt being doing my jobs properly how come our Cauliflowers are so Goddamn perfect???

I hate to be smug but they are show stopping, prize winning dreamy clouds of white yumminess! We celebrated the first one with a kung foo cauliflower wazza wazza shared with our top farm workers, Mousey and Paddy. The recipie is as follows:

1. Chop the cauliflower into floretts and add to pan of hot oil. Stir until the Cauliflower is browned. You know when it is done as it smells lovely and has brown spots. Remove from pan with slotted spoon.
2. In a coffe grinder grind a teaspoon of corriander seeds. Half a tsp of cumin seeds, half a tsp of fenugreek seeds, 2 dried red chillis and three cloves.
3. Add 3 chopped cloves of garlic and an inch of chopped ginger and a drizzle of water. Blend into a paste. Add more water if needed...but not too much
4. Add 3tbs of oil to the pan and reheat. When the oil is hot add half a tsp of black mustard seeds. When they have popped and released a nutty aroma (should take a few seconds if teh oil is hot enough) add one medium onion finely chopped.
5. Cook on medium heat stirring frequently until the onions start to brown slightly. Add the spice paste mixture and stir regularly for about 5 mins. If you are not using a non-stick pan and it starts to stick, add a drizzle of water and stir vigorously.
6. Add the browned cauliflower and salt to taste and half a teaspoon of tumeric.
7. Put a lid on the pan and simmer ona low heat for 5 to 10 mins
8. Add a quantity of peas/beans and simmer until cauliflower is tender but still firm. Add quarter of a tsp of garam masalla, a squeeze of lemon and stir. taste and add more salt if necessary.
9. Garnish with chopped corriander and serve with rice or chapatis or pita etc etc..

The smell of wild freesias

The smell of wild freesias is the smell of a bottle of bubble bath that I won in a raffle a few months ago. You could tell that the bottle had been at the back of someone's cupboard for several decades before someone dug it out as a prize for the 'Chailey Common Society' January meeting this year.

We have been saving our water at home and putting it into Jerry-cans and taking it down to the field to water the salads and seeds.....mmmm. It smells remarkably strongly of wild freesias...not altogether unpleasant!

Phil (Constable in training to the Organic-Police) has made me promise to use more natural products in the bathroom if we are going to be using the bath water on the field and admitedly the bottle of bright-purple-goo is a long way from a real wild freesia!

Wide-angled view

This makes the site seem much smaller than it sometimes feels! Finn is hunting snakes to the left and Phil and I are posing in the middle of the field...posing...more likely we were bickering about whether I was being concientious enough about how liberally I was spreading lime!! The willows are much bigger than when this piccie was taken three weeks ago.

Three silver linings to one cloud

Thank God, finally it has rained! It has howled and poured. This has meant three really good things. Firstly there is obviously the water issue. Most of the rain we get round here is somewhat cosmetic. It is light and most of it evapourates before it has the chance to soak in. But not this week! The water table will be slightly replenished now and the ponds are all full....every little helps!

Secondly it means that Phil gets a bit of time off shovelling. I'm all for having a boyfriend with big muscles...but not one who is so tired he cant even communicate in anything more than grunts at the end of the day!! The rain has given his weary body a well earned rest.

And thirdly it all very conveniently co-incides with Chrissy Cool visiting so we could spend some good quality time with her and not force her to sit and watch us shovelling and tractoring all weekend!! There is plenty of time for that next time she visits!!

The willows have grown six inches in about three days and the howling winds reassured us that planting the winbreaks was the right thing to do!!

Snake Finder General

Here is Finn, who helps out Phil every day. She has been given the title 'Snake-Finder-General' after her lassie-esque finding of a melanistic adder last week. I think you have to agree that she is a particularly long-tongued waggin' happy dog. She is in charge of all rabbit chasing, wagging and bouncing that takes place on the patch!

Thirty Tons of Compost

Phil is now looking like Popeye...with over developed forearm muscles!! We had 30 tones of compost delivered last week and we are in the process of spreading it on the field (the 'L shaped' section in the aerial shot below). I say 'we' in the loosest sense as by the time Sunday came I had been banned from all hard labour on account of being physically incapable of holding a shovell any longer.

Well, the delectable cocktail of compost, lime and seaweed has been spread on a small section of the field now, and rotovated in. It is really satisfying to see the finished product of all this work. Now it will have green manures sown on it, ready for a lovely rich and healthy soil waiting for next growing season. It would have been great to have veggies in it this year, but simply not practical or realistic!

As I write Phil is shovelling...as he will be for some time to come!! I will try and get some pictures up of it all.

Here is a picture of our garlic by the very talented Jane. Go see all her pictures here .

As seen from a cloud

I have some aerial pictures of the site that I thought it would be intersting to post up. These were taken in 1999, but give you a bit of an idea of the size of the site.

The big upside down L shape is now being turned into beds with Willow Hedges dividing it into two sections and sheltering the veggies from the wind (which can really howl through at times).

Jane took some lovely pictures of the willows yesterday so I will pop them up soon.

Next installment

We will start off with a beautiful pumpkin picture by Jane taken last October. It shows the field before it was ploughed, so it seems like a long time ago now!

These are Queensland Blue Pumpkins. If you have never tried one then get on with it! They are the tastiest of all pumpkins (I think!!)

See the grapes hanging down artily in the top right corner...you can always trust Jane to enhance her compositions with a bit of Panache!!

In the beginning

Last year I went to see my friend John to ask him if he would talk to Phil about being a smallholder and what it entailed. When Phil and I returned in late July, John told Phil that he could use his site to work as he no longer wanted to do so...not enough time, not enough energy or enthusiasm! We couldn't believe it. We felt we were being given a really amazing opportunity and after relatively little discussion decided that we would take John up on his offer.

The site consisted of an L shaped uncultivated field with a neighbours horses grazing on it and what is known as the 'pumpkin patch', where John had been growing each and every pumpkin known to man for over 15 years. There is also a 105 meter Greenhouse, built by John out of recycled materials. Half of which is given over to tables and half of which has beds. There are a couple of massive vines in the greenhouse, both red and white grapes that give the greenhouse an air of extreme bacchan oppoulence in the summer months as they produce literally several hundered kilos of grapes!

In early September Phil was able to start getting the site ready. I will do the best I can to document this process. We have very few pictures of these early months, but I will do the best I can so people can see what we are up to.

Our aim is to grow lots of vegetables organically in an ecologically balanced system. Ultimatley we would like this to become a small but profitable business. We knew right from the start that this would be a pretty exciting journey, full of twists and turns and highs and lows and it certainly has been. Phil's joy at the first comfrey leaves that appeared and the fun that we have had planting garlic can be easily offsett against the physical agony of planting over a thousand willow trees!

I will 'dig' out some pictures and continue the story .........