this week's veg boxes

This Friday's not-for-profit plastic-free veg boxes will contain (harvest permitting) a selection from the following:-
Charlotte salad potatoes, onions, tomatoes, salad leaves, kale, rainbow chard, summer cabbage, courgettes, beetroot, and basil.
Small boxes £6, standard boxes £10, delivery to your door £1 or £1.50, half dozen eggs £1.60, milk in glass bottles £2, and a range of artisan breads starting at £1.60.
vegbox.bcf@bcents.org.uk

Onions drying in the polytunnel ready for this week's boxes.

More flowers!

Greater bird's foot trefoil alongside mint in the market garden.

Ragwort in the pollinator garden.

Knapweed in the pollinator garden.

Bergamot in the pollinator garden.

Scarlet pimpernel in the market garden.

Teasels.

St. John's wort in the pollinator garden.

Adrien

One of our best ever volunteers, Adrien from France, left this morning after almost nine months with us, and is already sadly missed - we hope to see him again before too long!

Building a new wooden body for an old wheelbarrow to give it a second life.

Planting runner beans.

Planting onion sets.

Planting pak choi.

Planting broad beans.

Replacing a chicken shed floor.

Helping to revamp the packing shed.

One of five gates that Adrien built for us around the farm.

Picking winter salad.

Coppicing willow.

Recent WWOOF volunteers

Over the past few weeks we have had plenty of volunteers through the WWOOF scheme, and here are a few that we would like to thank:-

Alois serving in the farm shop.

Aurelie and Eloise stocking the farm shop.

Chloe, back right, sharing lunch in the farmyard on a picking and packing Thursday.

Aurelie returning from the chickens with a barrow of eggs.

Elise weeding Fench beans in a polytunnel.

Roberto, on the left, helping Lizzie to plant basil in the Mothership.

Lea trimming elephant garlic.

And also Hugo and Lisa, of whom I failed to get photos....

Some more flowers

Chicory flowering in a polytunnel (there's also some in the chicken field).

Great mullein near the bee hives.

Hedge bindweed.

One of our new planters in the farmyard, mostly purple viper's bugloss.

Selfheal in the chicken field.

Guided walks around our wildflower hay meadows as part of National Meadows Day on Saturday 13th July.

Lea, Tanguy, and Emmanuel again

Lea, from Germany, Tanguy, from France, and Emmanuel on her second visit, also from France, left the farm recently to move on to their next WWOOF hosts, so we'd like to thank them for their hard work and good humour during their time with us, and wish them well in their forward travels.

Tanguy and Emmanuel harvesting overwintering onions (this sheltered bed has since been worked and planted with next years' crop of purple sprouting broccoli).

Recent planting

July is always a race to get the final plantings and sowings of field crops into the ground. Here's what we've managed to date:-

Four varieties of kale seedlings ready for planting.

The market garden prepared ready for planting and sowing.

Lines of leeks transplanted from the polytunnels (with kale, carrots and beetroot beneath the meash on the left).

Lea and Adrien planting pumpkins, with courgettes planted in June in the windbreak behind.

Adrien and Lea planting the final line of French beans in a polytunnel.

harvesting overwintering onions

This winter has seen our biggest ever harvest of overwintering onions, all "radar" variety. We picked them at the end of last week and they are now stacked in wooden crates drying in one of our polytunnels, and are of good size. We've now found a way of growing them that works well for us - from sets planted at 20cm apart, through a mulch of greenwaste compost inside a windbreak, and kept well weeded over winter.

Zara, Elena and Sophie

Zara from London, Elena from Germany/Russia, and Sophie from France, have all come to the ends of their stays with us and moved on in the past couple of days, so as always we'd like to thank them for their time and hard work, and wish them well in the future.

Zara on the left, helping to harvest overwintering onions on Friday.

Giuseppe and Anna

Giuseppe from Italy and Anna from Germany both came to the ends of their stays with us recently, so we'd like to thank them for their help and all-round loveliness and wish them the very best as they head on to new experiences.

Anna and Giuseppe harvesting broad beans in a gale.