Tomato varieties 2016

Our usual mix of the tried and tested, and a few experiments....

Gardener's delight - tasty small red cherry

Golden queen - large yellow tomato

Berner rose - pale rose-coloured beefsteak

Chocolate cherry - tasty dark brown cherry tomato

Costoluto di Fiorentina - Italian cooker, ridged and squat

Jen's tangerin - big orange tomato

Orange banana - like a plum tomato but orange

Quadro - big red cooker

Ruby - big red beefsteak

Stupice - early red tomato

Sungold - exceptionally tasty early orange cherry

Tigerella - striped red and gold/green

Yellow submarine - pear-shaped yellow cherry

One day's pick of tomatoes ready for sale

The unripe tops of some of the varieties shown above are due to (would you believe it?) excess sunshine and heat in our polytunnels, which blocks the production of the ripening pigment. The tomatoes can still be eaten, but have a slightly unripe shoulder area. This seems to affect red tomatoes more than other colours, and in particular the Stupice.

Veg boxes 5th August

Small (£6) veg box - Maris Peer new potatoes, tomato selection, mixed salad leaves, green curly kale, fresh basil, and mixed beetroot (both red and golden).

The standard (£10) veg box also contained a cucumber, extra potatoes, rhubarb, and rainbow chard (but no basil).

Pierre

Pierre, from France, volunteered as a wwoofer on the farm for three and a half weeks, and left on Friday to head back home. We'd like to thank Pierre for his contribution to the farm during his stay, and we wish him well for the future.

Pierre picking cucumbers in one of our polytunnels.

Wildlife pond workshop

On Saturday 30th July we created a wildlife and bee-dipping pond in our Bee Education Area, as part of the Grow Wild project in association with Kew Gardens. The workshop was led by Ian Willsdon, one of our volunteer board members, and attended by several local people, as well as Richard from Kew Gardens.

Measuring out and digging the pond.

Working alongside our awesome bee mural.

Enjoying a communal lunch in the farmyard.

The pond nearing completion.

We also created a mini cottage-garden adjacent to the pond, and continued with some groundworks of the bee project area. Many thanks to Ian for leading this workshop, to Jill for providing lunch, and to Teesh, Sonia, Karl, Penny, Pierre, Kate, Arron, Julia and Jake for attending.

Planting more brassicas

Tuesday 26th July was our latest "planting Tuesday", when we dedicate the whole day to getting crops into the ground. This time it was our latest batch of brassicas, and we planted all the purple sprouting broccoli, white sprouting broccoli, black Tuscan kale, and red Russian kale to see us through the winter.

Many thanks to Ben, Franziska, Jackie and Hannah for their day of measuring, hoeing, mulching and
planting.

Tomorrow will be our next "planting Tuesday" to get the next batch of brassicas in - but looking at the weather forecast we may be weeding the polytunnels instead, and sowing trays of plants indoors...

Romain, Hannah and Jackie

It's always sad when we have a good team of wwoofers volunteering on the farm, who get along and work well together, and get lots of things done in the house and out in the fields, but then several of them come to the end of their stay and move on at the same time. This has just happened to us, with Romain leaving on Friday after 5 weeks, Jackie on Saturday after 4 weeks, and Hannah on Sunday after 2 weeks, all of whom take our thanks and best wishes with them.

Romain, Hannah and Jackie in the farmhouse kitchen.

There are still two wwoofers on the farm, Franziska and Pierre, with more arriving this week, so a new team will emerge to see us through August.

Veg boxes July 29th

On Friday July 29th our veg boxes contained the following (all grown on the community farm):-
 
Small £6 box - Maris Peer new potatoes, fresh garden peas OR rainbow chard, a cucumber, a pointed (sweetheart) cabbage, mixed tomatoes, and mixed salad leaves.

Standard £10 box - Maris Peer new potatoes, broad beans, fresh basil, two peppers, a cucumber, rainbow chard, a pointed cabbage, mixed tomatoes, and mixed salad leaves.