Kitchen Garden Forum

Some of you may know that hat my partner is a full time grower, and produces a weekly ('pragmatic'!) veg box for between 55 and 60 households, and supplies a greengrocer and restaurant. I am her part time helper!

Currently we are regularly picking:

Salads: Mizuna, Pak Choi, Rocket, Red Mustard and Lettuce. Claytonia will be ready in January.

Mostly tunnel grown, but some outside under numerouse cosytex covered cloches (2m wide x 15m long)

Carrots - maincrops and 'late earlies'

parsnip - sown in May

celeriac - bought-in blocks planted April

beetroot - some the size of a skittles ball after the summer rain - still not woody!

leeks

cabbage savoy, and jan king

Cauliflowers just finished till the spring ones

purple sprouting - Rudolph has been erratically producing since October

parsley - flat leaved

Squashes - stored - mostly Harlequin and Butternut

probably others

Mole[/b]

Hi Mole,
I must congratulate your partner. That seems to be a very comprehensive list and your partner must work very hard to provide such an amount albeit she has you as a willing (?) help in you.
Could you say the variety of Late Early Carrot that she has sown and when they were sown. I used to sow Early Nantes 2 at the end of August and have them for Christmas and also Autumn King 2 just a little earlier and have fresh Carrots most of the winter. Now I only have me mainly to feed I sow the same but at normal times and store them. Not quite as good but more than passable.
JB.

Have you got that wonderful red Devonshire soil that I often see when visiting the county?

That's a great list and shows what you can do when you put your mind to it. For people with the space, tunnels really help to extend the growing & producing season.


Colin

Hi JB

Having just helped pick for our stall at the Village Christmas Fayre this afternoon, I must add the following:


Jerusalem artichoke - Fuseau
Kale 4 types

The last of the Pink fir apples

JB

carrots are Amsterdam forcing - sown in late august

Colin We are on reddish sandy loam - not the deep devon red though

gotta go to the fair

Dear Mole, very impressive indeed.
I hope all your customers appreciate the tremendous amount of hard work that you both must put in.

Hope everything went well at the Christmas Village Fayre.

Out of interest how much ground do you do all this on mole, and can you make a decent living on it?

Compo

Hi

Thanks OH - I think that most of the customers realise what it's all about - some of them volunteer regularly in exchange for veg.
It is a lot of work for Ruth. There is lots of weekend work for us both if we can face it/fit it in with other things.

The Village Fayre was half as busy as last year for some reason - it was only 2 hours, and we took £40! 2 hours to pick and fettle/pack beforehand, then the growing of it all.... It was a sociable time though and money was raised for the playgroup.

Compo

We have about 1.5 acres under cultivation including a 100' by 20' tunnel at one site and a 60' by 16' at another

This winter I have fewer parsnips in the ground and hardly any carrots. But my celeriac has done well in the raised bed I've got them in, although I feel I might have got bigger roots if I had not put them so close together - I thought that was what raised beds were all about. I had them about a foot apart, staggered. I've also got some American Land Cress, Jerusalem Artichokes and leeks.

Tomorrow I am going to take a break from exam marking and get out onto my semi-frozen patch and dig most of the stuff up, because we are going to visit our "Outlaws" on Boxing Day and I'll dump a fair amount of this produce on them. My daughter and son-out-law will also be eager recipients. I've still got J. Artichokes frozen from last year, so i hope they take planty of that.

Happy Xmas

mike