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We’ve decided build a forest garden area between our house and the open field. Putting in the rainwater reservoirs f involved removing a row of Apple Trees. So the plan is to replace these and try and build a stacked tract of ground that has fruit trees embedded in fruit bushes with a ground cover of comfrey, sweet potatoes, legumes and some leaf vegetables. [...] Part of the trick with growing things commercially is that you always need to have something to sell. So for us we expect to have a good crop of peppers and aubergines and squash over the next couple of months with about half a dozen beds of sweet potatoes coming through. However our main focus is on providing a succession of chard and spinach that will take us through to Christmas. [...] 
In some ways these reservoirs are just like big garden ponds. We’ll be stocking them with Rudd shortly after a bit more fiddling with the overflows And just like garden ponds, one of the things that needs management is removing excess nutrients from the water to prevent algae developing. We’ve already had a couple of minor blooms. Mainly because we had more topsoil in the bottom of the reservoir than subsoil. Hornwort Fundamentally you need to have plants or other organisms that compete with the algae for the nitrates. For emergency reduction we use a product called blue [...] So here’s a selection of 5 vegetables you might have a crack at. Perpetual Spinach, radish, rocket, mixed salad and the carrots. Plants are very susceptible to daylength rather than temperature but we have about 8 weeks before they slow to a crawl. Under protected cropping they really only stop between mid december and when the light turns in mid february but still – if you’re feeling bold this selection should give you the best shot. [...] 
Things to grow at this time of year One of the advantages of having some protection – either as a polytunnel or glasshouses is that you can grab a late season crop of short growing season crops. At this time of year you can get away with quick growing crops like little gem lettuce, pak choi, radishes and spinach. You could also get good results with a cut and come again salad mix. Here are a few Spinach plants we prepared earlier. You need to be quick because we’ll soon run out of Daylight but there’s just under 60 days usable daylight left until next year. So get sowing!. The other thing you should be thinking about is propagating cuttings from plants over the winter. We’ll do a bit more on that soon. [...] Now that we’ve completed the reservoir, the next mountain for the family business to climb is the RHS Hampton Court flower show. My darling daughter who has taken on the role of Marketing Director for the company as a whole has decided that we should go and play with the big kids so here we are about to embark on a 7 day show. It’s a long time since I’ve done one of those but fortunately I don’t have to run this one – just go there and man the stand. Today is a day off for me – the [...] 
Needless to say having been as dry as a bone up to the time of the launch on 3rd June it then proceeded to rain quite satisfactorily. Too satisfactorily some might say with the result that I spent a fair amount of time the week before last bobbing about on a windsurfer sawing strategic bits off the outlet pipes. I don’t look my best in neoprene. [...] 
One approach is to take a leaf out of the Permaculture book and go into the 3rd dimension. Grow the plants up the garden fence or even up rolls of vertical netting – which is actually what we do here at the glasshouses. [...] 
We’ve found by experiment that a really suitable variety for us is Maskotka which is a sprawly bush variety which produces cherry tomatoes of a good flavour. Most important for us is that it’s pretty early and means that we can snatch a crop before the blight kicks in. [...] 
Norman Baker MP opening the reservoir Well the promised launch of the reservoir went off – quite successfully really despite the lack of rain. It’s been taunting us for weeks – the clouds roll in, they land on Lewes, on Haywards Heath, on Uckfield and Tonbridge wells – but not on us. However we had fixed upon 3rd June for the Launch date. The met office average rainfall promised us 1000 cu m from 150 mm of rain in March April and May so we thought we would be safe enough with a full reservoir. But in the event [...] |
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