Category: Veggie gardens

  • Our Week in Pictures: 1st September 2014

    The start of a new month and we’re wondering how the summer managed to pass so quickly! This week Jeroen has been working on replacing a friend’s roof, and here at the farm we’ve been caught up in a frenzy of harvesting and preserving our bounty. Left to right, top to bottom: 1) Yellow cherry more »

  • Our Week in Pictures: 11th August 2014

  • How to: Make Compost in Just 18 Days

    One of the practical sessions during our Permaculture Design Courses is often the building a hot compost heap. Pretty much any organic materials left in a pile will compost eventually, but by carefully shaping a heap with the optimal mix of ingredients we can ensure that it creates heat, speeding up the composting process and killing weed more »

  • Doing Battle with Broom

    We’ve obviously had weather conditions perfect for broom this Spring, because the hillsides are entirely yellow at the moment. Although beautiful when all in flower, broom is a plant that proving difficult for us to keep under control. I can fully understand why, in some parts of the world, it’s considered an invasive pest. As more »

  • Powerdown Blogging

    Apologies to all, the blog is probably going to take a back seat now for the darker months. We’re really struggling with electricity at the moment, and given the choice of cooking dinner with the light on or updating the blog, I’m afraid dinner will win every time. I’ve been developing a bit of a more »

  • Calendula Hand Scrub

    I liberated a couple of calendula plants from a pile of builder’s rubble in the springtime. I planted them in one of our soft fruit beds, intending to save some seed and plant amongst the veggies to confuse the pests with their bright flowers. They’ve done so well that I’ve got flowers aplenty. The petals make a more »

  • Plum Crazy

    What could be better than a crate full of delicious, fresh fruit? I think the crates of organic fruit currently sat in our training room would be worth a small fortune if you tried to buy them back ‘home’ in a UK Tescos! This particular batch have been processed into plum, strawberry and blackberry jam, more »

  • Brambles

    It’s been awhile since I’ve reported on activities, but we’ve got an enormous amount done over the past weeks. It’s been our busiest time of year in terms of number of volunteers, and we’ve been fortunate to have had an amazing group here, both in terms of their numbers and their energy. Although I’ve been more »

  • Oak Park Hates Veggies

    Good morning folks. It’s a bit cooler today, and we’ve been scrabbling around for warmer clothes and moaning about the weather. We moan when it’s too hot, and we moan when it’s too cold. I thought it was just the British who moan about the weather, but it seems that it’s an international failing 😉 more »

  • Tomatoes, Peppers and Endless Quantities of Manure

    With Spring very much here it’s been time to transplant out the young plants this week.  We’ve got some spectacular tomato supports in place, started a few weeks ago in the rain and finished this week in blazing sunshine 🙂     There are around 180 little tomato plants under there! In front are 200 more »