March 2013

Goodness,I thought we had disappeared! I couldn’t seem to get back to our blog for months and so I had abandoned it.The last post I did was November and things have changed – sadly not the weather,which is still a bit grim.

As to the changes,I do my last stall next wednesday at Ludlow Market.The business has taken us in a new direction i.e. the stalls are quiet but the shops are selling out of our stuff and we’re struggling to supply the restaurants with all that they need.So we have invested in more polytunnels and equipment to save ourselves some precious time.I will no longer be standing at the stall waiting for the next customer but will be up on the land picking and delivering straight away.It means that I am also around to help with the mammouth task of seed-sowing, pricking out and transplanting. I will miss the sociability of Ludlow market and the other stalls but I certainly will not miss the bone-numbing cold day in and day out.

We have had some lovely new labels printed for our salad packs and we look very professional now! What we’re struggling with at the moment is the “best before” date as we have never yet known the leaves to deteriorate.

We are really pleased with the way things are going,all now hinges on the weather! We had such high hopes of all that we planted last year,now we are more circumspect.

I’m aware that this is a really short post,must try harder next time!

November 2012

We are really noticing a great lack of abundance in our crops! We reckon about 40% of what we planted came up this year – so disappointing after all that work.I know we’re not alone but it’s having so little to sell that is having serious  consequences.We have created a demand for our produce but are now struggling to satisfy it.With this in  mind we have put in a planning application for 2 more polytunnels.We can’t seem to grow enough salad to keep everyone happy so we really need to expand this area.Talking of which,we entered our salad into The Flavours of Herefordshire Food Awards back in July and have just learned that we have been shortlisted.They make us wait till January before they tell us their decision;prolong the agony…….

Again talking of salad – which I do an awful lot these days – Deborah at “Broad Bean” has written a lovely poem about it,entitled “Cropping Winter Salad,Deerfold” Now how often does that happen!

Kale is proving very popular with the shops,restaurants and on the stall.We are growing more varieties this year but they,too,are small and slow.I am selling a lot of delicious sprout-tops and purple sprouting leaves which taste just as nice as the actual sprouting bit and seeem to get left out. The sprouts are coming along nicely but I’m trying to save them till December as I don’t think we’ll have as many as last year.Parsnips and carrots – the very few that have survived,after two sowings – are pencil sized and our swede have yet to be found.

The Green Cafe in Ludlow (whom we supply) have recently got into The Good Food Guide and the Sunday Times list of best 100 places to eat.Congratulations to them and we hope our input has something,however small,to do with the result.

No news of anything replacing “A Cook’s Kitchen” at Dunkertons.We miss them as a customer and also a place to eat.

And finally back to salad;this year we are trying out some winter-hardy leaves which seem to be doing okay.Rich has just sealed up all the gaps in one of the polytunnels and the difference in temperature is amazing.

September/October

Blimey,this year is running away! So what has been happening here at Lane Cottage? Well,I have cut three more pitches – Clun,Bucknell and Kingsland – to give me more time to concentrate on shops and restaurants.We have found that most of our business is coming from these areas,with the exception of Aymestrey and Brampton Bryan which continue to be very popular. At Kingsland we are now supplying Joanna Bruce in her shop and tearoom.At Aymestrey we are also supplying The Riverside Inn which is really nice as it is our “Local” and was also where Richard asked me to marry him all those years ago! We have just begun to supply The Mortimer Stores which is but a stone’s throw from Lane Cottage and The Broad Bean wholefood shop in Ludlow.At Broad Bean they are keen to offer a veggie-box scheme supplied by us so posters have gone up in the shop this very day,we’ll see what happens.

Ludlow Market is slow and steady.It’s not ideal to start up a business in the thick of a recession but we hope that if we can keep our heads above water things will look rosier in the future when everyone has a bit more cash in their wallets.When we first started we had hoped that people would come to the stall in their village but the supermarkets are a much bigger competitor than we had realised,even when you’re supplying a better quality item often at a better price.We can’t keep on fighting it so we are turning to restaurants where real taste and quality are appreciated – obviously you are going to have to pay a lot more for it but so be it.Specialist and artisan shops also seem to fit our product and to be honest I would much rather pick and drop off an order than stand for hours in the freezing cold waiting for a couple of customers.Having said that I have really enjoyed getting to know so many of the stall customers but it has to be viable and we have a mortgage and three children to pay for and that doesn’t come cheap.So it’s all change,or quite a lot of change for Lane Cottage Produce and already it’s starting to pay off.

We also have a new van which is a huge improvement on the last one – I no longer have to lean forward when I’m going up a hill!

On the growing front everything is so much smaller than last years – our chard and Cavolo Nero that were a foot tall last year are a mere five inches this year.The beans have been virtually non-existent and so on and so on but we do have wonderful cabbages and Kale and beetroot and onions and hopefully more to come.Still no fruit,so I am buying in apples and pears at a terrible price-it hurts!

One last thing…after months of speculation and peaople telling us all sorts of different things we have spoken to Trading Standards and unless we are registered with an Organic body we cannot use the word in any way,shape or form.We can grow,as we do,on uncontaminated ground using only organic fertlizers and pesticides but we must call ourselves something other than Organic.This gave us endless headaches about how best to phrase what we do succinctly in a way that was instantly recognisable to all.And so we have settled on the words “traditionally-grown” which is,of course how Grandad used to do it all those years ago before they started mucking around with our food.

August 2012

If anyone is out there and interested we are supposed to be on the telly on wednesday 5th September on ITV at 4pm “Tasty Travels with Linda Bellingham” There is,of course,a chance that we may not be on. After many calls to my much more technologically-minded nephew I have begun to undertand that i-player thing so we should be able to watch it at the end of the day.

Now to speak of the weather.On the whole I think there was some imptovement,we had some hot sunny days and some very wet ones.However,nothing has grown as well as it did last year.The beans have started to make an appearance but are hardly abundant.Chard which this time last year was  a good 18 inches long is a mere six inches now.We harvested all the onions which seem to be doing okay,drying out in the barn. Cucumbers and tomatoes are doing well in the glasshouse but the fruit has been a disaster.The strawberry plants put on so much growth but bore very little fruit,we have no currants of any colour,about 5 raspberries and worst of all there is not a single apple nor plum in the orchard.Bought-in apples simply cannot compare to those straight from the tree and last year we had so many.

It looks like we are now going to get a run of good weather – a bit late in the day but every little helps (who said that?) So the plastic is on the second polytunnel.Rich was up early on sunday morning to do the job when a slight breeze blew the huge sheet of plastic off and the boys and I received a frantic call to get up and help him before the whole thing blew away.It’s another great big space to grow our salad leaves – we’re sowing more winter-hardy leaves now like Mizuna,Mibuna,texel greens and winter purslane,a new experiment for us.We will also try some courgette and beans in there and anything else that could do with an extra bit of heat.Talking of heat,the late sowings and re-sowings of crops that Rich did he covered with great sheets of plastic and it is amazing how warm it is if you slip your hand underneath.

The amount of slugs around is just incredible and nothing Organic seems to have much effect so my every spare moment is spent picking them off and slicing them in two with a sharp knife.Someone did question whether this was organic but I don’t think I’m breaking any rules,plus it’s very satisfying.

And the really good news is that it is the end of Flea Beetle season! We never really managed to get on top of it this year and it made little doilies out of so many of our salad leaves.This made it so difficult to harvest and it was taking me a whole day to pick 2 kilos of salad.Yesterday I had the job done in a couple of hours,so halleluia I say!

July 2012

Well,what a season! Rich was at the end of his tether by the end of June and I kept saying it was bound to get better but as we hit mid-July even I started to have my doubts.I joined him as we morosely inspected our patch each day,shaking our heads sadly and not even bothering to try and cheer eachother up.

Where were all those lovely little budding green things that we had planted in our beautifully rotavated new beds? They had all been slugged before they’d had chance to put their toes down.Oh the slugs! It was actually very comforting to be out around the villages and to hear all the other gardeners tales.No one had seen so many slugs before,the conditions were perfect for them,it wasn’t only us who were suffering.In fact I heard on the news that The Wildlife Trust were very concerned because things were not thriving and reproducing all apart from…you guessed it …slugs,snails,brambles and nettles,all things we have way too much of at Lane Cottage.Indeed many,many other people from a whole range of different professions were suffering as a result of the weather.It was only the mechanic at our local garage who was doing nicely as a result of all the flooding.

So the chefs were rubbing their hands together and talking excitedly of just-picked broad beans,runner beans ,courgettes and I had to keep telling them not this week,I’m afraid.As things got more and more desperate – where have the carrots gone? – we decided we’d just have to re-sow and hope to either have a later crop,i.e. spring onions in the autumn or that things would catch up.Then Monty Don said that this was the best plan so we’ve gone ahead.

And now,at last,the sun is shining and what a difference it makes.Those plants that survived are really waking up and I was able to sell our first courgettes today.So high hopes for all the other things and let’s hope the sun doesn’t fade too fast.

We were at the 5th Mortimer Food Fair this month,at Brampton Bryan.Again to speak about the weather it was mostly kind but the huge downpour the night before meant much flooding and closed roads so not everyone was able to make it.We were interviewed by Linda Bellingham (oxo lady) and filmed for her series “Tasty Travels with Linda Bellingham” to be shown on ITV in September.It was rather daunting with all those men and their cameras and microphones but Linda was really lovely and we had quite a laugh.But what a job,really,having to keep going over the same old thing and film it from this angle and that angle etc,when you see it on t.v. it’s seemless but it must have taken a good 30 minutes to film what will probably amount to 30 seconds of screen time.Blink and you’ll miss us and I probably will!

Still waiting for the topsoil for the second polytunnel then we can skin it and fill it.This season it really brings it home to you about the benefits of growing under plastic.There’s no getting away from it that it’s not pretty but when it’s your livelihood you get to understand.We could easily fill another tunnel with salad,just can’t seem to keep up.I love salad and always have but these days I’m dreaming it,eating,sleeping it….If I’m not out selling it you know I’l be picking it!

June 2012

So,did anyone get any Asparagus this year? I had two whole spears,absaloutely delicious but what a terrible season! Our own asparagus is growing but,frustratingly,we’re not allowed to touch it the first year.We’ll get a small crop to pick next year but things won’t really start to move until 2014.I said you had to be patient to be a gardener,didn’t I?

It really has been a poor growing season all round,so far.We managed to get hold of some organic new potatoes from Cornwall one week,none the next and this week we have some from Pembrokeshire but,apparently it’s so wet over there they can’t get onto the fields to lift them.To be honest I was pretty much ignorant of all this when I shopped at the Supermarket – they will get their stuff from anywhere and who really stops to think whether their carrots have come from Britain,Europe or father afield? I know that some of us do and it is a growing band.

All of this means that the annual”Hungry Gap” is much loger this year and I long to have something new to pick and sell.Things in the polytunnel are growing reasonably well but this year we have a real problem with Flea Beetle or “Hopping Hell in a Shell Beetle” as someone called it.Treating this organically means using several methods including Garlic Spray,Nematodes,clearing out the polytunnel and starting again etc,etc.It’s very disheartening to see all those lovely little leaves peppered with holes.Last year we ate rthe holey stuff ourselves and sold the good bits,this year it is so much worse so I have started selling the holey stuff (and explaining why it is so holey) and fortunately,noone seems to mind.But the battle goes on as the restaurants want as perfect as we can get them leaves.

We finally admitted defeat and moved the pigs out of the polytunnel field to pastures new.They just weren’t up to the job of clearing an acre in a few months – that was me being optimistic,stupid? So a man and a tractor came and turned the rest of that field into a glorious bed ready for planting,in about a day! We reckon we can fit in several thousand rows of vegetables.It is a daunting sight but also a good one as I feel we really have enough space now to grow enough for our market.

Talking of markets I did my second stint at Ludlow Market.I’m there every wednesday and I’ve had lots of encouraging comments so I hope this will be a grower.I cut three of the quietest villages – Wigmore,Lingen and Leinthall Earls – to give me enough time to do Ludlow Market.It is a shame that people don’t use what is on their doorstep – I know there are issues with work,times etc – but I can see why village shops struggle.It seems that the huge majority still are wedded to their supermarkets even when the produce is tasteless,expensive and foreign.There you are,I’m off again!Time to get back into the van and sell.

 

May 2012

With such cold,wet weather everything is about three weeks behind.Our salads were romping away in March and slowed right down throughout the last few weeks.Asparagus will have a short growing season this year and the price will reflect that.We have finally managed to get hold of some – people have been asking for weeks.Our own Asparagus is planted in its own special bed but won’t be ready to harvest for a couple of years,sadly.

The first red strawberry has been seen in the polytunnel so we might be on course for strawberries in June,it depends if this bit of sunshine continues.All the fruit is coming to life on our new trees and bushes but not sure how much fruit we’ll get this year.You do need a lot of patience to be a gardener!

Our land and garden is awash with wild garlic which is proving popular on the stall and in the restaurants.I have also been trying out all sorts of other,apparently edible,hedgerow plants but haven’t found a tasty one yet.It is always nice to add some wild things to our salad packs and I came across some books in Waterstones at the weekend that suggested “jack by the hedge”,dandelion leaves and numerous other things that I forget now but they were all as bitter as hell!

There is another enormous pile of muck to barrow into the new polytunnel – oh for a bit of mechanisation,I guess it might come one day.But the difference in taste by just using organic matter is incredible.We recently bribed our children with a trip to Pizza Hut and this weekend came the fateful day when we had to fulfill that promise.I was not looking forward to it at all but brightened a bit when I saw a handome looking Bruschetta topped with a mass of rocket and cherry tomatoes – not so bad after all,I thought.I couldn’t understand why it was totally tasteless,I really could have been eating cardboard.Our tomatoes are sweet and lovely our rocket is strong and peppery,how do they do it? I asked Rich.It will have been grown in a totally sterile environment and fed with artificial chemical vile liquid stuff,that’s how they do it.I just think it’s so awful that so many people have become used to this bland-tasting food that isn’t even doing you much good.Interestingly the menu kept going on about getting your five-a-day and eating up your salad which,again,was slop covered in slime.Oh dear I’m beginning to sound like A.A.Gill!