Arcadia Organics

18 August 2008

Red cabbages, Savoys, Calabrese and early winter Cauliflowers.	Our late leeks, and carrots, most of which we've covered to keep away the carrot fly.	Leeks in the foreground, and the lighter leaved onions in the background.
It's starting to feel like a re-run of last year, although thankfully a lot of crops have got established before the miserable weather has set in. Most of the brassicas don't mind the wet too much, but due to low light levels they'll be smaller than we'd like by the time we harvest them, and the same is true with the leeks. The carrots and parsnips are growing very well, they're not in a field prone to flooding and so should last well in the ground through the winter, and the spring planted onions are nearing maturity, hopefully they'll put on a final spurt of growth over the next fortnight before the tops start to die back. We're starting to see our first peppers and aubergines from the tunnels, and the second planting of cucumbers is just starting to produce, we're growing Akito this year which is more spiney than Passandra, but should grow a bit bigger, and taste just as good. The tomatoes are ripening very well after a slow start - our first crop last year was June 18, this year it wasn't until the end of July, but with any luck they'll continue well into the autumn. We've still got about 12 trays of various Kales and winter Cauliflower to get planted, as well as quite a lot of lettuce, so we're really hoping for a dry week so we can get the tractor out on the land, as well as having a bit of dry weather to get started harvesting the potatoes so they can go into store dry.

Red Baron, keeps well throughout the winter.	Sturon, a standard strong flavoured storing onion.	Long Red Florence, a sweeter salad variety.

Sweetcorn, with a windswept sunflower in the foreground.	Brussels Sprouts, growing far better than last years waterlogged crop.	Late winter Cauliflowers closest, followed by January King Cabbages, Kales, Purple Sprouting, and the Brussels Sprouts.

Red Russian Kale, my favourite flavour kale, but not as productive as some of the hardier varieties.	Our second planting of cucumbers is doing well, making up for the first crop's failure.	Yet more climbing french beans, we've removed the first crop to prepare the tunnel for planting and this tunnel is hopefully going to be producing in a fortnight.

An attempt to get a coloured pepper earlier in the year - this variety should ripen to a shiney purple.	Chillis, we've grown four varieties, with a range of heat and flavour, my favourite being Pizza, medium strength but very tasty.	Our first small crop of apples this year, these are Discovery a very early variety and we have another six to come.

We've stripped off a lot of the leaves from the tomatoes, the damp weather has caused a lot of mould to form on them.	Leaving tomatoes on the plant to ripen naturally results in a far better flavour.	A few of the melon plants in the glasshouse have started to form fruit.