Tag Archives: veg beds

Making the Most of Awful August

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It seems to us that more and more August is becoming the start of autumn in the UK under climate change. Certainly our green roof seems to think so!

In the last few years, summer heat seems to have started too early in spring, with an awful August (in time for the school holidays!) before the sun often returns again in September before a final slide into full autumn.

Nonetheless, July’s veg patch bounty continued to accelerate in August, aided by our usual school holiday influx of visitors, put to work on the growing harvest.

Here’s a few of our pics from our August at The Secret Acre.

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Bountiful July in the Garden

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After a slow spring start, and flaming June, July saw the traditional arrival of glut on the Secret Acre veg patch.

Here are some picture from July as cabbages, onions, garlic, field beans, sugar snap peas, cauliflower, fennel, courgettes, tomatoes, purple French beans, apples from our very early Beauty of Bath variety, and more, all arrived in a bountiful rush.

Meanwhile, our newly created asparagus bed seems to be settling in, while gliders from the nearby airfield silently ploughed their way through the summer skies over the gardener’s head.

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Our Field Bean Experiment

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Regular readers will know that we over winter our broad beans, onions and garlic on the veg patch. We’ve also had increasing success using green manure field beans over winter too.

One thing we’ve noticed over the hardships of winter, is how the green manure field beans always seem to suffer much less, and recover more quickly, than their broad bean relations.

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Flaming June on the Veg Patch

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Here’s a quick pictorial look at some of the June’s garden action at The Secret Acre.

After a slow start, due to the weird Spring weather, June finally delivered some warm sunshine allowing the garden to burst into life.

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The Parsnip of Promise

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Much excitement on The Secret Acre winter veg patch.

“Look at the size of this parsnip” Emma calls over pointing at the giant disc sitting surrounded by topsoil.

“That would be a great one to dig up for Christmas.”

So we did….. Continue reading →

Leaping into Leaves

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Autumn, according to Winnie the Pooh, is “A time of hot chocolatey mornings, toasty marshmallow evenings, and, best of all, leaping into leaves.”

And who are we to argue with the great Tao of Pooh?

So all three have been enjoyed at The Secret Acre this autumn, while England endured its second Covid lockdown as you can see!

These autumn months always just seem to whiz by in a flash. Continue reading →

Harvest 2020 – Part 4: Squeezing the final Pips

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Last month saw some of our final summer harvest pickings as the decent into autumn gathered pace.

It’s been a long lockdown summer in the garden.

From the early broad beans, onions and garlic, through the traditional gluts, and welcome summer helpers.

Here’s another pictorial roundup of the final action. Continue reading →

Cash Crop?

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Like most smallholders we still work part-time, the holy grail of living off the land proving elusive in the current unsustainable era of cheap industrial food which hides the true costs of production. Continue reading →

Harvest 2020 – Part Two

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Our harvesting continued apace in July and as we headed into August, traditionally the month of gluts on the veg patch.

The start of the school summer holidays also marks the traditional influx of child labour thanks to visiting friends. Continue reading →

A Hiccup and a Harvest

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Back in May I opined about how on top of all things veg we seemed to be this year, warning that it surely couldn’t last.

And that hiccup arrived almost immediately in the form of a prolonged spell of unexpected parental care, now all fine fortunately, but leaving Emma to cope solo on the veg patch.

So the harvest we have enjoyed is all down to her hard work. Here’s a pictorial roundup of some of the action. Continue reading →