5th June: More planting this week. Leeks, celeriac, brussels sprouts, French beans and lettuce and of course getting ready for our open day on Sunday.
12th June: We had a lovely day for Open Farm Sunday on 7th June. With 300 people booking a place it was our biggest event yet. We saw old friends and many new faces and with plenty of activities from our friends it was well worth all the effort it took to organise. Thank you so much to everybody who helped out. We’re already looking forward to next year!
19th June: This week we are weeding onions, courgettes, cucumbers and peppers and steerage hoeing squash, sweetcorn, courgettes, beans and leeks. We’re also sowing kale, January king cabbage and lettuce, tying up aubergines and planting lettuce and French and runner beans. It’s a busy week.
26th June: Keeping going in the heatwave but it definitely slows us down a bit! Obviously watering a lot but the rain from the previous week has helped and plants are resilient when they have got their roots down. We’re planting sweetcorn, red cabbage, parsley and lettuce this week, hoeing squash, sweetcorn, beans, carrots and parsnips and sowing fennel and purple sprouting broccoli.
30th June: Glad of some slightly cooler weather this week. Crops are growing well. Tomatoes are starting to ripen and there should be lots of cucumbers and courgettes in the next couple of weeks. French beans are on their way soon. This week we are weeding parsnips and carrots and planting autumn cauliflowers, savoy cabbage, swede and lettuce.
1st May : This week we are planting tomatoes in the polytunnels. We’re growing some cherry tomatoes this year, which we haven’t done for a while because as lovely as they are, they take a long time to pick. Anyway, we’re giving them a second chance, choosing larger fruited varieties will de-leaf the plants to make harvesting easier. Hopefully we won’t regret the decision. We’re also sowing squash, sweetcorn, lettuce and French beans and planting lettuce and broccoli in the field and cucumbers and courgettes in the polytunnels.
4th May : This week we are planting peppers in the polytunnels. They are not our most reliable crop, but we keep trying as I know people love them. I’ve read that the key is keeping them consistently warm. This year we’ve kept one of our propagation tunnels as a ‘hot’ tunnel. Partly because it has heated benches but mostly by keeping the doors closed for longer. The plants look great, but the downside is that the warm moist environment has favoured aphids. Normally I would leave this to nature but as the natural predators haven’t got going yet I have used a horticulture soap solution to deal with the pests. To be sure I’ve got them all I have dipped the whole plant in a bucket of the stuff. From now on we will leave it to the natural predators which I know will come. We are doing a whole tunnel of peppers this year. Bell peppers, pointed peppers and also trying a few varieties from Real Seeds. We’ll keep the tunnels closed at night to start with to give them a good start.
12th May : I’ve had a big delivery of irrigation equipment this week. Every year I buy a bit more and this year we should have enough sprinklers to have them permanently on the plot where they are needed rather than moving them around all the time. We have no rain to speak of for a couple of months so there is a lot of watering to do to keep the crops growing! We are also watering our seed bed for carrots, beetroot and parsnips to bring on the weeds, so we can mow them back and make a ‘stale seedbed’ to drill the seeds into. The potatoes are now up and so also in need of a drink – it’s important to keep up with the water to make sure nothing gets too dry.
19th May : We’re now in our hungry gap where veg from the winter stores is running low and the next wave of fresh veg is slow to come on. There will be plenty of veg but smaller portions and lighter shares for a while. This week we are watering potatoes, planting aubergine, basil, lettuce and French beans and sowing more French beans for later in the season. We have our marquee up now and we’re looking forward to our summer events, including more forest school with Green Leaf Forest School and Roots Nature Play, summer cooking workshops for kids and teens with La Bonte Catering and forest school for adults with Full Cup Fire Circle. Details of these TBC but all with be contributing to our Open Day on 7th June if you’d like a taster.
26th May : Taking advantage of the hot weather we are planting heat loving crops: courgettes, sweetcorn, squash, French beans and some outdoor tomatoes. We are irrigating like mad and watching it evaporate within hours but the plants are happy with the warm days and long hours of sunlight and growth is rapid now!
3rd April : We had a productive first week of April. Potatoes planted, polytunnels planted and two thirds of the onions planted thanks to our volunteers. We’ll plant the remaining onions and some leftover potatoes that I couldn’t fit in the main plot. We’re also finishing the doors and vents on the new polytunnel and maybe potting on tomatoes if we have time.
7th April : Tomatoes, peppers and aubergines have been potted on and are growing really nicely. Cucumbers and courgettes have germinated. We are planting our early brassicas in the field as well as fennel, lettuce, spinach and chard. We’re also making plans for our open day on 7th June with the help of our new ‘Friends of Bennison Farm’ group. We’re planning to make this a fun packed day for members and non members alike. More details to follow
14th April : This week we are spreading manure for brussels sprouts, squash, courgettes, sweetcorn, celeriac and runner beans. We’re hoeing spring crops in the polytunnels clearing out spinach ready to drill more carrots. We’re watering the onions which are coming up nicely. We’re also watering carrot and parsnips beds to bring on the weeds and then hoe them off to create a ‘stale seedbed’.
24th April : Lots of hoeing and weeding this week. We’re steerage hoeing then pulling couch grass out of the onions while the soil is nice and loose having been hoed. Wheel hoeing in the tunnels and ridging potatoes. We’re also sowing courgettes and pattypan squash, drilling carrots and clearing out spinach and chard plants ready to plant tomatoes next week. The plants in the propagation tunnel are looking great and we’ll be planting cucumbers, courgettes, peppers and aubergines over the next few weeks.
28th April : This week we are planting tomatoes in the polytunnels. We’re growing some cherry tomatoes this year, which we haven’t done for a while because as lovely as they are, they take a long time to pick. Anyway we’re giving them a second chance, choosing larger fruited varieties which we will deleaf as they grow to make harvesting easier. We’re also sowing squash, sweetcorn, lettuce and French beans and planting lettuce and broccoli in the field and cucumbers and courgettes in the polytunnels.
Seeds have started to arrive and the propagation tunnel has been cleared ready for the first trays. We’ll sow our first seeds next week – lettuce, pakchoi, cabbage, fennel and spinach to be planted in the polytunnels in March. The volunteers have done a great job weeding the polytunnels and they are looking really tidy.
We had the annual Organic inspection from the Soil Association on Monday and have passed! Good to get that out of the way at the beginning of the season.
This weeks veg share (pictured above) had everything you could want for hearty winter soups, Sunday Roasts or a green salad with grated carrot and sprout. Delicious!
I love this time of year when we transition from one growing season to the next. The slate is being wiped clean and we’re starting all over again.
Throughout the year I find myself listing all the things we’ll do differently next season and now is the time we can put those thoughts into action. There is of course no one right way of doing things. What works one year may fail the next. The weather is the biggest uncertainty, and whilst nature is our friend, it also presents a great many ever-changing challenges in terms of pest and diseases. There is always something that wants to feast on our lovely veg!
Each year we begin again, learning from our mistakes. We’re forever tweaking our crop rotations and planting schedules, trying to optimise the system and get the most out of the land. We can get two or three crops from some beds if we plan carefully.
There’s also a balance to be achieved when it comes to planting times. Plant too early and you have too much ready at the same time but plant too late and you can miss the boat entirely. We’ve been a bit late on sowing some of our root crop over the past couple of years, caused by our effort to create a less weedy seed bed to sow them into. This is risky as there is less time for crops to mature and little time to re-sow if something goes wrong. We’re going to try and bring sowing forward a bit this year to reduce the risk.
Pest and disease issues can also be mitigated with timing and rotation. We try to harvest turnips before the cabbage root fly take hold and try to avoid growing too much broccoli in the cabbage white caterpillar season.
This year we’ve changed our crop rotation to give more space between crops susceptible to violet root rot which has caused problems in our celeriac recently. We’re also going to be growing French marigolds in between our Brussels sprouts to try and deter the white fly which always seem to be a problem.
Each season there will be fine tuning and new ideas. It’s like a big puzzle with multiple solutions. It’s what keeps the whole thing interesting and whilst I know deep down that it’s unlikely to happen, I still can’t help striving for the perfect season, where we get it all right and everything goes our way!
The weather was fine for the 2021 Potato Harvest at Bennison Farm. Lots of members came along to help bring in the potatoes and see the tractor in action! Many hands made light of the work, and we were able to harvest most of one of the plots of potatoes. Thank you to all our members who made it and volunteered on the day. We really appreciate all your hard work.
Michelle and Sienna working on their muscles at the potato harvest!
We have several varieties that are now in the stores, with red and white potatoes offering a mix of cooking and taste possibilities. We have Alouette, Twinner, Heidi, Sarpo Axona and Vitabella potatoes to share with you.
Check out our recipe section on our website for ideas of dishes to enjoy with all your Bennison Farm veg.
Before we know it next years harvest will roll around and we hope to see lots of you there!
The timing couldn’t have been better for installing our new borehole last May. Soon after the installation it stopped raining for the whole summer and it wasn’t until the middle of October that we had a half decent amount of rain. Of course we’re used to dry summers in this part of the country but this summer was exceptional. Goodness knows how big out water bill would have been without the borehole.
The borehole is essentially a narrow well – a six inch diameter perforated pipe sunk into the ground with a pump in the bottom. Ours is 7m deep and sits in the sand and gravel which holds the ground water. We weren’t sure if there would be enough water to see us through the drought but we were pleasantly surprised that even after a dry winter and summer the borehole was still flowing.
In spite of a free and plentiful water supply it was still a real struggle to keep on top of the irrigation, and not all crops got enough water to achieve their full potential. Inevitably we prioritised some crops and unfortunately dropped the ball on others. Our main crop beetroot was pretty patchy which might have been partly due to inadequate moisture during germination. Brussels sprouts missed out on irrigation and so never quite reached their full size and yields were also low for some of our potato varieties.
On other crops pests got out of hand, perhaps favoured by the warm conditions or due to a lack of natural predators which may have suffered in the drought. Swede were completely decimated by flea beetle who love the hot and dry weather and some of the broccoli and cabbages took a big hit from aphid. Normally these are controlled by the larvae of parasitic wasps but as the adults feed on pollen and nectar I wonder whether the drought could have had an impact on their food source and ultimately their numbers.
On the whole though we faired pretty well. Heat loving crops such as squash, tomatoes and aubergine we’re exceptional. Aubergines were staple in the veg bags for most of July and August, tomatoes were beautiful and in abundance and squash were large and plentiful giving us a bumper harvest for Autumn and early Winter. We’ve also had plenty of carrot, leeks, parsnips, celeriac, Savoy cabbage, and winter greens to see us through the colder months. Other veg that worked well have been a selection of lovely herbs, greens and salads in the polytunnel. So we’ll eat well this winter. As always you win some and you loose some but we plant enough of a variety of crops to make sure that even if some don’t do as well as others there is still plenty for the veg shares.
Now our thoughts are turning to the next season. We are putting up a new polytunnel for propagating our seedings. Until now we’ve had to buy in any plants which require additional heat to get started. Now we have electricity on site we’ll be able to build a heated propagation bench to give our seedlings a head start. This will be particularly useful for our first early plants which we’ll be sowing in January and February and also for the heat loving crops such as tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, cucumber, courgettes and French beans. We’ve also being working on next years cropping plan and tweaking our crop rotations to maximise productivity and keep the veg shares as varied as possible through out the year. It’s now time to order seeds and then it won’t be long before we start sowing again and so the never ending cycle continues!
We’re very please to have had a borehole installed at the farm. A borehole is basically a narrow well that pumps water out of the ground for irrigating our crops.
Until now we’ve relied on mains water which costs a lot when watering on our scale, especially as we’re in the driest part of the country.
We were confident that the contractors would find water as the farm sits on sand and gravel on top of London clay which provides good conditions for a shallow borehole. They drilled 7 meters down to the London clay and lined the hole with a permeable pipe which allows the water to flow in as we pump it out.
We couldn’t be sure of what the supply would be like until the pump was installed but we were not disappointed. We have a consistent supply of 45 litres per minute. That’s 2.7 cubic metres per hour which is plenty for our needs.
We can now water twice as much as before which is helped by installing a wider pipe across the farm to insure that we don’t loose pressure along the way. Best of all the water is free! (once we have paid our loan off!)
This year we’re celebrating our 10th Anniversary. It been quite a journey to get here, with plenty of sweat and a few tears along the way!
We arrived at Bennison Farm in February 2012 with no money but some experience and fortunately plenty of local support for the venture. We borrowed a small amount from family and were very fortunate to be given an old tractor from a farm where I used to work. We scraped through our first year with poor soil giving mixed results. Our fantastically committed members supported us through a lean Winter but as we invested in the soil and our yields grew, so did our membership.
In August we will have been packing veg bags for 10 years! We’re very proud to have provided veg shares to our members every week since we started and apart from the first winter all produce has been grown on the farm. We’re also delighted to have a few members who have been with us for the whole time through thick and thin!
Community Supported Agriculture really works for us. The support and help of our members has been critical to getting the scheme off the ground and keeping it running and our thanks go out to our Steering Group for playing a key role this. It makes a real difference having a steady and predictable outlet for our produce. When times are good we share the bounty and when times are hard it’s a comfort knowing that we have committed members who will stay the course. A great many thanks to the members, staff, volunteers and family who have supported us over the years. We couldn’t have done this without you!
On the Saturday July 30th Bennison Farm’s 10th Birthday Party so do come and join us from 3pm for fun, food and live music whilst we step back from our work and celebrate 10 year of providing fresh, local Organic veg!
Winter can be a challenging time when it comes to supplying seasonal veg in the UK. Our short growing season means that once you get to the autumn there is no chance to plant again if things go wrong.
We plant a wide range of crops so that we have things to fall back on if something doesn’t do as well as expected. If everything went well we’d probably have surplus but in general it all balances out. This Winter went pretty smoothly all things considered. Although not everything was perfect, there was little anxiety about filling the veg bags each week. As always we’re glad of the polytunnels in the colder months and we’ve had some fantastic salads and leafy greens since the turn of the year.
In March things get going and crops come out of dormancy and start to grow again. We have an abundance of spinach and chard in the polytunnels and some nice spring greens. In the field the leeks are doing us proud and we’re eagerly awaiting spring cauliflower and purple sprouting broccoli. This mixed with the last of the winter roots and onions will see us through to May when it gets a little trickier.
May is our ‘hungry gap’ when the last season’s produce is finished but much of the new season’s crops aren’t ready. There is only so long you can keep stored crops at ambient temperatures before they go soft or start to grow. In the field crops will ‘bolt’ – putting up their flowering stems ready to make seed. Of course we do our best to ameliorate this situation, very much helped by the use of polytunnels and fleece covers in the field to give the plants their own more favourable micro climate. Inevitably veg share’s become much lighter and leafier at this time – leaves being the first thing to grow before roots, shoots and fruits develop. It’s another challenging point in the calendar. but we make it through each year, if by the skin of our teeth and biting our nails! Somehow it always just about works out.
Our minds are very much on some exciting new developments that are happening this year. We’re awaiting the installation of a borehole which will give us our own free supply of water. We currently get our water from the mains but this can be pricey especially in a dry summer. The borehole should easily pay for itself in a few years. In order to run the borehole pump we needed power and so we’ve taken the plunge and invested in a mains power connection. This has the added benefit of supplying our new lorry container packing shed with power and lights taking us into the 20th century at last! It will be great to be able to run power tools without firing a generator, and having a kettle and radio in the packing shed won’t go amiss. We also have plans to erect a new polytunnel complete with heated benches for propagating seedlings in the early season and maybe even an automatic watering system.
Everything is on hold at the moment as UK power networks have been repairing storm damage and so unable to connect our power, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed things will start moving again soon. In the meantime we are gearing up for the new growing season. Our newly adopted no dig system in our polytunnels is working well, with the soil being thickly mulched with a layer of compost, meaning the weed seeds are buried in the soil so there is much less weeding to do. There are also great benefits to the soil fauna and micro-organisms, being left to work their magic, recycling nutrients and making them available to the crops.
We’ve planted spinach, lettuce, Pak choi, fennel and mizuna in the polytunnels and sown carrots and peas. In the field we’re nearly ready to plant out the eagerly awaited delivery of our onion sets which will be the first thing to go in the ground. We’re glad of some dry weather which has allowed us to get the soil ready to plant on time. We’ll also be glad of some rain once we’ve planted!
