Bags in the Brecon Beacons

Hello

After my mail of gloom and doom last week things have definitely improved and most of my plants have decided to live after all! The courgettes and runner beans have perked up, and we will soon be able to offer sugar snap peas, the broad beans are covered in flowers, and lettuces, salads and herbs are all looking good.

The flea beetle are still partying on the brassicas, so we have had to cover all the new stuff we have planted in horticultural fleece, held down by a wide variety of plastic carrier bags filled with soil - so at the moment our field looks like a shrine to supermarket shopping! We've started to update the blog on the website more frequently, check it out for our own version of installation art - Bags in the Brecon Beacons - and also to see what I get up to after dark!

We are also pleased to say that, along with Castle Street Restaurant and Bridge Cafe who we supply, one of our loyal and longstanding customers has nominated us for UKTV Food 'Local Hero 2007' - you can have a look at uktvfood.co.uk (thanks, Adrienne).

This week, as changes to our normal list we have available; lettuce, salad bags, basil, coriander, parsley and spring onions (all either mine or Alan's) plus welsh broad beans at 2.25 per kg; new pembroke pots (absolutely delicious) at 1.80 per kg and mini cucs from wales at 75p each. I also have a limited amount of my own strawberries (they are limited because we can't stop eating them - sorry, there has to be some perks to this job) at 1.70 for 250g. The greens are limited this week to pointy green cabbages, or red or white cabbages, and we also have necterines (Spain) at 2.50 for half a kilo.

Hope this makes you feel peckish!

Best wishes
Theresa

Hello,

Just to let you know that the salad will be ours and Penpont again this week, with lettuces coming from Alan. We can also supply some coriander and basil this week.

We have had an interesting couple of weeks on the farm - slugs, weeds and flea beetles have caused huge consternation on the field - every brassica crop that goes in now has to be covered by horticultural fleece to stop the flea beetles attacking them - this of course provides a perfect habitat for slugs! We can regularly be seen in our field diving on cabbage plants with yellow sticky insect papers to get flea beetles to jump and stick, and prowling the field at night with head torches on, armed with scissors (aka 'weapons of mass destruction)!

But we will not be defeated - in a moment of inspiration Vicky bought me some ducklings for my birthday, who have been duly names Peking, Ho-sin, Pancake and Sweet 'n' Sour - collectively they are the SAS (Slug Assassination Squad) and soon they will out in the field, clearing areas of slugs before we plant there. Hopefully they will be joined by more ducks, and some chickens in due course - extra benefits will be their weeding skills, fertiliser and eggs for the boxes.

We have also been invaded by a particularly rampant weed known as Corn spurrey (also known as begger-weed, pickpurse and - wait for it - farmer's ruin!). It has invaded the carrots, beetroot, chard and spinach, and we are going to have to clear the whole area and re-sow - fortunately it is still quite early in the season and we should have time. We are also sowing these crops down at Alan's - and starting a lot of stuff off in trays to make sure we do get a crop this year!

Hoping your gardens are looking better than mine at the moment!

best wishes
Theresa