This is love….

Our love of the land isn’t just in how we respect it, care for it and nurture the things we grow here, but it’s also expressed in our complete admiration for nature – perhaps this gorgeous tomato demonstrates it best.

What an abundant, awe-inspiring and rewarding season this is.  While we’re harvesting current crops, including mange tout, the last broad beans, salads (including beautiful edible flowers) and some delicate and really delicious spinach, we’re also preparing for later ones – planting fruit bushes, sowing kohl rabi, swede, turnips and beetroot.

Equally important are the things we do at soil level – digging new beds so we can rotate areas for planting, re-housing caterpillars by hand (they are carefully carried into surrounding hedgerows, although we’re sure they have some sort of ‘crop compass’ and find their way back again) so they continue to thrive, without eating all the crops.  Then there’s weeding by hand, lightly raking the soil, labelling beds and planting areas, plus making the most of collected rainwater (thank goodness/nature/the earth for recent rainfall), for  the crops….   In the next few deliveries, look out for courgettes, cucumber, tomatoes and chillis.  The tomatoes are sweet and bursting with flavour, so full of love (see above!).

Finally, we’ve been keeping track of all the wildlife here.  In one morning, we noticed the carrion crow, common buzzard, common chaffinch, common chiffchaff,  common redstart, dunnock, eurasian blackbird, eurasian jackdaw, eurasian magpie, eurasian wren, european goldfinch, goldcrest, great tit, kestrel, red kite , rook , wood pigeon. 

Isn’t that awesome?  We’d love to hear from you with your wildlife sightings.  Keep in touch and please feel free to come and visit us any Tuesday, between 10am-12.00 at Beeches Lane, Sheepscombe, Stroud, Glos. GL6 7QZ.  What3Words: Tolerable.Thunder.Scrambles