Christmas 2025 Newsletter

Christmas and New Year 2025

Nadolig llawen a blwyddyn newydd dda!

Hello and welcome to the Christmas and New Year edition of the Hooma Hu newsletter.

First off we

really need to give a big and heartfelt “Diolch yn fawr” to each and every one of you for choosing to

cook and eat the vegetables that we have grown and supplied this Christmas. It is such a great

feeling to know that so many of you will be gathering around with your friends and family and

feasting on some of the veg that we have lovingly grown all year just for this moment. Thank you for

choosing us and thank you for choosing to support local grown veg, it really does make a difference.

It is always exciting getting the Christmas veg in and preparing the boxes for you at this time of year.

The new year is symbolic in veg growing as much as it is in our every day lives. All the way up to and

through December things seem to be winding down in the garden, the remnants of some old crops

still remain in the ground and there is the smallest feeling of autumn still holding on. There is a

pause around this time of year where nothing much grows or changes. Nature creeps down to a

snails pace until it literally stops, freezes, both in movement, mind and in molecule. Until a few days

in to January, pop, the new year cracks open like a split in the side of an egg, or a seed.. and its out

with the old and in with the new, Lettuce seeds, beetroot seeds and, would you believe it, Tomatoes

seeds all start to be sown ready for the new season. January, in the vegetable garden, always feels to

me a bit like a sun rising, the morning has broken, the crack of dawn on a new day with the first tip

of the sun just breaking the horizon. The heat from the rays not yet able to warm us yet or the soil

but the sight of them still bring a strong visual representation and motivation that the journey has

begun. I feel like this sort of resembles our lives a bit too, despite the mad rush of capitalism and

consumerism that surrounds the build up to Christmas, there is also a feeling of a slight mental

pause, a hibernation of the mind and of our goals before we go back in to them in January,

refreshed. I feel this pause has to be embraced and it is as important to us in our year to year lives as

sleep is in our day to day lives. And then in the days just before Christmas we all scurry about the

country, we all know where we need to be, like insects in a hive intuitively assuming their positions

for the grand finale of the year, a cultural performance embedded deep within us. As I write this

everything is picked and ready to be packed in to your vegetable boxes for your Christmas meals, it

is a great feeling and it is amazing for us to think that the veg we lovingly grew throughout the year

of 2025 will be used in so many of your end of year rituals and celebrations, we are happy that the

work we put in through the summer months will result in the makings of an end of year feast for so

many.

There are not too many crops left in the outdoor plots here, we still have Leeks, Sprouts and Kale

standing in the field. We also have the Salad Leaf Bags that you will be enjoying growing in our

polytunnel as well as lots of other greens set to be harvested in spring time. The field veg has really

been through the year with us if you think about it, sown back in spring time and spending this one rotation of the earth in our field, soaking up the sunshine, the rain and the nutrients to make the

unique forms that you will find in your boxes today.

On the run up to Christmas and throughout the grey days of this December we have spent the last

few weeks of the year going back and forth with many wheel barrows of very well rotted manure

here (with a helping hand from some amazing volunteers), dumping it off on to the surface of our

empty veg beds and raking it nice and smooth so it totally covers the soil underneath. This year we

have really given back to the soil, this manure is super rich in nutrients and a great big heap has been

applied to our small plot, all by hand and wheel barrow! I like to see this as putting the veg beds “to

bed” for the winter as well, once a crop has finished and come out of the ground the compost goes

on, not only to add nutrients that will eventually be taken underground and mixed by the

earthworms but also to act as a mulch to block weeds, also still, to protect the soil underneath from

the harsh rains of winter that could erode it away. This is part of the classic “no dig” method, a way

of growing we utilise both in the tunnels and the fields here.

It has been quite a journey through the year, as I’m sure it probably has been for you. The 2025

vegetable growing season was fantastic and we grew some great veg. We couldn’t really have asked

for a better year weather wise. A super early and hot spring got everything going very early on, we

remember having to bump our sowing plan forwards a bit, things we had planned to sow in April

could all be sown in March and so on. After this amazing spring we had just the right amount of rain

and just the right amount of sun to bring everything on very well and we ended up with some

fantastic results. Over a thousand Cucumbers, Tomatoes plants so full with Tomatoes that we were

struggling to find time to pick them all, gigantic Lettuces, Rainbow Chard that grew ridiculously fast

and masses amounts of Runner Beans. It really was a bumper year and we hope that you

appreciated the results in your boxes!

Looking forwards to 2026 there is a whole new host of fresh ideas and murmurations of what’s to

come in the garden here. One thing we would really like to boost is bringing people on to the land

here at Hooma Hu to not only see how the veg is grown but also to help and learn about how to

grow it. We will be launching our volunteer Wednesdays which will be starting on the 7th January

and will run from 11am to 3pm on most Wednesdays throughout 2026. If you are interested then

please get in touch. We would love to create a buzzing atmosphere here where we can work, chat

and learn from each other and it will be nice to bring people on to the land and show them what we

do.

We hope you enjoy your Christmas veg box and that it can help create a special meal for your self

and who ever you share it with this year. We hope you have a great Christmas time too! Here is too

a relaxing Christmas and to an exciting and productive 2026, all the best to you all and see you in the

new year!

Cariad Mawr

Rita, Luna and Will