February 2026 Newsletter

Shwmae,

we at would like to start with wishing all of you lovely folk a very merry and fulfilling new year! We look forward to delivering our first Hooma Hu newsletter of 2026.

Croeso and Diolch to our new customers, for those not aware the newsletters are written as a monthly update to keep you all in the loop with what’s been going on here at Hooma Hu; keeping you informed in with any upcoming crops, events or changes.

We hope you enjoy reading it!

We have well and truly left December and the last feelings of lingering autumn behind now and we move to a pivitol part of the veg growing year, February! The launch pad for all that is to come. Whilst the autumn crops have pretty much all been used up now we still have quite a bit of leafy veg still going in the fields and the polytunnels. We have some lovely Spring Cabbages whose seeds were sown way back in July now coming to fruition and being harvested, we also have a Cavelo Nero crop in the field that we will pick until around mid

March when it is bound to go skywards to seed. We have Rainbow Chard harvesting in the polytunnels as well as the truly unstoppable Mixed Leaf Salad, they have just seemed to keep producing this year and have been fantastic.

January was a very productive month in the Hooma Hu garden. We have had a great tmosphere on the volunteer Wednesdays (which you are very much invited too) and we have done a lot of good work. All the outdoor veg beds have been covered in a good layer of well rotted manure to feed the soil and therefore the veg in coming season. We have covered over any beds that aren’t being used with a black plastic to keep the weeds down

until spring and any beds that are being used we have made sure to be well on top of the weeding, putting us in a good position for the year ahead. The polytunnels are looking quite

the same with the weeds being kept at bay, we have also made time to mulch the

gooseberries and blackcurrants and set up a beautiful new tool area for our volunteers.

As we roll on into February and the days start to creep longer and longer we turn our

attention to the start of the seed sowing. The planning has all been done now and the seeds are all organised and ready. Suprisingly the some of the first seeds to be sown are the Tomatoe and Pepper seeds. This is because they are best grown in a place with a warmer climate than Wales so we need to give them a bit of a head start with a heated propagation bench in February. They will stay in their little modules until about mid March at which time we will transfer them in to pots (still on a heated table), they will be then planted in to their final growing positions sometime hopefully in late April or early May. As well as these seeds we will also be sowing Celery, Broad Beans, Cabbage, Chard, Beetroot, Leeks and Lettuce in February, getting them off to a nice early start. The seed sowing then ramps up ugain even more in March! As well as seed sowing and keeping on top of the weeds we have a few maintenance jobs to do including cleaning the outside of the polytunnels and setting up a new irrigation system in the polytunnels. We would welcome you to come down and get involved in this years season by attending our Wednesday volunteer sessions. These run from 11am to 3pm every Wednesday and involve doing veg garden based work whilst also learning about veg growing in a no dig system. We will lightly touch on a different topic each week and will provide hot drinks and

biscuits too so come on down and get stuck in! It is a fantastic way to see a no dig veg garden in action all the way through the season and meet new people too. If you would like to come get in touch via the phone number or email address at the bottom of the newsletter and we will go from there.

We would also like to announce some exciting news that we will be having a new vegetable packing shed erected on the Hooma Hu field. This will be for processing and packing all of the vegetables we grow. It will be made from locally milled douglas fir wood and it will be built as part of a womans only carpentry course run by Sara of Coed Talylan. This course will

be running in August of this year and the whole building will be erected over the 5 day course. It should be a great experience as the attendees of the course will be camping in the fields here whilst learning the skills to build a whole packing shed. If this is something you are interested in doing then have a look at Coed Talylan’s website for more information.

Well, we will leave it there for now. Thanks so much for reading our newsletter, we hope you enjoyed it, and we hope you are having a wonderful February as we slowly make our way in to the new year, bring on the new season!

Cariad Mawr

Rita, Will and Luna