Croeso to the most recent edition of our Hooma Hu monthly newsletter! We hope we can fill you in
with a little of what’s been happening here in the Hooma Hu field as well as updating you with
upcoming crops, news and events. We hope you enjoy the read!
It’s been a couple of months since the last newsletter and a whirlwind of seed sowing, crop planting
and now weeding here at Hooma Hu. It really has been a very challenging growing year this year, I
have heard some growers say it has been the hardest they have had yet. That’s all been down to the
weather really which rather than change from day to day has seemed to come in chunky blocks this
year. Everything got off to a very slow start with the lengthy cold spells we had back in March and
April and then all of a sudden, boom! The sun came out and stayed out, making germinating seeds in
the field very difficult indeed, our tiny Carrot seeds near the surface of the soil just kept on drying
out. We have little of an outdoor irrigation system here at Hooma Hu mainly just relying on the rain
to water the outdoor crops here, so it was a challenging period for us, however our no dig method
managed to see us through with most of the plants for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that
the layer of compost mulch that we applied to the surface of the beds back in winter acted as a
barrier to water evaporating. If we were to scrape back this compost layer to reveal the soil beneath
we would quite often find it still moist even near the end of the drought. The second reason is that
the soil in a no dig bed has a very good structure to it, all the soil is stuck together in one seamless
mass, rather than all the broken up chunks and pieces you get after rotovation or digging. All these
broken pieces in a traditional digging method gives the soil lots of surface area for the water to
evaporate from, whilst the soil with the better structure retains moisture much better.
July brought the rain and we welcomed it. We finally managed to get our main crop field Carrots to
germinate when the rain started to come in, better late than never. July also saw the end of all the
planting out of new crops and with the fields and tunnels now full of vegetable plants sending their
roots down in to the earth to see what they can find it took the pressure off us a smidge and opened
up a bit of time for us to weed them. And that’s what July mainly is for us, a month of tending to the
plants that we have nurtured over the spring and hoping that they are happy and satisfied with the
soil conditions we have given them. Its amazing how much of a difference weeding a bed of
vegetables can make, I remember when I was working on a vegetable farm down in Somerset only
half the length of a huge bed of Brussel Sprouts managed to get weeded. The difference in crop
growth in the sprouts between the weeded end of the bed and the other weedy end was massive,
I’d say the plants were double the height in the weed free area so it really does make a difference.
It’s a lovely site to see all the beds becoming so full of green leafy vegetable plants as they all grow
up and bulk out. The squash begin to send out quick darting shoots to cover the surface of the soil
and little squashes start appearing behind some of the flowers on them. The Tomatoe plants begin
to become heavy with weight of all the green Tomatoes that have formed on them, not yet turning
red but only weeks away from developing that first bit of colour. The Leeks bulk out on a weekly
basis, Beetroots start to form at the base of the Beetroot plants and the brassicas suddenly jump up gaining a much thicker stem to support them on there journey towards winter. As well as the
traditional crops we also have a couple of experimental crops growing here at Hooma Hu. We have a
small patch of Sweet Potatoe plants growing in the polytunnel. The Sweet Potatoe plant actually
looks somewhat like bindweed, it has runners that shoot out all over the place and it can be trained
up to avoid it interfering with other neighbouring crops. We are also growing a crop called Malabar
Spinach and we are quite excited to see how it turns out. It is also a climbing plant producing
incredible juicy delicious leaves which taste amazing raw. To top it off the plant then produces edible
purple berries which can also be used as a dye. These plants are not normally grown in our climate
so we are unsure of the results we will get but will keep you updated. The Malabar Spinach is looking
good so far, we just hope it can get big enough before the end of the warm season!
As we look ahead to August we actually put our heads together here at Hooma Hu and start to plan
the winter crops. It’s a strange feeling to be thinking ahead to winter at this time of year as it seems
a world away however the first of the winter seeds are due to be sown in the first week of August so
we need to know what we are doing and have a plan. Think winter Salad mixes, winter Spinach and
Chard, over wintering Spring Cabbage and Spring Onions. All these seedlings will need to be started
off early to give them some growing time before the seasons change. In August we also look forward
to harvesting more of the summer crops that we have been tending throughout July; Celery,
Tomatoes, Summer Cabbage, Kohl Rabi, Turnips and Chillie Peppers will all be new on the menu. We
hope you will enjoy the fruits of our harvest too!
Thanks for reading our newsletter, we hope you enjoyed it and found it informative. We are still
running our weekly volunteer days all the way through so if you fancy popping down to us one
Wednesday in July or August to help out then you’re very welcome! Jobs may include pinching out
side shoots on our Tomatoe plants and training them up, Weeding most of the crops, thinning out
Carrots and sampling some of the fresh produce! Also, if its raining, we can take cover and do some
weeding inside our large polytunnel area. We are always happy to teach you a bit about what we do
and we love meeting our customers! Just let us know you are coming beforehand and then pop
along between 11am and 3pm. Food and Drink provided
Cariad Mawr
Rita, Luna and Will
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