Our Big Spring Market Day is on Saturday 14th October from 10.00am until 2.00pm, rain or shine. All the usual plants, produce and preserves will be available as well as hot soup, sausages and delicious baking.

The soil temperature is still a little low for our tomatoes, cucubits and pumpkins so they will stay in the warmth of the glasshouse a while longer. We shall be preparing the ground for these with lots of good rich compost.

Our Lemon Tree has some black mildew on it so it will be sprayed with our wormwood based spray which we make at the gardens. A little bit of baking soda is added and it is very effective. Wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium) is a herb which has long been used for its medicinal properties. Our fruit trees will also get a blast of spray after the fruit has set.

Plenty of rain, good soil temperatures and warmer air temperatures have produced good growth in the crops we already have in the ground and unless we have a late frost or hailstorm (like we had in December last year) everything should be going great guns this month.

Our Carrots will be going when the soil temperature reaches 15 oC (hopefully later this month). Normally these are preceded by a crop of mustard which is usually sufficient to keep away carrot fly when they are on the wing.

Both the glass house and shade house are full of seedlings ready to be pricked out, so that will be ongoing work this month, allowing us to be ready for the usual upswing in demand from the community which occurs in spring.