Cogges Farm is opening Saturday 31 March: that’s tomorrow! The attractions available include the working farm site, a petting area, the manor house and a beautiful newly refurbished coffee shop. And most importantly, this season they’ve got animals! Here’s some footage of the rabbits and piglets:
… but there are also sheep, pygmy goats, chickens, ducks and guinea pigs.
Meeting of local environmental groups at the Cogges Farm Museum Cafe to discuss food projects. This Thursday, 20th Oct, 7:30pm.
(Apologies for the late notice)
a
Here’s the first version of my Brassica Cage. It’s based on Brenda’s description from March’s Edible Gardens meeting – a frame of tennis balls from the pound shop and bamboo canes.
I didn’t go for the scaffold netting on ebay that Andy recommended in the end. It’s a lot cheaper but I wanted a width quite a bit greater than 2m to match the 4ft canes. So instead I splashed out on a roll of 3.6m Enviromesh which is just about ideal.
I’m looking forward to getting a decent helping of calabrese this year – ahead of the pigeons and the caterpillars for a change 
The soil is warming now, even our claggy Oxfordshire clay so, having dug the garden and spread the muck, it’s time to get serious about sowing vegetable seeds for a succession of fresh, crisp vegetables in the coming months. Here are some guidelines about what to do in your vegetable garden in April.
Yesterday’s meeting of the Edible Gardens group was a timely reminder that we’re getting very close to all systems go in the garden and on the allotment. And while the grown-ups were busy talking vegetables, the children worked on the marketing.
Looking at my notebook it went something like this…
I couldn’t resist recycling this old newsreel – it is Friday afternoon after all.
And it is about time I gave some thought to planning this year’s growth on the allotment. But if that film hasn’t got you fired up for digging, I lifted this from the NEF blog…
“If your fingers are green enough, growing your own vegetables could save you around £1,500 a year, according to new research by the National Society of Allotment and Leisure Gardeners. The study priced the amount of food grown by gardeners at cheapest supermarket costs. (Hat tip to Rob Hopkins)”
The only thing likely to be occurring on the allotments this week is the picking of brussel sprouts for Christmas dinner! However, the Witney Allotment Association has the following news for its members:
“The result of the recent ballot proposing that the association enter into negotiations with the council to take over administration of the sites was as follows;
44 for, 11 against.
80% of those who voted were in favour.
The committee have met since the ballot and it has been agreed that they will meet with council representatives early in the New Year to renew discussions. We will keep you posted as more information becomes available.”
a
7:30pm Thursday 2 Dec at the Masonic Hall, Church Green, Witney.
Rain! We’ve finally had some rain. Every day, for weeks, I’ve been checking the forecasts. Mostly they’ve said ‘hot and dry’ and sometimes they’ve shown rain in three or four day’s time, but that’s where it’s stayed, until today when a gentle, soaking rain started in the early hours. The RHS reckons we are now five inches short of rain and that will take some making up, so don’t let up on the watering as the plants need all they can get. Give priority to plants in flower so they get what they need to form pods or fruit.
Watering late in the evening or early in the morning is best as this means the plants get what they need before the moisture evaporates. If you are troubled by slugs and snails, water in the morning so that the soil is dryer over night and less comfortable for them to slither across.
» Read more: Rain at last! and other vegetable growing matters
This evening, Tuesday 6th July, in the Langdale Hall at 7pm.
Now that much of the vegetable planting and sowing has been done, there is a change from the planting frenzy of spring to that of constant weeding and watering. Although we had a lot of rain during the first part of June, brighter weather is in the forecast here and there so watering may be necessary. You can see the forecast for the rest of the month on the Met Office site.
The Meteo website also has a rain radar showing rain over the Witney and the UK, which is useful for planning gardening days and watering.
Vegetables to plant out
Artichokes, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, cauliflower, celeriac, Kohl rabi, leeks, lettuce, peas, potatoes, rhubarb.
Whilst peppers and tomatoes can be grown in the ground, I prefer to keep them in pots in case the weather changes and I need to bring them under cover. I made this decision after last year’s ‘barbecue summer’ forecast. Feeling optimistic, I planted out a lot of peppers and tomatoes only for the next six weeks to bring torrential rain. The peppers in the ground had little fruit and all the tomatoes in the ground got blight. Not getting caught out like that again!
April was a very dry month in Witney and I think we only had one or two showers for the whole month. A rain gauge is very useful in helping to judge how much to water as it measures the amount of rain that reaches soil level. Mine has remained dry for much of the past month, so I’ve been out watering more often than usual.
There hasn’t been much rain this last month!
Last Saturday Witney’s Edible Gardens group met for the second time to discuss local grow-your-own issues and to provide a place for information, advice and opinion over tea and cake. Yesterday was the start of Grow Your Own Week so it was quite timely.
Longing to eat fruit and vegetables that are really fresh and full of flavour? Want to reduce your carbon footprint? Prefer to eat organic food? Need a bit of healthy, free outdoor exercise? Then why not grow your own food?
The next meeting of Witney Edible Gardens will be 3pm, Saturday 17 April, at Daphne & Dave’s. Email Brenda at brenda.woods@ntlworld.com, or give her a ring on 01993 700715, for more info, directions etc.
© 2012 Sustainable Witney · Proudly powered by WordPress & Green Park 2 by Cordobo.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional | Valid CSS 3
