First work days for community market garden

April has been a busy and cold month at Eves Hill Veg Co. We are feeling pleased that we haven’t rushed our planting plan as the weather has no doubt been tricky for gardeners and growers so far this year.
 

Help from Norwich Farm Share

 
With Rosi and Emma from Norwich Farm Share we managed to plant our first three beds of salads in mid-April.
 
We are gently collaborating and sharing skills and hope to supply Norwich Farm Share and maybe even a few local restaurants.
 
We had the foresight to fleece the new plantings prior to the recent minus temperatures. Norwich Farm Share has lent us lots of their equipment this year while they search for a new site near the city.
 
John from Growing Together kindly lent a couple of days to help support the build on our polytunnel, which is made from a recycled frame that Grahame Hughes, an organic grower near Diss, tells me goes back beyond 1983 when he inherited it. It found its way from Grahame to Wolterton Hall and then to us.
 
This is a slow job as we’re raising up the tunnel to give it straight sides (and more height for growing tomatoes and cucumbers), but we’ll get there – and it comes with good heritage.
 
While at Wolterton collecting the frame, we were given permission to propagate globe artichokes from the walled garden, and last week we started framing the “garden” area of the Eves Hill Farm site with them, an elegant driveway and approach that by summer will be bearing delicious globes.
 
Last weekend Ian from the Starting Handle Club came along with a vintage tractor to help us rotovate – breaking up the surface of the soil even further after Jeremy Buxton’s initial cultivation.
 
The finer the tilth the better contact the soil will make when sowing seeds directly, increasing the germination rate.
 
And it’s time to sow our green manures, which will help build fertility in the soil over the coming 1-2 years.
 
I had a dream that a local choir came and helped us with this sowing, singing while broadcasting the seeds and pressing them into the ground by foot. If anyone has any choral contacts or fancies a sing-song with the skylarks that are full of Booton joy, let me know.
 
The first of our “field” crops arrive from Delfland Nurseries this week: beetroot, chard, spinach, celeriac and celery.
 
In their honour, we are hosting our first Community Work Day at Eves Hill Farm, Norwich Road, Booton, on Saturday 7 May from 10 am – 4 pm. If you can spare a couple of hours, do come along to see what we’re up to and lend a hand.
 
We’ll be holding another work day on Saturday 28 May, also from 10 am – 4 pm, when we’ll be welcoming friends from Organiclea in London on a weekend trip.
 
We’re keen to meet new people, share skills and imagine what possibilities this little plot might bring.
 
Here’s to a warmer May.
 
Hannah Claxton 07876 354363 or hannahclaxton@googlemail.com
 

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