Winter Tunnel Crops

Our long-term plan is for the farm to be feeding the community throughout throughout year. This is a journey, part of which includes adding more protected cropping space i.e. polytunnels to help extend our growing season. You may have spotted the new tunnels we’ve been building this winter. Two will be managed by Rhyze – one for outside mushroom cultivation and one for vermicomposting (a composting system using worms) at scale. The third is added for veg production. So more food and more great compost amendments to grow great food!

Middle Field Conversion

Part of expanding production and feeding more of our community for more of the year involves moving up to field scale cropping. We’ve been converting the top field within the market garden from pasture to productive fields in an Agroforestry alley system. Last year we grew grains in collaboration with Granton Bakery and we’ll be growing more again this year with seed we saved.
This year we’ll also be expanding into the Middle Field aka Skylark Field to start the journey for this to produce food again.

Click here to read more about expanding food production into the middle field

Veg Sowing Begins

Last year our Community Supported Agriculture veg bag scheme fed 75 families, and we aim to have around 80 this year. Beautiful bags full of abundant fresh veg every week! We’ll also be stocking our  farm market stall during the summer. This is undoubtedly a complex logistics game (balancing available time, space and needs). After lots of winter planning we’re looking forward to seeing you all to share the harvest. We’ve been sowing the seeds that will feed you this coming year. The garlic we planted out last winter is popping up and the first of this year’s veg is coming along in our heated propagation space. Tuesday morning volunteer sessions are back on and we were delighted to welcome old friends and new faces to help us get our beds ready for a productive season.

Click here to see upcoming volunteering sessions

Seed saving (and processing)

Working towards seed security and sovereignty is integrated with much of our production on the farm. Regionally adapted, diverse populations of seed will be critical to thriving local food production as climates become increasingly volatile. We’re excited to be able to use seed we’ve saved in our veg production plans this year and are also excited to have the opportunity to grow seed commercially for Seeds of Scotland to help increase access to quality seed produced in Scotland for Scottish growers.

Ducks!

One of our biggest challenges last year was slugs – they decimated the crop. We’re hoping the colder winter this year will have reduced the population, but we’re also taking active steps to further protect our crops. We’re reducing the path sizes between veg beds (less edges = less places for slugs to hide). And, maybe more excitingly, adding a small flock of Ducks to our team! They’ll come out on slug patrol to help us clean up beds before planting. You might have spotted their nice new house and pond complex in the centre of the Market Garden field.

Thanks for reading the Field Notes for March – we aim to keep you posted throughout the season! You can also get involved by volunteering, and if you’d like to learn more, we’re doing a Tour of the Farm especially focused on the Market Garden and food production on Saturday 19th April. Click here to book tour tickets