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Welcome back to our weekly follow us! If you missed the last twenty-six weeks, the links to them are above - and as usual - the key is at the bottom: scroll down now!
Storm Alex (named by the French Meteorological Survey) was the main weather event of the week, bringing strong winds, as well as over 25mm (1”) of rainfall between Saturday and Sunday - a sharp reminder of what the winter is likely to have in store!
Aside from Alex, we also experienced persistent heavy rain during the beginning of the week, and showery rain during the latter half. The rainfall total for the week was 36mm, with 96mm being the average for October as a whole. Winds were fresh to strong throughout. Daytime temperatures were 120C during the first half of the week rising to 150C during the second half - compared with the seasonal average of 160C. That being said, night-time temperatures stayed around 60C, substantially below the seasonal average of 120C (and with the minimum temperature recorded being 3.60C); we are still yet to receive our first frost! This is significant, as we can normally expect this in the second week of October at Spring Cottage.
Lamb’s lettuce and Land Cress in Planter 1 have finished germinating after approximately 14 days, which is a little slow but probably reflects the cool temperatures experienced over the last fortnight. The germination rate of both crops exceeds 90%, however, there is some variation in seedling density with occasional gaps and clusters of seedlings; this almost certainly reflects lack of care in the sowing rather than variation in germination rate!
Similarly, Spring Onion ‘White Lisbon Winter Hardy’ has germinated and this commenced 15 days after sowing: not unusual for spring onion. Seedlings all emerged within 2 days and the germination rate is 86%, which is exceptionally high for spring onion as it is notoriously fickle. The results probably reflect the quality and freshness of the seed which were large and uniform in size with a bright lustre and considerably better than that used previously this season. The crop is extremely uniform and the spacing between each seedling is consistent (probably because the large size made it easy to sow). The colour of the seedling is also excellent, probably as the soils were ‘freshened up’ with a dressing of Dalefoot ‘Wool Compost’ for vegetable and salad before being re-sown.
Mustard ‘Red Frills’ / Mustard ‘Golden Streaks’, Mustard ‘Red Giant’, Mustard ‘Mizuna’ in Planter 3 continue to be harvested with 8-10 leaves removed each day (enough for a well filled round of sandwiches!) The Mustard ‘Red Frills’ / Mustard ‘Golden Streaks’ remain the stars of the show not just on the basis of their fantastic leaf shape and combination of colours, but also on taste - which is better than Mizuna. Mustard ‘Red Giant’ is the slowest of the three line lettuces to re-grow.
Finally, harvesting of Kale ‘Emerald Ice’, Kale ‘Nero di Toscana’ (Cavolo Nero) and Kale ‘Midnight Sun’ in Planter 4 has continued with the selective removal of mid-sized leaves. The plants are well established and all producing significant quantities of new leaves which is balanced by twice weekly picking (approximately 4 x 100 g portions per week or thereabouts). The kale leaves are usually dressed in olive oil, sugar and salt and baked for 10 minutes which makes them crispy and great to eat - although not as nutritious as they might be! As a change this week, they were added to a cassoulet at the end of cooking which added a new dimension. We’ve included a picture this week of the shredded leaves before cooking, to which we’ve added Russian ‘Kale’ from another planter.