Right place,right time

i cannot believe that it is only a month now until we take over our grow space at oak tree farm. we've probably been a little cheeky to be honest as i have been up there 4 times already this weekend doing countless jobs, it kind of already feels like we have moved in! i did plant the odd cheeky couple of herb plants (just to see what its like you understand!) it feels so good to be doing something worthwhile and thinking ahead probably for the first time in my life. i always said with the meaningless monotonous jobs that i worked at before that i always worked to live and would never live to work. i suppose it depends on what your work is at the end of the day! i had rather a surreal moment the other day on a chance encounter with a lady and it made me feel like i am exactly where i am supposed to be. currently looking for a new van for the business i found myself in the middle of nowhere on an industrial estate and arrived at a large piece of land i had never been to before. it started to rain so i decided to stay in the car and wait it out until i could go and speak to anyone that was around to ask about vans. i watched this lady come right across this large field in the rain and head for my car and she wrapped on my window and asked me what i was doing there. i explained that i was on the search for a van to which she replied no, no vans here im afraid what do you want it for anyway? well im setting up my own hanging basket business and nursery and need it for transporting my goods. oh i used to do that she said i only finished doing it after 25 years a couple of weeks ago. now you might think well thats quite random and so did we and our conversation went on then for an hour and a half and mainly with me scribbling down any advice, tips and suppliers names down on the smallest piece of paper known to mankind! carol had made growing her life 25 years ago starting out throwing a few seeds on some cotton wool and growing them in her greenhouse and as time went by she taught herself how to propagate plants,sell at markets, and getting to know the community she worked in. she ended up with 27 polytunnels all run by herself and some very kind family members and made a proper life for herself. so as i hear of her highs and lows and lessons learnt the hard way from inexperience along with tales of barmy summer suntans i drift off for a few seconds and start dreaming of this life and cannot believe i have finally met such a nice person that is willing to give me her lifetimes education for free. ''so where are you growing'' she says, ''oh oak tree farm just out near pathlow'' i say, ''your renting two tunnels off jon then?'' ''yeah how do you know that?'' ''because i sold them to him, they were my tunnels!''
now take from this what you will but i took it as a sign that whatever guides us through this strange and beautiful life sometimes puts you on a path you've never been down before or a door you havn't knocked on for a reason, so as we sail on through november finishing up our jobs we've got left to do at least we know we're on the right track!

Our new logo has arrived today from the brilliant website design company www.brightwhitespace home page coming along very nicely and hopefully viewing a rough copy of it this week. Trying to come up with two names for our new polytunnels any suggestions more than welcome!

things we are sowing and growing :)

obviously we are not your normal run of the mill grow space and are constantly on the lookout for new and interesting things we can grow and sell to our local community that might be a bit out of the ordinary and make your dinner plate a bit different each month. all locally grown and locally sourced we are growing the following weird and wonderful vegetables

chioggia beetroot

Elephant garlic

Golden beetroot

Pak choi

Romanesco broccoli

All these will be available in season as and they come into season and on our stalls

things are starting to progress at quite a rate now and i swear every time i go up there its sunny! now im hearing we are in for an ice age winter and if last years was anything to go by its going to get pretty damn cold. now it will be warm in the tunnels but lets face it, really not relishing the idea of driving out in the snow, so i shall reminisce over these pictures in the depths of winter and make a mental note that the weather does not go on forever and spring days are really not that far away and our delivery of our plug plants in feburary shall possibly be the most exciting yet terrifying day of our lives, let alone planting up 10,000 plants! to springtime and all the new life that comes with it! 

time lapse video of day 1

heres a little something we put together in front of a roaring fire on a winters eve. good gracious its getting chilly out there! would like to say a very big thank you to george lenton as well as he so very kindly let us use his music for free so yet more favors we owe :) i know hes quite partial to a cup of tea though so i may try and create a new blend just for him. hope you enjoy and just visit the link below :) 

http://vimeo.com/30822265

our first full day

so this was yesterday in all its glory and what a day for october! there are some friends you can just never say thank you enough to. without them this would have just been a very very tough day! thank you again!  

solar panel powered heat sink for your greenhouse

i thought this was such a fantastic idea to heat your polytunnel or greenhouse and such a simple idea. if any of you remember a tv programme called its not easy being green on bbc 2 a few years ago, basically the overall idea was to radically reduce our carbon footprint in every day life. dick strawbridge took on a farm in cornwall and made his own electricity, compost loos (not for everyone i know) water supply to his house and own bio diesel amongst many many other brilliant ideas. you can apply this to any greenhouse or tunnel to bring the temperature in the winter significantly so you can keep growing all year round. make it as big or as small as you want :)


greenhouse heating system using a 10 Watt PV Solar Panel, a 12V battery, a small fan, some PVC waste pipe, and 1 cubic metre of crushed glass.

The aim of the greenhouse heatsink is to keep the greenhouse warm at night, and also to keep the greenhouse from getting too hot in the day.

Making a Greenhouse Heatsink System

A hole - the bigger the better, but ideally 1 metre wide and deep - is well insulated (using polystyrene and foil) and filled with anything through which air can pass which stores heat. Dick Strawbridge used crushed glass, however pea gravel (available from builders' merchants and pictured above) could be used instead as could small pieces of metal, small recycled bottles of water, fire bricks, etc.
Note that if a material feels cold to the touch, it will work well as a heatsink/heat store.

The solar panel charges the battery which in turn drives a small recycled PC cooling fan (shown above) 24 hours per day. The fan sucks air in from the top (apex) of the greenhouse where the air is hottest and pumps it through the 38mm standard PVC waste pipe into the base of the heatsink hole. The hot air then rises through the heatsink warming the heatsink material and cooling the air which emerges through a vent (e.g. an old chimney pot or waste pipe) and into the greenhouse.

At nighttime the now cool air at the top of the greenhouse is pushed through the now warm heatsink heating up the air and cooling down the heatsink material. This warm air then passes through the vent into the greenhouse where it helps to keep up the temperature.


give it a go and you should see results straight away and reduce your heating bills and more importantly your carbon footprint!

such a wonderful video

not going to be loading many videos up here apart from ours but i thought this was quite special

Super sticky soul patch sausage rolls

Now we all know that sausage rolls are not the best for you and im not saying eat them all the time but if you are going to sin then please sin properly! dont go and buy that bland sorry looking sausage roll from the local garage, make some yourself with proper sausages and just see the difference. you can make a big batch for a party or just for a snack or a picnic. eat hot or cold for a delicious treat anytime you fancy it.

makes 12 sausage rolls

x6 good quality sausages any flavour you fancy i used ones with apple in

wholegrain mustard

red onion marmalade

1 white onion

honey

1 sheet of puff pastry (shop bought)

1 egg yolk (optional)

*cut the sausages in half with a good sharp knife now making 12 individual sausage pieces 

*fry the sausages in a pan on a medium heat with a little oil to get some nice colour on them and pop them in 

a bowl

*add 1 tablespoon of wholegrain mustard and 1 tablespoon of honey into the bowl and coat the sausages. once coated place them on a baking tray and put them in the oven for 15 minutes at 160 deg c

*whilst the sausages are in the oven fry the onion on a low heat with a little oil for 15 minutes until nice and softened, once cooked add a teaspoon of onion marmalade to the onions to add just a little sweetness.

*the pastry should be rolled out already for you so just cut it in half and cut 6 equal strips lengthways on each piece of pastry

*now place your sausages at one end of the strip and put a little of the onion mix on top and roll over on its self until you reach the other end and pinch together to make a good seal

*you may want to gloss your pastry with an egg yolk wash to give it a nice shine

*bake in the oven for 20 minutes at 160 deg c and either serve hot or leave to cool and enjoy.

rails and snails

We have yet again managed to gain the help of our wonderful friends to help us set up both tunnels this saturday of course with the promise of bbq food and beer, well that is the international payment method between friends isn't it?
  When we got married what made it such a wonderful occasion is that every person that came along (over 200 of them) helped with the wedding in some sort of way however big or small. now we have never been the traditional generic couple who would go for the run of the mill things, we had people helping out with making individual food dishes which gave such a wonderful selection to the day, sourcing beer from local breweries,mates in bands playing all through the day and not to mention our great friend ben who held it at his fantastic house. The point im trying to make is that it was a true occasion for everyone involved because it was a real sense of a community with everyone working towards a greater good. We wanted to try and replicate this up at the soul patch as everyone we know always has something to bring to the table however big or small.
  Now if you know me you know i am constantly sifting through skips and trying to recycle things to make a new usable object because i dont see the point of things going to landfill if it can be used by someone else. we are so blessed to have such great friends who i am sure dread my phone-calls saying "hi mate i found this piece of lovely wood, can you help me get it out of this skip"? This weekend we are making the rails for the hanging baskets to hang off in may and building the doors for the tunnels. i tend to have great enthusiasm for  getting a job done so sometimes rush in and make simple mistakes with DIY so having a few knowledgeable heads around me dilutes my eagerness to get the job done quickly! we have also looked into making herbal teas this week after a suggestion from my "ideas guru" sam. he gave me a mint and chili blend which was delicious and as usual this got the old brain box working seeing if we could find a way of growing this organically and reproducing this as another soul patch product. the answer is of course is yes so more investigation needed but we love the idea.

  We have also got to find an organic solution to get rid of all natural pests in the tunnel so we can keep it as bug free as possible. ideas on a postcard please.

home made apple cider

with such a massive glut of apples this year it seems silly not to turn it into pies, chutneys and of course alcohol! heres a very quick and easy cider recipe that is ok to drink in a week it will improve if left for a few more months if you can last that long! :)

*3lb cooking apples

*6 quarts water

*2lb sugar

*3 juicy lemons

*1 oz bruised ginger (optional)

1. Wipe the apples ,cut into pieces and bash to a pulp,keeping the peel and cores (you could use a potato masher for this)

2. Place in an earthenware bowl and pour on the fresh cold water (or a big plastic tub)

3. Leave for 7 days, stirring well night and morning

4. Strain the liquor carefully

5. Mix it with the sugar,grated lemon rind and strained lemon juice

6 Leave for 24 hours

7. Strain the mix and bottle up into sterilized screw topped bottles

8. Bruised ginger may be added if you fancy it along with the lemon

please note, we are not responsible for the hangover!

plans plans plans and a little soul

now we have more ideas coming out of the woodwork than ive had hot dinners!. so many friends and family keep suggesting such great ideas i wish we had the time and the money to implement them all at the same time. something to work towards i suppose. as it stands at the moment we have to get the basics sorted and go from there. this year we are growing in X2 60ftx20ft polytunnels up at oak tree farm on a 50 acre plot owned by our lovely landlord jon. he runs a pig roast company and the delicious smell of roast pork helps work production up at the farm as it smells so god damn good so its no chore to be up there working. we are just preparing as much as we can as we get the land officially in december but a lot of work has to be done before building the tunnels and frames for the hanging baskets. we have learnt so much already just about owning and running a business (a far cry from just planting a few plants in and see how it goes!) all of which is good but trying to have the foresight of where you will be in 5 months time when its ready to plant up is quite hard sometimes. the elephant garlic is the first thing to go in in december 2011 which we are planting in the tunnel in a 20ftx20ft raised bed. we first discovered elephant garlic in bournemouth at a local deli at a price of £7.00 per bulb. apart from the massive size of the bulb (about 5 times the size of a regular bulb) we did of course notice the price. after speaking to the assistant she informed us it is the latest thing to come into the gastronomical world as the next big thing. now my ears pricked up and thought we should definitely get on board with this. we roasted it and it was delicious a lot milder than the regular garlic and more closely related to the leek and only discovered 50 years ago in america. we want to sell to local independent restaurants as a locally sourced seasonal "special" starter on their menus. it should be ready by july and then time to cure it and smoke it with some oak chips in our home made smoker (more about this later with pics of how i built it).
      Since actually starting all this last year, i had no real idea what i wanted to do with my life. i am and always will be a musician and thats where i thought my life might take me, but gardening was always in my life with my father being one of the greatest gardeners i know and great memories of being in our garden making mud pies or playing hide and seek in the tall conifers make me think now that i always had a great connection with nature even if i hadnt quite realized it yet. Having this new direction to my life instantly relaxes me as i career towards 30 years old at break neck speed and having a purpose and building a life here makes me feel rather disgustingly happy.

     we will see if im still half as happy as i am right now after a whole year of sowing,growing and mowing but ive got this little feeling i am exactly where i am supposed to be.

the new life begins!

so for all that are interested this will be our mostly week to week updated space where you can find out exactly what we are up to in our new lives as horticulturists. we have a whole heap of family and friends that are going to help us on our way to setting up the soul patch at oak tree farm. we are going to be growing elephant garlic to sell to local restaurants and at farmers markets and a rather crazy amount of hanging baskets (1700) to be precise! petunias, begonias and lobelia are going to be our starting flowers next year but with so much scope and literally hundreds of ideas we cannot wait!