Green green vegetables

My mission the next 6 months was to focus on the vegetable production on the farm. Old chapel farm has 12 acres of land but only 2 acres were for vegetable growing, the rest of the land were dedicated to woodlands and grazing. The hills of mid Wales was one of crazy and unpredictable weather, which at times can be so harsh that only grazing of animals and potatoes stood a chance. Frost when the ground freezes over can happen as late as the 10^th of June. Vegetable growing thus is not an easy one to crack, the growing season was thus a short one and having to be always aware and in tuned with the weather. There was only so much planning that we could do, but in the end our fate was determined by mother nature.

The glass-house was my garden, a place of great importance but also one with much responsibility. Spring was a time where frantic sowing of seeds took place. I spent most parts of my days sowing the mighty brassica family, members of the solanace family bird eye chilies (hundreds of them) tomatoes, Aubergine, sweet peppers in pots,  peas in toilets rolls, lettuce in succession, calendulas in modules and dwarf French, broad, runner beans. It was a mad house, but mine to enjoy, BBC radio 2 in company I’m sure Ken Bruce added to the vitality of my little seedlings with his ever so monotonous selection of music and his boring banter with the weather and traffic girl Penelope fudge. Damn turn that radio off!!!!!   

Crooked End Farm

Now this is what I call organic farming.

We've been here, at the crooked end farm, their blog: http://www.crookedend.co.uk/ and our hosts Brenda and Bruce have made us feel right at home.

They have 14 acre of land, a bunch of pigs (yum yum, their organic bacon is reeeeally good, the best I've tasted in my whole life), Lots of laying hens, sheep, and lots of organic vegetables (duh)!


In the last couple of days, we planted leeks, picked salad leaves for the shop, fed the hens, collected their eggs (at least 2 times a day), fed and moved the pigs, cleaaned the chicken houses (yuck), weeded, watered, transplanted tomatoes and .... ate good food. There's so much to do, there's never enough time. And I guess this is what it really means to do this for a living. Brenda and Bruce are constantly working! Of course, the two gorgeous kids, Lottie (2 and a half) & James (6 months) are quite a handful as well. Which other 2 and a half year old can remember my name within the first hour of meeting me, and recalls it clearly? She's better than most people I've met!


Anyway, here are some snap shots of us this week! Will be here for 3 weeks.


Wwoofing is the life. Work for 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, food to eat, place to sleep, meeting wonderful (and some strange) people, and of course, the bloody gorgeous countryside.





The cosy little caravan we are living in.

Percy the horse & two other fellow wwoofers - Erin (left) and Callie (right) both from America.

Feeding Mabel, the pregnant Gloucestershire Old Spot sow with bolted lettuce.