9th September

Last week I did not have time for a newsletter.

With it being a five Saturday month, I had no farmer’s market.

So, Erin, Calum, Breagh and me packed our rucksacks full with weekend mountain tent, sleeping bags, stove, and hill food.

And we walked into Lochan nan cat, a loch behind the Ben Lawers, mountain range.

It was a 4.8 mile walk in, all carrying nice heavy rucksacks. we arrived at 8pm and set the tent up in a beautiful spot.

Over the weekend we climbed all the Munroe’s in that area, so I ran out of time for writing the weekly story.

Out in the field the Uchi kuri squash are ready.

Everyone’s favourite squash.

So, we made a start on harvesting them, most of the squash plants have not done very well this season with the colder wetter summer, but the uchi seem to have not been affected, and it looks like a great crop.

We have bon bon and spaghetti to but they have not faired as well.

Plus, the usual pumpkins.

The beetroot crop has at long last grown, and we have managed to make a start on harvesting these, but it will still be a few weeks before they can go in the nets for everyone.

The Leeks, onions and kale are as good as they always are.

And if you remember from previous stories, I split the sowing of our cabbages a month apart.

The first two batches were not very good, but the remaining four batches look good.

These should mature and be ready for harvesting a month apart starting at the end of this month.

This should give a good spread of cabbage through to January.

In the tunnels the cucumbers and courgettes are now starting to die off, that usually only happens with the first frost, or around the end of September, so that is a wee bit early, but we are still getting a pretty good harvest of off them.

All the other tunnel crops seem to be performing as usual.

And we have blocked of a couple of trial veg for late in the year, for a hopeful December harvest.

Radicchio and choi choy five thousand of each, plus we have blocked of eight thousand leafy Cabbage.

The leafy cabbage will sit through the winter, and be ready next year.

Another project that has been on my mind for years, is hydroponics.

More so now, with the increases prices when it comes to the time of the year that we have everything harvested, the field has been ploughed and we are planting, this is always a hard time of the year, and the tunnels cannot produce enough, no matter how hard we try.

The hydroponics might be able to fill the hungry gap.

So, I bought a very small unit, it only takes one hundred and eight plants, and I put some Radicchio, Choi choy and leafy cabbage in it.

It is easier for you to look it up rather than me try to explain it.

It recycles water round and round, and I have 10 % seaweed water mix which I will change in two weeks with a nettle feed, I also bought a fish tank heater, so I can keep the water warm for when it gets cold.

I have nettles sitting in a pail of water, after two weeks should be good feed for the plants.

I will also put some comfrey in another pail, and use that as a feed.

I have been told that it would be hard to try and do it organically, and a lot that do it have fish in a water tank, I am not planning on that.

If it works, it would be easy to scale up, and use it for late winter and early spring to fill in the gaps when produce is less.

We always try to fill the hungry gap, but it is Scotland.