Stowey Rocks Farm is an 80 acre organic farm on the edge of the Quantock
hills in Somerset. Richard Plowright and Remke Cool took over the farm
in April 2006 and have begun to build a neighbourhood farm. The
farm has about three acres of established soft fruit and top fruit,
and around 20 acres of vegetables.
Richard started growing field scale organic vegetables in 2000 and
established a box scheme that winter which initially supplied just carrots
and potatoes to a few customers. In 2003 Richard and Remke formed Plowright
Organic Produce, and they now supply about 150 local homes with a seasonal
vegetable box each week.
Currently about half the farm turnover comes from the local vegetable
box scheme and the rest from the wholesale of vegetables and soft fruit.
Read Richard’s diary as he and Remke take their first steps farming
on new ground.
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Hmmm. Last summer was as bad as it gets. Wasn’t it? Well, I’m not sure. This spring is about to make last summer look like a party. Last spring, you will remember, was very warm and dry and we sowed and planted our early crops with smiles on our faces and hope in our hearts. There was some concern that it might never rain again and then it started raining and the concern became whether it would ever stop. This spring has been cold and wet. Not an ideal combination. So apart from potatoes we haven’t planted anything outside yet. We have onions and cabbage and cauliflower and beets and lettuce all waiting to go in. All of them were in the ground this time last year. We have managed to drill our last broad beans (pictured) and very hurriedly drilled a small area of early carrots as rain clouds gathered. The heavens opened as I parked the drill in the shed. It’s not fun racing against the weather, knowing that if you miss your window you will have to wait a week. The potatoes are going green for the wrong reason, i.e. weeds, and it’s been too wet to weed them. It’s very reminiscent of last summer. It will stop raining and warm up soon.
Sometimes after tilling our soil can ‘cap’ if we get some heavy rain. Capping locks any seed under a thin layer of hard impenetrable soil. Luckily this did not happen to the carrot area so they should be alright.
On a brighter note the tunnels are all planted up and looking really good. I am particularly pleased with the tunnel carrots. Last year we lost the first sowing to slugs but this year, thanks to a dryer winter and judicious use of iron III phosphate, the slug damage is minimal. We are trying to sell an acre of Spanish (poly) Tunnels, which were used to keep our strawberries dry. I am now wondering whether we should keep them for future outdoor crops. If wet weather is to become the norm we will need all the cover we can get.
We continue to spend a lot of time talking to people. Last time it was visiting students and Soil Association inspectors. This time it was the BBC. Oh yes it was, the BBC. BBC Radio Somerset wanted to broadcast a programme from Stowey Rocks, about county council farms and the ‘policy’ of selling them off. So we had our five minutes of fame and lost half a day of work. Of course everyone else (the BBC presenter and technician and the chaps from the council) got paid as normal and we did it for love. They got very excited about this blog because farmers are not supposed to know about the internet. They put a picture of me (pictured), blogging and smiling at my computer, on their home page. I was actually thinking about my cabbages.
Cynicism apart, it was good fun and Remke (pictured) spoke with great eloquence whilst I mumbled and panicked in the background.
Some of you guessed my age correctly from the Massey Ferguson clue. Yes, I am 50 although I think I look 45 if I remove my glasses and dim the lights. I had a great day. Rose (my daughter) and my son Callum, who turned up unexpectedly from Manchester, filled me with a feeling of both loss and joy, as did three of my four sisters and a couple of nephews and some long lost friends. Completed by the following words by W.B. Yeats in a card. I was reduced to tears.
“Pluck till time and tides are done, the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun…”
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