Harvest from the Toddler Organic Vegetable Garden

Have you been ‘conditioned’ into believing organic vegetables can never look as good as regular ones in shops? Well if you have, then take a closer look at this picture. There’s a bit too much reflection coming off the packaging, but there’s no denying the cos and dark frilly oak-leafed lettuce is as good looking as any, anywhere! The only reason organic vegetables look so unappetizing is because they are not fresh. And the reason other vegetables keep their ‘fresh’ look is because of the harmful chemicals placed inside the plastic wrappers which give them a longer shelf live.

These vegetables were harvested from Squirrel’s Landing Organic Garden last Wednesday, and sold to a few lucky shoppers on Thursday. They were still crisp and beautiful and caused many ooh’s and aah’s from admirers. If you’ve been watching Cabbages and Cream since its inception, you’ll remember it all started at the beginning of March, and this is what has come out of the garden two and a half months later. You can track progress of the lettuce by clicking Organic Vegetable Garden Progress on April 22^nd.

Our beetroot doesn’t show up in this picture, but you can be sure it is utterly delicious, with strong, healthy leaves – nothing like the limp stuff in the supermarkets and big vegetable stores.

Read more on the topic: We want real food

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Organic gardening sites that I find useful

Here are some great sites that I find useful for finding new ideas for my organic garden.

Dig my Plot - Growing vegetables & fruit organically on an allotment : a
natural approach. What to do guide is updated monthly. Interesting
ideas and tips for everybody including Getting Started, Companion Planting,
Identifying Weeds, Herbs, Crop Rotation.

Organic Gardening Magazine - loads of ideas and useful information and a great magazine to subscribe to

Kitchen Garden - unfortunately not organic, but you can get loads of useful stuff like when to plant tomatoes or how to get rid of snails without hefty poisons, and more

Dalewood Fromage – really nice organic cheeses – I especially love their Brie with fig – its utterly sublime

The Soil Association - the ultimate in ‘Saving the Planet’ – my all time favourite publication, utterly dedicated to helping farmers who care about the land

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Organic Vegetable Garden progress

April in the new garden at Squirrel’s Landing has been busy. We found a source for organic leaf salad seedlings (hooray!) and most of them have taken.

We had a very hot spell two days after transplanting, and had to find some quick protection so they didn’t frizzle up. We lost three in the process, but the rest are now close to harvest as you can see, which is something of a record – it will be four weeks from planting by the time we pick them next week!

A friend and colleague has opened up a brilliant new health store in the Redham Centre, called Creeds Super Natural Nutrition and customers have shown a huge interest in our organic garden, so we’re planning to take produce once a fortnight – as soon as they’re available. It would be wonderful if we could supply the whole demand, so we have our eye on renting an empty plot nearby to swell our supply.

Our beetroot have also grown very fast as the conditions have been good in the past month. Another row of seeds has gone in and as soon as the little bulbs form on the first row we’ll be thinning them and enjoying a delicious meal of infant beetroot and their leaves. Quite delicious with a splash of extra virgin and some Wineland Brie™ from Dalewood Fromage.

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Birth of an Organic Vegetable Garden

A brand new organic vegetable garden was born recently at Squirrel’s Landing. There’ll be frequent postings to keep you up to date on how it progresses, so make sure you visit us again soon. This is how the early preparation went in order to put minerals back in the sand and soil:

Our topsoil was thick with invasive grass roots, making it impossible to dig over, and we had to bring in a Bobcat to chop off the matted and dead topsoil which has been hijacked by invading alien grass for three generations

• Then we cleared out bits of stone and some deep sunken roots which would have sent up more grass shoots within days


• A thin layer of loose soil was exposed, under which hardened clay has made it impossible to fork over. We tried sinking a stake in to hold up a fence but it was useless, the prongs of the fork just bent! This was when we realized just how much work is ahead of us.


• We have to manufacture top soil from scratch in order to make it arable!


• A layer of well rotted manure went down first followed by some dried grass clippings taken from the plot next door where a team of workmen recently spent the morning mowing. It will help make a base for our new topsoil and the remains have been set aside to feed our new compost heap


• After that a layer of good topsoil was salvaged from the boundary which is where a natural stream runs, and the soil looks quite healthy


• Then another spreading of manure and some of the so-called 'compost' from the local nursery came next, and a hefty dose of organic chicken manure in pellet form to add concentrated nitrogen into the mix


• Lots of watering followed, after which there was much digging and forking over and leveling of the whole area


• This new topsoil will lie quietly for two weeks, with a little tilling and lots of watering in between, when we will be ready to set the paths and plant some seeds

We’d love to hear from you so visit us soon for further news of our brand new organic garden, and we’d love to hear from you about your ideas on growing organic vegetables.

Don't forget my Organic gardening DOs & DON'Ts

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