Growing season a go-go

April’s been a whirlwind of a month, as I’m sure all you gardeners out there will agree! Hardly a moment to spare for sharing my growing tales with you all.

Traditionally, when the clocks change at the end of March, we move the harvesting back to a Tuesday from the winter timetable of Wednesday morning, there now being light enough to get it all done before dark. However, this year’s field of applicants being so good, we were a little behind on the selection of our apprentices…a very real indication of the growing interest in the exciting world of urban agriculture. This meant the first week’s harvesting remained on the Wednesday morning. And that week saw Ru and I picking and then packing 260 bags of salad between us. Seriously hard labour, I tell you! The harvests leapt from just 40 bags in the middle of March to over 200 in a matter of weeks! We just managed to get down to the Climate Change camp in central London, where the ‘Farmers’ Markets not Carbon Markets‘ stall had our very own salad leaves on sale…

Selection made, the following week we were joined by, not two as we had intended, but three new apprentices. One apprentice has been allocated to each of our urban market gardens – Allens Gardens, Springfield Park and to my own site at Clissold Park too. I’m very excited that Sophie will be joining me every week over this growing season.

We also had two wonderful visitors from France – doing a three week internship with us. A terrific spike in numbers to get the salad picked and packed.

Over the winter I’ve been deliberating over what element of the sites I’ll bring to you as a regular feature this year…2007 was Leaf of the Week, 2008 I gave you Dressing of the Month. So what’s it going to be for 2009? Well, I’ve finally settled on something…watch this space, it’s coming soon.