Can a rainy day send me packing?

First day of serious rain. Ride the whole way to the Allens Garden without waterproofs, deluding myself that despite the drizzle the skies will clear and I won’t have to spend the day in the rain. But the rain it does continue, pretty hard at times, and I have to pull out my cycling jacket on arrival to try to keep somewhat dry throughout the day.

Following on from Compost Awareness Week last week, rather aptly my main job for the day is clearing all the pathways of weeds. Bucketload after bucketload of fresh green matter for the compost bin. I keep having to check with Ru that I am pulling up the ‘right’ stuff. Weeds are tricky when they don’t seem like weeds - feels wrong to tear out edible plants, like the stray spinach and flowering rocket which escaped from the raised beds and is resolutely growing on the paths. But ultimately, since it’s composted, it all goes back into the vegetable beds so there’s no time to be sentimental. And as, even on the pathways, it competes for the nutrients in the soil our crops need, it’s a job worth doing. A few of the leaves do sneak their way into our lunchtime salad though…

Not too much planting required this week and certainly no watering. Ann-Marie deals with the half bed of new rocket plants, first spending the morning doing the back-breaking preparation. A new volunteer gives her a hand with the planting. And after lunch, Precious and I plant out some ceylon spinach – a climbing variety that I’m excited to see grow up the stakes we set out. Then onto harvesting…Yes, I’m skimming over the finer detail this week because I finally want to tell you what goes on at Springfield. Saved it for a rainy day…

Once we’ve harvested what’s ready at Allens we go across to Springfield. A 10-minute bike ride across the bottom of Stamford Hill with trailers loaded up with produce. 9kg comes from Allens Garden today, so with a target of 15kg this week, we only have to pick 6kg at Springfield. Once we hit the total we go inside the greenhouse where ‘the mixing’ takes place – sometimes this can be done outside but if it’s raining its best to be indoors - good for salad, better for me! A third of each quantity of picked leaves, i.e spinach, mustard leaf, mint, green oakleaf lettuces, chicory etc. etc. is mixed by hand in a trough lined by a plastic sheet - it’s like tossing a massive salad.

Ru mixes the salad - although delicious, long stemmed chicory can be challenging to get into the bags.

After the mixing, there are different jobs to be done. We make sure a good selection goes into each 100g (sometimes 80g) bag. One or two people stuff the bags, carefully so as not to destroy the leaves. Someone weighs them, adds an edible flower for good measure and wonderful colour, and then they are sealed and placed in a crate. Each crate takes 15 bags. Once we get to the end of the first mix – around about 45 bags – we do another and then a final one. It’s amazing how quickly you learn how much each leaf weighs to get the bags exactly right! At the end of 150 bags – and this can go up to 200-250 at the height of the growing season – the crates are loaded up on the trailers or Ru’s brox ( = a carefully crafted pedal-powered vehicle with a large carrying capacity, pictures still to be taken ) and taken to the Growing Communities HQ to be included in the week’s veg boxes.

A salad bag - packed with care and ready to find its way to a Hackney dinner plate - no food miles racked up here.

By this time everyone is definitely ready to go home – weary but a good long productive day, even though more than a little damp. Next week I wonder if we’ll see the effects of all this rain in a greater harvest, for the day though, I’m praying for sun…

Weekly stats…
Grower: 1 | Apprentices: 2 | Volunteers: 3 | Support workers: 2 | Dogs: 0 | Fox: 0

Harvested from the site…
Salad greens & edible flowers: 15kg | Rhubarb: 800g | Asparagus: 250g | Oregano: 30g | Mint: 60g | Coriander: 30g | Tarragon: 50g | Sorrel: 60g

(All herbs are in addition to the leaves used in the salad packs. They, along with the asparagus and rhubarb, are packaged up and sold at the stall where people pick up their veg boxes.)