We started using our own compost this week, which is a mini-milestone, even if the motivation was that we needed something to plant the last of the potatoes into. I hesitate to call it a complete success until we’ve got healthy plants growing in it and we know it was mature. But except for the sticks, it’s dark and fluffy and smells earthy. And Alex is right to point out that if a couple of rogue potatoes can start growing in it in the compost pile (as they had) then it should be fine for potatoes! It still isn’t pH-neutral but we’ll start using it for some other crops as well and see how it goes. It would certainly be a welcome relief if we can use it with confidence.

We’re also figuring out what to do with our garlic, having never grown garlic before. This week we started harvesting the scapes (the stalk that grows out of the hard-necked varieties) and discovered that they are delicious. So far we’ve sautéed them whole and used them chopped up like chives. Next week I’ll make pesto and freeze some. But the process of researching scapes and trying to figure out how to price them (which was extremely difficult!) made me concerned that this “set and forget” crop had been forgotten for too long. Different resources point to different signs that garlic is ready to harvest and I’m completely confused as to whether I should count the number of green leaves, the time since harvesting scapes, or the number of months since planting. So in yet-another inefficient but risk-diversifying tactic, we’ll start harvesting some this week and watch the others. 

Because we’re behind schedule with our supply of seedlings we’ve been leaving plants in the ground after the harvest is finished (if the plants are healthy). Their roots are still contributing to the soil biology and they provide flowers for insects. After the seed shortages this year, I felt a bit guilty that we’re too disorganised to save seed (because too many related crops have been flowering at once). But at the moment we have some surprisingly pretty endive flowers in the tunnel and I think we can save them as long as we clip off any lettuce flowers. We can also save the rainbow chard, coriander and parsley seeds. Hopefully they are more successful than the marigold seeds I saved in autumn – I remember declaring that I would never buy marigolds again because I had so many seeds but I massively overestimated the germination rates!