Every week I tell myself I must put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard I suppose) and share what we are up to in the garden. The days and weeks just seem to fly by in a blur. As Jan and I were chatting, she kindly offered up a blog post to share our late August news from the garden, and there is also some information later on about a gorgeous session she will be running from her own garden in September. So it’s over to head gardener Jan for our news…

Well, what a summer it has been!  A complete contrast to last year, when the rain felt relentless and everywhere was cold and waterlogged, this year has been the opposite end of the spectrum with high temperatures and drought.  Gardeners, it seems, are never entirely happy with the weather they get, but we are an optimistic bunch and don’t let it stop us from trying.  Personally I have loved all this sunshine, despite having to water everything all the time, although it looks like we will have an early autumn.

We have been incredibly busy in the garden (hence our lack of regular updates) and our hard work has paid off with some incredibly abundant harvests. The restaurant menu has been showcasing our vegetables for some weeks now and it’s great to see how much everyone appreciates being able to see their food being grown just a matter of feet away from where they are enjoying their meals.  Now we are in our second year of growing vegetables here, we are learning more about what grows well, although we always like experimenting with new varieties and crops.

This year has also seen us experimenting with a different method of composting, one which has improved our soils and our yields dramatically.  Good compost is at the heart of organic growing and by increasing the organic matter and biological diversity of the land, the plants we grow are more resilient to the vagaries of our changing climate.  The more we can improve the land, the better the quality and taste of the crops we grow and the less we have to worry about pests and diseases, or even the extremes of weather.

Our notable harvests this year have been garlic, onions, shallots, courgette and tomatoes… all sun loving plants, of course.  We are even growing cherry tomatoes outside (a variety called Ferad) and they are laden with fruit. Not something I would expect to see up here on the North York Moors, but it has been an exceptional growing season. The pumpkins and squash are looking very promising too, so keep an eye out for them appearing on the autumnal menus soon. We have found it particularly difficult to grow salads successfully this summer, given the high temperatures and lack of rainfall, but we hope that as the season slides into autumn that we will be able to have better results with late sowings.

We will be doing our final bits of seed sowing in the next couple of weeks, to get a few last minute crops from our raised beds, where space allows.  This is a great time to grow leafy crops like lettuce, rockets, pak choi and mustard, all of which thrive in cooler conditions and shorter day length.  We have saved our best bulbs of garlic and will be replanting these at the end of October for next years crops.

We have also branched out into growing flowers for cutting, on a small scale and Cecily has been able to pick some beautiful bouquets for the restaurant.  We will be expanding this a little more next year, so we can have cut flowers over a much longer period.

Finally, I will be running a short day course on wild gardening at my smallholding in Harwood Dale next month. I will cover both ornamental and vegetable growing, with the emphasis on growing in a more natural way in harmony with nature. This is a rare chance to visit the garden and spend time learning practical ways to create sustainable flower borders and food growing areas.

Spaces are limited, booking is essential and tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wild-at-heart-the-art-of-untamed-gardening-tickets-1585489765569