Summer Growing
By Polly Misch
Hello, my name is Polly. Chris and I have had the delight of joining the team at Spitalfields City Farm as Community gardeners this July! Chris has come from food growing and tackling poverty with Edible London and me from the garden service team with wildlife charity Walworth Gardens. We’ve been thoroughly welcomed by the staff, volunteers, animals and plants and made to feel at home in this short space of time. The open and friendly nature is striking here and as is the sense of communally mucking in to do what’s best for the farm.
Growing tomatoes and marigolds
Early July the polytunnels were brimming with produce such as lettuce, mizuna, impressive khodu, thriving chillies, and the unusual strawberry spinach. We've harvested these for the shop, cafe and a local chef. Successional planting has continued and sowing and planting in winter veg such as bok choy, carrots and kale. The aphids were wreaking havoc amongst the nasturtiums so they’ve been largely pulled and replanted outside, seeds scattered and have started to come up again. The tomatoes have been abundant in all different sizes and colours from orange cherries to atomic black to green and red striped. Nettle tea has been diluted and poured as a feed and comfrey tea is brewing for the next batch.
Outside, the invaluable regular volunteers are well in the swing of staking and pinching out tomatoes as shoots, making new beds and planting out kale and courgettes. Potatoes, cucumbers, chard and pumpkins are being regularly harvested and are on sale in the farm shop. The khodu gourd and leaves have been disappearing like hot cakes, as have a magnificent range of chillies. The drought has been really tough on the plants and so a lot of watering has been required. We’ve been taking care to avoid scorching leaves in the midday heat, and mulching around plants so that the water is less likely to evaporate off the top of the soil, whilst we think about how we can best plan for future heat and water conservation methods.
In terms of sweet stuff, yellow Mirabelle plums a plenty had an especially good shaking off of the tree house tree aided by a very long stick, mulberries, figs - which took some defending from the birds - and apple picking is ongoing. There was a mystery of what appeared to be a giant plum and greengage cross. Whatever it was, it was exceptionally sweet and juicy.
From saving seeds to planting a focused herb bed for medicinal use, to picking plums and sharing them with goats, it’s been a wonderful summer at Spitalfields.
