Beautiful beets from Frith Farm!!!!

Exciting times!

Our 1st veg box collection will be ready a week tomorrow - for those of you already signed up, start getting excited!

For those of you who would still like to sign up, but haven't, we still have some veg box spaces available from 22nd July - get yourself signed up!

Benefits:
1. Chemical free
2. Hand picked on the same day
3. Grown for flavour - the FLAVOUR!!!!
4. Grown locally - support your local, small scale farm
5. Grown locally - trace-ability, low carbon footprint
6. need we say more?
7. OK then... top quality food, grown by people you'll meet
8. Get healthy

For more info visit our website www.frithfarming.com ... See more

#HelloOctober 🍁🍂
It's a new month and a new day - the colours outside are beautiful.
#MondayMotivation #October #autumngarden

From scraps to spuds - Take a look at how you can #recycle your roast dinner to make #compost for your #spuds!
#RecycleWeek #foodwaste #compost

If you only read one thing today, make it Alys Fowler's great article on why we should all be buying #organic #bulbs

Organic bulbs have been around for a while, but the choice was limited. The picture has just got a lot more colourful

We're proud to work with the Three Counties Traditional Orchard Project (TCTOP) to help protect ancient orchards in #Herefordshire, #Worcestershire and #Gloucestershire.

Read more about this great project... ... See more

Charity helps preserve ancient orchards When Garden Organic teamed with the Three Counties Traditional Orchard project to help restore declining orchards, something very inspiring happened. The UK has only a small number of ancient orchards, covering an estimated 94 square miles. These beautiful plo... ... See more

It's such a beautiful time of year, how is your #autumn garden looking?

If you bring any pots into the #greenhouse or conservatory check that they aren’t diseased, making sure there is no leaf curl, mottled leaves or mites lurking.

Once you have moved your pots take off the top centimetre of #soil and replace with #horticultural gravel. You can replace this with fresh #compost next spring.🌿

If you find our information useful you could help us to continue providing this advice by donating just £2 to Garden Organic today. Please text TIPS17 £2 to 70070 to donate. Thank you 😃 #fridaytip #organicgardening ... See more

Your Organic Garden in September September sunshine is special - golden and gentle. But the growing days are shorter, with dew drenched mornings and cool evenings. Now is the time to gather your harvest before frosts threaten. And save your seeds before winter sets in. See below for advice on soil,… ... See more

As part of #RecycleWeek we have a very unique and practical way for members to #upcycle The Organic Way once you're finished with it.

Why not have a go at making these wonderful baskets and pots. This creative idea has been sent in by one of our members, Caroline Coode

Thank you Caroline, we think they look great! ... See more

#simpleswitch No.10 - If you buy one plant this year, make it comfrey.

Why? Because you can make the perfect liquid fertiliser from its leaves, by just brewing them in water. Bees🐝and other pollinators will love its flowers too.

#simpleswitch #organicseptember #ChooseOrganic ... See more

Fantastic blog just gone up on the Agricology website written by Sally Cunningham about the value of growing non-traditional crops. We recommend you have a read!

We are really pleased to release our new seed packaging today! We decided a new corporate image was long overdue.

For the last day of #seedweek we'd like to talk about the Open Source Seed Initiative.

Patents & licenses on seed have spread to many parts of the world. Soon, farmers and gardeners may be unable to do anything more than rent seeds from the companies who control them. Already, the purchase of many seeds in the U.S. by a farmer is actually a one-time rental of the seed for a single cropping season. The license prevents farmers from saving, replanting, breeding, and sharing seed that has been rented, not purchased. Even plant breeders are prohibited from using these seeds to improve the crops. These legal restrictions benefit a few companies but threaten the food security of our societies.

Open source seed is seed of a plant variety the genetics of which cannot be restricted by patents or other intellectual property rights. Originally developed for computer software, the open source idea makes something like computer code, or seeds, freely available for use, and makes sure it stays freely available. The material is placed permanently in the public domain. It can still be modified, shared, bought, sold, and reproduced. Some people might may choose to improve the material to make something new. But the original material, and any derivatives must remain free for others to use forever, and cannot be restricted through patents and licenses.

You can read more about open source seed on the OSSI website below, or on our website at Real Seeds here: http://www.realseeds.co.uk/ossi.html ... See more

Free the Seed!

It's #seedweek! Read about the grassroots #seedsovereignty movement of across the UK and Ireland.

"Only 3 corporations sell 75% of the worlds seed; if we all start sowing open source, organic seed, we can grow a democratic food system." David Price, Seed Cooperative, Lincolnshire, UK

https://spark.adobe.com/page/TPzSXT2LOg0bB/?fbclid=IwAR0p2U0IevkBfVcswO-ba0r2PbF-AUZSeWqYAFPwuiXoHNE-I5JgMnhDFgs ... See more

New Seed envelopes in action! All running smoothly now after only a few adjustments: Our Ballard Brown Bag Seed Packing Machine from the 1880s. This is the first trial run of our new Art Nouveau paper envelopes, custom manufactured for us as part of our drive to reduce plastic packaging. ... See more

Exciting parcel from USA! First trial batch of custom-made paper seed envelopes for our 1880's "Ballard Brown Bag Seed Packing Machine"! Don't they look fine? Bottom picture shows the back when closed & opened - the green stripe is the latex stickum to hold the flap shut.
Next step is to test them in both our envelope printer and the packing machine.
(they did unfortunately use a draft copy of the artwork rather than the final version, but that's why you get trial runs done rather than just ordering 100,000 👍 ) ... See more

Great to see everyone at Newport Seedy Saturday today. thanks to everybody who came ; hopefully we'll see you all again next year with loads of home saved seed 🙂

Just getting ready for our own Seedy Saturday here in Newport. Anyone local, see you at the Tabernacle Chapel vestry (opposite Long Street carpark) 10am to 1pm 🙂

We got our latest shipment of seed from Italy yesterday, and Kate noticed the boxes on the pallet were now labelled in English. Read the small print 🙂

Are you part of a community seed bank project? The Community Seed Banks Academy may be able to support you with training, information and exchanges. They currently have a call out for applications.

Hopefully you're all enjoying the beautiful weather. This is just a reminder not to get *too* optimistic about sowing just yet.

Remember, in most of the country soil temperatures outdoors won't get above 7 or 8 degrees C until into March. Realistically beetroot, carrots, parsnips etc will just tend to sit and linger in cold soil - even allowing for the fact that we are very likely to get another cold snap.

We find that delaying sowing until late March or into April gives much better results, with later sown crops coming on quicker and more able to outgrow slugs & other pests.

Similarly, sowing indoors on a windowsill may be very tempting, but remember that your crops will need warmth *and* light once they're up, so make sure you'll have somewhere suitable for them to grow on. We've sown our peppers and aubergines in a heated propagator, they'll go out into an unheated greenhouse insulated with bubblewrap, but we'll bring them indoors overnight if the weather is particularly cold. Tomatoes will go into the propagator this week.

My main exceptions to the 'don't sow too early' rule are onions (need a little heat to germinate but then will stand any amount of UK- level cold) and peas which you can start in modules or trays and then put out as soon as they're an inch or so high. Again they'll happily sit through frosts. I'm going to sow my new favourite Jessy sugar snap peas today 🙂

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/germination.html ... See more

To see what we're up to on the farm and in the office as we grow and try new varieties, follow our Facebook or Instagram pages