As you can see the field is looking really good with only medium weed growth and lovely healthy plants. There are a number of invaders and you can see we have just this morning pulled all the thistles up.
We leave them on the field to help suppress further growth, by denying light to the soil and eventually the nutrients from these weeds as they decay, will return to the soil and be absorbed by the plants we do want to grow. Now was a good time to remove the thistles before they seed.
Here's a comfrey plant to the right, growing in amidst the potato crop. We like comfrey as it digs very deep and brings up minerals the other plants can't get to. It's important to weed out the comfrey in the potato patch as well, because it is a "hungry feeder" meaning it consumes nitrogen in order to grow. It is not "nitrogen-fixing", meaning growing little nodules on its roots that affix nitrogen in the soil as it grows, such as beans, clover, etc. However, the leaves are full of nitrogen, and once they are cut it is a good idea to get them back into the soil, either as a mulch or to line the trench when planting potatoes, or to make a liquid feed. Here is a bit more about our friendly plant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comfrey . At Radford Mill farm we have a small field dedicated to growing comfrey but I'll post more info on that another day.
Here you can see a morning glory creeper climbing up a potato plant. We shall remove these shortly, before they get too established and the spuds will no doubt all cheer us on!
As a long term established organic farm we pride ourselves on growing natural food so we do not use pesticides to control the crops. Over the years we have enriched our soil naturally and we reap the benefits of this with strong healthy plants that crop well and taste fantastic. If you are in the area of Bristol, why not pop into our very own farm shop and try our wares.
http://www.facebook.com/#!/radfordmill
Mash and chips are best, especially organic!
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