Trill Farm Garden

05/09/2026

01/09/2026

Next week's box has been designed.

See what's in yours, add anything you fancy from the extras, and make sure you're ordered by 8am Wednesday.

View contents: https://shop.trillfarmgarden.co.uk/boxes/veg-boxes

04/08/2026

Surprisingly the leeks are looking really good this year. They did get pretty weedy, but it was mainly big weeds, and a quick handweed today after watering them yesterday has made them look great.

Its certainly looking to be a very mixed year for us in terms of growing, crops that I would imagine doing well have in the main been good - tomatoes, aubergines, cucumbers, squash and then things that don't like the dry heat not doing great - brassicas and French beans (flowers dropping in the heat), shallots (struggled in the wet spring and didn't recover). What it has certainly been is stressful - a lot of moving sprinklers around, working out what to prioritise in terms of watering, working with a reduced team and learning to let some things go and be ok with that.

One thing is for sure - growing doesn't seem to get any easier after 16 years.

02/08/2026

Last chance to book your tickets for Tomato Fest over the next few days. On Saturday 8th August we will open the gates to share what we do with you all and celebrate the deliciousness of tomatoes. Cortona Gelato Lab are making some tasty gelato, Chris The Old Dairy Kitchen has been fermenting tomatoes and starting to prep for the garden supper - check out the booking page for a sneak peak of the menu (link in bio or go to https://www.trillfarmgarden.co.uk/tomatofest.html).

Mark Hix will be doing a little cookery demo and Tom of Tom Nancarrow will be playing some tunes. There will be cider and beer to be drunk, the sun will be shining, and there will of course be the tomato throwing competetion...

30/07/2026

Table tennis and flower growing combine well together. We have mountains of cress and the helichrysum and statice are starting to come fast now too.

We missed the harvest of some of our perennials as we have been too preoccupied with other tasks that took priority and we have not had enough hands to get everything done. The garden is more wild this year as a result of being a smaller team, combined with the job of watering taking up so much time and effort. Learning to accept that some jobs will not get done is tricky for a perfectionist personality, but once it starts happening it can be a bit of a relief somehow. Frustration comes more from putting in lots of effort only to be disappointed in a crop that cannot grow under the conditions that are thrown at it. French beans have struggled with the heat - lots of flower drop, the brassicas also look very sad with the heat and lack of water, along with the huge number of flea beetle, most of our shallots got white rotation, exacerbated by the early spring wet weather. There are plenty of crops that have been doing well though - tomatoes, aubergines, shish*to peppers, leeks are looking good, peas were great.

Who knows what the rest of the season will look like, but one thing is for sure - we will be thinking long and hard through the autumn about how we change things going forward here, to make it more sustainable for our bodies and minds. 17 seasons of growing veg takes its toll and ww need to find a way of doing it that causes less stress and fewer aches.

25/07/2026

Keeping up with watering right now is challenging. We have a lot of new plantings going in - chicory, endive, fennel, other salad leaves, chinese cabbage and more. It's a time of year when we mow down old crops and prepping the ground for autumn and early winter crops.

This year, the ground is so dry that we are having to irrigate before cultivating and planting, as it is just too dry for the tractor implements to go to any depth, and too solid for the trowel to plant. We have to be well organised to get the ground ready for planting, and it starts around a week before the plants are due to go in. We mow old crops down first, then a day or so later we irrigate for a good few hours to soften the ground and get the conditions more ideal for soil life to thrive. We let this water soak in for a day or so before using the spring tines to break through the top surface of the soil and uproot old crops and weeds. We wait for these weeds to die off over the next day or two before power harrowing to create a nice soft tilth before marking out the beds and planting. We have been using our old Massey 135 more in the market garden through the summer as it has more power and makes the job quicker than the two wheel BCS tractor. As it's so dry, the weight of the tractor shouldn't have two much of an impact in terms of compaction. Once the beds are planted we then water the plants in for a few hours to encourage them to root well.

We planted around 6500 chicory this week and have another 3000 or so to go, along with all the orher plantings. Meanwhile we are having to irrigate all of the polytunnels on rotation starting at around 6am everyday, and going until about midday. The leafy veg and salad leaves are the next priority for watering. We are fortunate to have access to water, but have many grower friends who have limited water, and things are much more difficult for them. It's at times like this that we should all be supporting small scale market gardeners and farmers as much as possible as this weather will most certainly cause problems later in the season for autumn and winter crops, resulting in many to struggle financially.