You can check out my Write Club entry, posted today, over at Emma's blog. It's all about what I get out of being a garden volunteer.

Go read!

Introducing the pigs, July at Occombe

I managed to miss-title last months post. Last month was indeed June and we're now in July. Just thought I'd clear that up before I recapped what we got up to in the garden this month. It was a good volunteer day this month. The weather was gorgeous and there was a cheery atmosphere even though that we were all sad that one of the trainees would be leaving us after today. She is moving on to another garden.

Three Little Pigs 

But at Occombe we have some new friends too. These pigs have been moved to the back of the wartime allotment. They came across on Monday and they are making quick work of their patch. I'm told it will be mud in two weeks and with all the snorting, snuffling and wallowing going on I'm sure it will be. It's nice to see pigs back in the garden as the garden is on the field that used to belong to the pigs. When Stephen and I first started volunteering the pigs still took up part of the field and they used to be fed our weeds. Since then the forest garden has moved in on that spot and the wild flower border has grown up massively.

July in the Garden

Cuter Than Your Average Farm

The last weekend of the month is set aside to visit Occombe farm for the monthly volunteer day down in the garden. This month we arrived a little late having stopped for tiny things: wild strawberries and snails. Our first job was to help pick flowers to go in the shop that day. They sell carnations and sweetpeas straight out of the garden for £1.50 a bunch. I know carnations aren't the most popular flower but picking them still wet after the night's rain and seeing the fragile white petals strong enough to take whatever was thrown at it... well, you get an appreciation.

Seed Sowing at Occombe

Last week was our monthly volunteer day at Occombe farm. You can read about what we got up to in my post on the Occombe farm blog. 

February Forest Garden Volunteer Day

Digging holes in some poo to plant the wind break 

On Saturday we went back into Occombe farm's Forest Garden for a volunteer day. You can read my account of the day over on the Occombe Blog.

Forking comfrey is clearly too much fun

Kale Crisps

Every food blogger and their dog has probably made a post about Kale Crisps (or chips if you'd rather) long before now but mine where so cute that I had to take their picture anyway. I made these from half a bag of mixed Kale grown for the One Planet Food Project we're involved in at Occombe farm. The bag had a fantastic mix from the super tasty straight stuff to the cool and crazy curly variety. Bits of purple stuff, bits of green. A great advertisement for biodiversity and organic farming. Also: it was adorable.

If you're wondering about the method I tossed the kale with a table spoon of olive oil and a couple of pinches of salt, popped it in the oven at 120, turned it after 15 and kept going until it was dry. Not very precise but even Stephen agrees that the results were tasty.

The Time I Made A Fence

Weaving Hazel for Our New Fence

Over on the Occombe Farm Blog you can read my post about making a hazel fence for the One Planet Food project.

The Start of The Forest Garden

Last Saturday may have been my favourite volunteer day at Occombe farm yet. We planted the beginning of a really cool forest garden. 

This is the scene when we arrived. At the top of the garden there was a field with little sticks in. Each one had the name of a tree for our top layer. A pile of compost, a pile of muck and a pile of tools where waiting. We had a quick talk about what the plans where. I'm especially excited about the hedge row that's going to be planted as a wind break but the idea of all this new fruit has me salivating. We came out from the cold to have a chat about just what exactly forest gardening is before grabbing our tools and getting to work.

Volunteer Party with Spinach and Pine Nut Parcels Recipe

Another impressive spread was put on last night this time by the One Planet Food team at Occombe Farm. Plenty of snacks where provided along with two soups from the garden - spiced squash and leek and potato - and plenty of fabulous hand made breads. The table was even more impressive as far as we were concerned because every vegetable used, except for the carrots, came straight from the garden that we've been working on all year.

We watched a slide show towards the end of the evening that brought across just how much work was done. Was saw the year in 5 minutes and it made us appreciate just how much has been done, this year, to get the pig field into a functioning vegetable garden. There's now a clay oven, two poly tunnels and god knows how many plants. It's very, very cool.

One Planet Stir-fry

I'm just going to open this post with one thing: no Dad, we didn't get snow today.

Did that stop if from being cold, however? No it did not. It was so cold we couldn't mark out the new forest garden at Occombe at today's volunteer day. Instead it was tidying up. One of the things that isn't particularly pleasant to tidy up are the perfectly edible, yet odd looking leaves out of the polly tunnel.

Chard and oriental greens: if they have holes in them people won't buy. So we had to go through the rows picking out the imperfect giving the young, new growth chance to thrive. Of course neither the volunteers nor the gardeners like waste so it got given to anyone with a bag and a desire to eat a lot of greens.

Sunflowers, daffodils, and Chinese artichokes

Saturday was the monthly volunteer day at Occombe Farm’s Community Garden. There were only five volunteers this time (perhaps due to the colder weather and forecast of rain), but along with Emily and Rachel we managed to get a lot done.


The first task was to cut down the sunflowers, and hang the heads to dry in one of the polytunnels. After clearing the sunflower bed we planted it up with daffodil bulbs. We had asked a local supplier if they would like to donate any, and were pleasantly surprised to receive a massive sack which must have contained at least 200 bulbs.


While clearing mint and nasturtiums from another bed to make space for even more bulbs, we started coming across Chinese artichoke tubers. They're a strange-looking vegetable, which we compared to an energy saving light bulb or a line of white marbles fused together. There were hundreds of them, and you can see a small selection in the photo above (see if you can spot the very well camouflaged grub too). In the evening we baked a few of the artichokes with olive oil, salt, and pepper. They have a similar texture to potatoes, but are quite sweet.

One Planet Food Pizza Party!

It was incredible to see. Not only had the garden grown, the raised beds we sowed in March overflowing with produce, more volenteers than we knew existed turned up. We'd all arrived for the celebratory meal. We'd pick produce, prepare food in the new kitchen and fire the clay oven (for the first time!) to get perfect pizzas.

Gardening with piggies

It's that time of the month again! The worn out one. But nice worn out. The worn out that means you have done something. On saturday we were back at Occombe for the One Planet Food Project volunteer day.

We have fewer pictures this month. Most of our jobs were of the necessary but unglamorous variety: mucking, weeding, mulching.

Our first job was in the herb plots. We all got together sorting and laying out the herbs ready to go into the soil. We met two new volunteers and chatted with them about the herbs. In Torbay on placements they are from Colombia and Germany. So we had some explaining to do about herbs in British food and swapped some tips. Thyme tea, for instance, to ward off a cold.

After the herbs Stephen and I broke off to fetch wheel barrow after wheel barrow full of poop. It was time to muck the fruit. On the fresh mulch we sowed some poached egg plants which will hopefully look lovely up between the blackcurrants and strawberries. Good for bees too.

Then it was all together again for the weeding. Lots of weeding. By the beds, by the willow, every place there were weeds. We didn't waste them though. The pigs at the top of the field where getting fat off our hard work. And I got very excited because I got to feed the piggies.


After we weeded we put down another layer of mulch, wood chips in this case, to suppress anything we may have missed or anything that thinks they can make a go of it now. I practised my raking around the willow. On the other side of the living fence though a wild flower bed was being prepared.

After the fresh compost was put down we walked over it to pat it down and then chucked on some wild flower seeds mixed with sand. It will be fun to see what pops up.

One Planet Food Project, One Exhausted Blogger

Yesterday was the One Planet Food Project volunteer day at Occombe Farm. Stephen used to volunteer for the Coast and Countryside Trust over at Cockington so when we heard about this project that involved weekend volunteer days and the chance to take part in a community growing project we knew we had to get involved.

We arrived apologetic and late after walking the four very hilly miles between our flat and Occombe. Before I moved here It was hard to imagine how far four miles really could be... not any more.

As we arrived jobs were being given out. The beautiful onion sets, shallots and Jerusalem artichokes pictured above were all to go out yesterday. And yes, that is some oca nestling amongst them.


Our first job was a decorative one though. One that my balcony only experience had actually trained me for. We washed (yes the inside and the bottom too, despite Stephen's objections) this wonderful tub. It's a reclaimed mixer bowl. And yes, we drooled thinking about how much bread we could get in that.


We put in some rocks for drainage (although at the time we couldn't find many. Later when digging a bed over we wondered were they had been) followed by some grit and lovely Devon mud. The soil here is very much clay. And red. The idea is that a layer will help retain water in the pot and, unlike the rocks, there was plenty of soil knocking around. Although it was mainly stuck to our tools, clothes and wellies.

Then it was time for the compost and the lilies. We covered it with grit and stuck in some twigs to remind us where the plants are going to appear. So at the moment it just looks like we are growing baby willow. But wait.


Our next job was to dig over bed number 14 ready for the shallots. This is were we found all the stones. We also found out that Stephen is a natural with a folk and I am useless with a spade. After digging over we topped off the bed with a bit more compost and buried the shallots up to their necks. It would have been much easier if we weren't being watched...


By these cuties! Some very, very, very mucky pigs. They were a major distraction. At least halving productivity, especially when they were being fed. After the pig watching we teased a baby bay tree into one of the beds.


So on to the job that took most of our day and our strength. We planted a Victoria plum. As far as we're concerned planting a tree is incredibly exciting. Like weekend in Paris exciting. We found out that it's also very exhausting. Like weekend up Everest exhausting.

Our first job was to fill the raised bed. On top of the soil we put in manure and compost, mixing it all together. Then we got to the fun bit. Digging the hole. We took turn at digging, dislodging stones, digging again, dislodging yet more stones. Okay, perhaps there wasn't even enough to build a very small rockery but it was still tiring. The last four or so inches we needed help. A man with better tools, not to mention body strength.

At last the tree was ready to go in. Add a stake (and later a bunny guard) some protective fencing and some mulch and we were done.


While we were planting the tree the whistle blew for lunch. We snacked outside with our picnic box full of yum. Including banana cookies from Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.



Of course lunch didn't go uninterrupted either these chickens legged it over to our bench. They had been comically running about the farm all day and we where more than happy for them to join us.


After the tree we needed something with a little less sediment so we helped one of the young volunteers sow the salad bed. Lettuce, radishes and spring onion. Afterwards we covered them in a blanket of fleece to protect them from the birds and give them a little boost.


I feel a bit bad. This is a very one sided account of what was done yesterday. We couldn't have done half of what we did with the help of all the other volunteers never mind all the incredible stuff they did. It's amazing to be part of a project like this, we'll definitely be going back to watch it grow up and, of course, to do some more digging. But like any volunteer effort what we did as individuals was just a drop in the ocean. It's when you see what we accomplished together that you get a sense of how incredible it is.