Hello all and hope you’ve had a great week. It is such a relief to have some slightly warmer weather the past few days after how brutal last week was. We’re busting it with outdoor jobs, cracking on with the polytunnel repairs and renovations. We’ve been focusing on tunnels one and two, the very first tunnels that we built seven years ago, which we got from a derelict strawberry farm in Abington. There’s now a housing development there and we think it’s great the tunnels still live on at Flourish rather than end up in landfill.
It's been heavy work and a lot of lifting to clear the tunnels and reinvigorate the soil, dig up some nasty perennial weeds, and remove all of the allium bulbs that we use for edible allium flowers in the spring and move them. We’ve also been doing a lot of machinery repairs and our gorgeous Amish manure spreader that we still use to this day (although tractors pull it now, rather than horses), has had a nice paint job (above). We’ve also found time to plant loads of daffodils bulbs that will beautify the entrance of the farm in spring.
Now we’re really back in the swing of the new year, we’re kicking off a “Meet the team” series, introducing (or re-introducing) our 2025 growing crew, with the faces and stories of the people behind the seeding, growing and harvesting of your crops this year. In part one we say hello to three of our seasoned growers…
Heron’s (above, right, with Calixta) passion is machinery, plants and soil, so farming is the perfect place for them. As well as managing their own small CSA on a local Fenland farm, they enjoy farming vegetables and grain here at Flourish. Heron says: “I believe our farmland can provide healthy and nutritious food, increased biodiversity above and below ground as well as fufilling and challenging jobs for people.” Catch Heron’s latest reflections on the resilience of our grain crops in the latest Flourish magazine. Heron’s favourite crop? Maris Widgeon wheat.
Our resident herb enthusiast, Linda, has been at Flourish for several years. She previously lived in Italy, where seasonality and high quality produce is valued, and she returned with the “growing” bug. Linda volunteered at a number of city farms in London before doing a salad traineeship at Growing Communities in Hackney and taking on one of their patchwork sites for a couple of years. She was also involved in community garden work, setting up growing spaces on estates in Southwark and Lambeth, as well as some restaurant rooftop growing for a restaurant. Linda’s favourite crop: radicchio or basil.
Michael worked as a chef in the North Hertfordshire area for 11 years. During covid lockdowns he got an allotment and started to get more interested in where the food he was using on a day-to-day basis came from. His journey to discover more about the health of the food, soil and planet started, and he discovered Flourish. Leaving kitchens behind to become a full-time grower, Michael’s now been with us for several seasons. Michael’s favourite crop: brocolette, January King cabbage, mooli or White Trepadeira chilli… or Sashimi cucumber.
Meet more of our team next week...
