It’s been far too cold to do anything at the land since November, though I’ve still been harvesting at the polytunnel and doing a few small deliveries. There has been lots of admin and planning to do.
A good 40 hours+ was taken up by Soil Association record keeping, where I have to show records of everything sown and yields for the whole season backed up by seed packets and financial records. I had kept good hand written notes on sowing, but needed to input them manually. But had kept very chaotic records of yields when harvesting for markets. So it took a long time to piece together. A valuable lesson learnt. I will be getting some help to design an Excel doc with formulas that does what I need from my notes, and I will be updating it as I go.
The financial records for 2013-2014 were better, but still took a couple of days to wade through for the tax return. It was my first one, 2014-2015 records need a good sort through, but got til next Winter to sort out. The new look Manchester Central Library and Radio 6 got me through it.
Definately more interesting than record keeping was planning the garden for next year. I have almost doubled up the land, to nearly half an acre, which is exciting. I will be growing beetroot, chard, mange tout, salad, cherry tomatoes, courgettes, heritage kale and herbs as normal. I will also be growing broad beans, french beans, peppers, cucumbers, squashes, spinach and aubergines this year too.
I have also been planning to do some marketing this year, afterall this is my third year growing on this site. And have finally decided on the name Reddy Lane Market Garden. I am in the process of putting together a website about the growing and selling of the veg I do. And one day hopefully in the not too distant future I will have a lovely banner to put on the farmer’s market stall with all my contact information on.
