News from Anika at Our Yard at Clitterhouse Farm:

It’s been a busy summer at the farm garden with a great crop of tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, potatoes, etc.

Even though we are lacking the space, we desperately wanted to grow different varieties of pumpkins and squashes this year. The most obvious solution was to create an additional veg plot in the park, next to the Herb Garden: a Hügelbed – which is a no-dig raised bed, built with layers of wooden logs, branches, wood chips, horse manure (we went on a field trip to College Farm in Finchley 😊) covered with a mixture of compost and top soil.

There are many advantages to Hügelbeds:

• They don’t need constant watering.
• The buried wood stores rainwater and releases it slowly during drier times.
• As the wood decays, it generates heat which could extend the growing season.
• And no fertilizing is needed for years to come!

… Amazing!

Back in spring we were lucky enough to receive generous funding from the North London Waste Authority to roll out our Community Composting Project.

Thank you to everyone who has been dropping off their vegetable scraps with us over the last few months. It’s made a massive difference. We are currently collecting more than 60 kg of food waste each week.

We all know that food rotting in landfills is a major contributor to climate change. Composting waste is a simple way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving the quality of soil at the same time.

If you would like to know more, please get in touch. Just email garden@clitterhouse.com or simply swing by on a Thursday or Saturday (between 11 am and 3 pm).

Last but not least, you might know that we celebrated our 10th Anniversary at Clitterhouse Farm a few weeks ago. It was a very special day filled with live music, delicious food, creative workshops and great community spirit.

A big thank you to our volunteers and to everyone who has supported us over the years. It means a lot. ❤️