Somerset Sky

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been in the Gaunts house community more of which later but wanted to tell you about Vallis Veg in Somerset where I was 2 weeks ago. Chris and Cordelia own 18 acres of land with a market garden in the middle used to provide vegetables for their box scheme. This was my first experience of a commercial permaculture project and like all noble paths it’s a challenging one. Needless to say they’re not in it for the money but because they believe small holding farming is the best way to support sustainable communities. Chris has done a lot of research into energy inputs and yields of industrial farming and organic farming to show the value of permaculture and organic growing and if you’re interested you can find out more at www.vallisveg.co.uk. They have applied for temporary planning permission so they can live on the site as they feel this will help to their business grow and make it more resilient. Educational school visits where children learn about organic growing and running more Permaculture design courses are other aspects of their business they want to develop. They also have some small allotment plots that people living locally can use to grow their own.

Vallis Veg Market Garden

Phacelia as green manure

Market Garden
What they have achieved so far is very impressive given that neither of them had much experience before they started their business apart from some wwoofing in Canada and Vallis Veg is now a designated permaculture demonstration centre. Chris showed me around the many design features including shelterbelts, compost toilet, chicken coop, perennial plot, pig made pond, irrigation system, poly tunnels and many other familiar features. He’s been experimenting a lot with green manures that help soil retain moisture, protect it from erosion and add fertility when they are cut and mulched. I did a variety of jobs every day from tying tomatoes in the poly tunnel, making compost squares to plant seeds in, replanting wind damaged squashes to preparing beds with compost mulch and planting calabrese in them. On Thursdays they prepare the veg boxes for delivery and I picked 18.3 Kg of spinach to put in them, it took quite a while. Having seen the realities of running a market garden it’s not something I would want to do myself at this moment in time even though it is great they’re providing affordable organic vegetables to their local community. It’s a lot of hard work that isn’t made any easier by the current economic climate and the competition from supermarkets even though where taste and health is concerned there is no comparison with their lovely freshly picked organic produce.

Strawberries fresh from the patch

For me the sky is the most beautiful part of Somerset, it seems so big I felt I could reach up and touch the clouds. My other favourite thing was my host’s strawberry patch in their garden at home where I picked delicious strawberries from every morning, it reminded me of childhood strawberry picking outings where we ate as much as we collected whilst picking and my mums delicious strawberry jam spread on brown bread with butter…yum!