Use a potato peeler to slice the courgette in to ribbons, give them a little pinch of turmeric (or a splash of saffron if you prefer), squeeze the juice of half a lemon over them and season with salt and pepper, cover and leave to marinate.

Chop your mushrooms and leave to the side.

Grate the parmesan, and chop some fresh parsley.

Dice the onion and 4 cloves of garlic and gently cook with butter and oil in a large pan, try to avoid browning. Make about a litre of hot vegetable stock. When the onions are translucent add the rice cook for a minute until it also starts to go translucent round the edges. Wet the rice and onions with a healthy glug of dry sherry and simmer until reduced completely. Then add a good ladleful of the hot stock and stir continuously. When all this has been absorbed, add more stock.

This is the tricky bit. You can probably afford to leave the risotto for a minute or 2 at a time, So after about ten minutes of cooking the rice put some butter in a pan and start to fry the mushroom shred the last garlic clove and add that.  Continue adding more stock, stirring continuously, until the rice is cooked.

Stir in the mushrooms and Parmesan, Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper and cover.

Put the frying pan back on the at with some more butter, when hot through the marinating courgettes on with a goodly sprinkling of parsley, let them heat though they do not really need cooking the lemon juice will have done most of that.

To serve, place the risotto into serving bowls. And top with a hand full of the courgette risotto and another springing of parsley, if you have courgette flowers they can be added as well.

Indeed as the cold nights have been threatening frost we have been experimenting with a three pronged protection strategy for our potatoes. We have been earthing up – the traditional creation of ridges with soil to protect the young leaves but we have also been mulching with straw and grass as well as fleecing.

The tomato plants that have been going out into the tunnels have just been sitting and looking rather sorry for themselves. However as the month progresses and the weather improves (fingers crossed) the tomato plants that you planted out last time should start growing nicely up the supporting structure you fashioned.  Once this happens you should start to carefully remove side-shoots as they develop. These side shoots are the leaf growth that comes out between the leaf truss and the main stem.

Obviously plants inside (and especially in pots and grow-bags) will require frequent watering. This does need to be done with consideration as irregular watering can result in splitting and blossom-end rot, whereas over-watering can impair flavor. Feeding isn’t essential for soil-grown plants, but those in bags or pots benefit from regular feeding. We tend to use comfrey tea which we make but anything will help.

Outside the Broad Beans should also be putting on good growth. These may need a little support as they reach flowering stage. If you are lucky by the end of the month you might see some tiny pods appearing. Broad Beans are always tastiest when the pods are small however it is fine to grow them to a reasonable size. If you are lucky and the tops of the plants have kept relatively free of black fly they can also be boiled and used as a vegetable. The earlier they are sown the less likely they are to become infested with black-fly.  The black-fly will not harm the beans as long as they don’t develop plague like proportions.

Back in the greenhouse we are sowing our winter squash seeds – growing squash and pumpkins is so rewarding and great fun with kids who can never believe how the small seed eventually yields such an enormous squash!  As with everything else you have sown find a suitable container, fill it with some compost and pop the seed in. Keep it well watered and warm. Simple.

  We are also putting our new compost bays to work so it might be a good time to think about compost production in your garden. Although things are busy with the weeds starting to impose themselves in between weeding and planting sessions if you don’t have a bin, it would be a fantastic long term investment to get one. You don’t have to buy off the shelf you can make one with old pallets or almost anything you can fashion into an approximate square.  Next month we’ll talk about what to put in it!

At the beginning of the month the garden team at South Farm worked on the willow arches to keep the shape for this season. It is staggering the growth these plants achieve every year ! Cuttings were taken from the willow and Osia’s at this time to use around other areas of the site.

When we unpacked the Buddha we were relieved to find that it had made its 3,000 mile journey without any damage. Each one of these sections takes four people to lift ! So great care was taken to move and construct a frame that would support the weight.

Measuring for a bespoke tray with a local steel fabricator to support the weight of the buddha and allow the piece to be held together.

The construction begins.

Forming the shuttering for the concrete pool and support structure.

Dimensions for the stainless steel infinity tray are taken. This allows an even spread of water across the face of the Buddha.

Care was taken to fuse the oriental Buddha with the old English buildings at South Farm. Here we are using the same ‘Cambridge white bricks’ used a century before in the building of the chitting shed.

Left: The Buddha is lifted and secured into place. Right: A local roofing contractor was used to construct a traditional lead cap finish to the brick work.

Habitat creation and management
We have completed our winter habitat planting. At South Farm we are always working on increasing our bio-diversity and this year we have added another tranche of trees around the holding. The more habitats we can create the more natural predators we can host. Although we are not certified organic we follow organic principles and it is interesting that in most of the studies, important differences were found between the biodiversity on the organic and conventional farms, with substantially greater levels of both abundance and diversity of species on the organic farms: Five times as many wild plants in arable fields, 25 per cent more birds at the field edge, 44 per cent more in-field in autumn/winter; 1.6 times as many of the arthropods that comprise bird food; three times as many non-pest butterflies in the crop areas; significant decrease in aphid numbers.We are proud to see ourselves as part of the organic farming movement that is widely acknowledged as reversing the trends in conventional farming that have caused the decline in biodiversity.

The tomato journey continues…
Last month we left our tomato plants nicely potted on and protected against the frost. The next stage is planting them into their final growing position and when to do this can be a tricky decision. We are always gambling with the season, trying to get the earliest possible crops, and some of our early plants on the edges of our double bubble wrapped polytunnel have suffered with the hard frosts cutting some leaves. However this does not necessarily mean the end of the plant – if it has happened to yours just prune the plant back to a healthy looking leaf truss and it will recover. This does demonstrate the gamble with frosts at this time of year. The sooner we get the plants into the tunnel and growing away the sooner we will be able to harvest lovely fresh tomatoes but if they go out and we have a hard late frost we risk losing the plants. So you need to really think about how frost will affect the location you will be planting your plants into. As a rule of thumb we aim to plant outside in early June, and in our unheated greenhouses from mid-late-April depending on the seasonal frost situation.

When you do take the plunge and plant out do so at approx 40cm spaces, watering the hole well. Bush types require no supports however other cordon types will need canes or string to support them. At South Farm we use a string system which requires a timber support in our tunnel roof. We then tie a string which hangs to about 10inches into the ground. The root ball of the plant is then wrapped in the string and buried into the soil. This gives a really firm base and provides a support for the plant as it grows. The planting out process is effectively another potting on process and as such take off some of the lower leaf trusses and bury a good amount of stem – the plant will again throw out new roots and it will help strengthen the plant. Once planted out the roots should be kept moist but not waterlogged.

Broad Beans
Your broad beans should now be putting on some nice growth – keep the plants weed free and well watered. Every time you weed and water try and add some organic mulch around the plants. This will help keep the water in the soil and feed the soil as it breaks down. As we are now entering the grass cutting season an inch or two of grass clippings will do the trick nicely. Enjoy watching the beans springing into full verdant growth!

We are always gambling with the season, trying to get the earliest possible crops, and some of our early plants on the edges of our double bubble wrapped polytonal have lost some leaves.

100g Baby carrots
150g Purple sprouting broccoli
100g Sugar snap peas
150g Asparagus

4 Bacon rashes
3 Garlic cloves

For the sabayon
2 egg yolks
15g caster sugar
2tbsp water
1 lemon zest and juice
Chives
Sprig of tarragon

This is a great warm salad; it is both light and rich, and full of the optimism of spring.
The majority of it is simple to prepare, but my favourite part is the sabayon, something I made a lot of as a younger pup, the joy is watching it grow never ceases to amaze. It also makes a great dessert.

Set a pan of water to boil.
Prep the vegetables as they need.
Blanch the vegetables to your preference, it best to do them separately as some things will take longer to cook than others. While this is happening put oil in a frying pan and add the bacon, put a slit in to the garlic cloves and add them to the pan. Cook until it’s nice and crispy.

When you’ve finished cooking the vegetables use the pan of water as a bain-marie, in a heatproof bowl whisk the egg yolks & water, place over the simmering water, and whisk for 4 minutes or until thick and frothy. Be careful not to let it get to hot and scramble the egg.
Remove from heat and mix in chopped chives and tarragon, and lemon juice and zest to taste.

To serve make a medley of the vegetables then top with the bacon, and dress with the sabayon. Top with pea shoots if you have them.

It is also time to cut back the Miscanthus varieties around South Farm, these have provided great value through the season culminating in flowers in the summer but also hold up really well through the winter. Cutting back not will ensure strong growth again this year.

If you fancy adding try adding all little plum source or hoi sin source to the sweet chilli you can even put both in.

1.5kg Pork belly

sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat oven to 220C/200C fan/gas 7. Take the pork out of the fridge and pat the skin dry. Score the skin and rub salt all over, making sure it gets into the cuts in the skin. Sit the pork in a large roasting tin, ideally on a rack, and roast for 30 mins.
2. Reduce heat to 170C/150 fan/gas 3 and roast for 1½ hrs more. Turn oven back up to 220C/200C fan/gas 7 and roast for 20-30 mins to crisp. Leave to rest on a board for 10 mins before carving

For the sweet chilli sauce

• 4 tbsp caster sugar
• 500ml water
• 1 oz dried chilliy flakes (we where very kindly given some by one of are volunteers, these are from new Mexico,USA)
• 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh ginger
• 1/2 small white onion
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar/ white vinegar
• 2 red wine vinegar
• optional
• 2 tbsp  strawberry jam
• 1 tbsp Fish sauce

Method First make the chilli sauce. Put the sugar and water in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir to dissolve the sugar, and then add the chilli, garlic, ginger, onion, vinegar and strawberry jam. Bring to the boil and simmer for 8–10 minutes to let the flavours develop and the liquid turn red from the chilli.

Turn up the heat and allow the sauce to thicken. When it takes on a sticky consistency, Add salt and fish sauce to taste, you may also what to add sugar and vinegar to your liking, remove from the heat, tip the sauce into a bowl and allow to cool. When you have pulled the pork out for resting, start the vegetables. I love my vegetables fresh and simple, both Pak choi and sprouting broccoli benefit from butter, garlic(what doesn’t), and a little cooking, 5 minutes should do the trick.