A Deal Litter Diary - Two - 21th September 2020 #DealLitterDiary

 

It’s the start of the Autumn Term and afternoon picking is a shrewd move as I get seen by children from the local primary and they ask their parents what I’m doing. 

After 8 weeks of serious collecting, I experience a first. Someone sees me, takes a step back, bends down and picks up a piece of litter they’ve just spied amongst the weeds against a hedge. The item is proferred at a distance, and I meet it with my sack. I begin chatting with this environmentally-conscious 10-year old, who helps his Nan pick cans and other stuff when they are out together. He tells me it’s his birthday on Friday. 

I head for the primary school and as luck has it, meet the Year 6 teacher, so I can hope that this young lad gets recognized for the best bit of public spirit I’ve seen in a while. Let’s hope his generation re-kindles the attitude to KEEP BRITAIN TIDY and be more responsible for their surroundings.

#DealLitterDiary is written by Helen C 

email: CleanUpCrew@dealwithit.org.uk

#GBBeachclean Deal Beach Sunday 20th September 2020

Thank you to our 15 volunteers on this afternoons Deal Beach clean 21kgs collected

We had a team of 6 also doing the Marine Conservation Society's Great British Beach Clean

Deal Hop Farm Harvest Report 2020

The community hop growing project in the town - the Deal Hop Farm - has had an excellent 4th season despite the drought, aphids and COVID.

The three harvest days in the town produced at total green harvest of 211.3 Kilos of prima donna hops. About 50 kilos of these went immediately into a Green Hop Pale Ale (brewed by Time & Tide Brewing) and the rest went for professional drying at the Berry and Redsell farms.

We got 40kilos of dried hops for beer brews with Time & Tide between now and next September 2021.

In all we harvested across 175 of our 265 sites with some 307 people involved in the harvest. 

The average harvest per rhizome did drop from 925grams to 650grams - and over all we were down by 30% on our 2019 harvest. 

Much of this was put down to the drought and timing of the aphids spread. This does seem to be reflected in many commercial hop farms in Kent who had cut hop production anyhow because of reduced demand from COVID but also either saw drops in harvest or alternatively had to irrigate the hop gardens which for the UK is very unusual.

The range was 9grams to 4kilos from one plant. The largest garden site produced 4.9kilos and our largest community site 11kilos

Lots of good feedback on our COVID secure harvest drop offs and we are very grateful to the volunteers who ran the drop offs, social distanced community hop picking, our marshalls for arranging pickups from sites who could not make it or were shielding.

#DealHopFarm

For details on joining please email info@dealhopfarm.org.uk

Photos

Harvest 1 - 3/9/2020

Harvest 2 - 10/9/2020

Harvest 3 - 17/9/2020

Deal Litter Diary - One 10th September #DealLitterDiary

Welcome to my world! September 10th, 8 weeks in of my new outdoor hobby, and I scour the Ancient Highway – again. As time passes and the vegetation changes, I find bottles, cans, packets, wrappers that I’ve missed – they reveal themselves. Quick! Pick them up before the wind claims them and they get carried to the sea!

Today I’m on foot – my bike’s being serviced. Bags 1 and 3 get sorted at Chequers, and agreed by the Manager, I tip my load into their recycling bins. 

But bag 2, filled by the time I get to Restharrow, is an issue. It’s too heavy. I hitchhike – not for me, for the rubbish. Within minutes a van stops and my knight in shining armour happily takes the nearly overflowing bag onto his passenger seat. I tell him where to drop it off so I can sort its contents. When I get to North Deal Community Park, there it is at the entrance.

Every little helps.

#DealLitterDiary

Helen C

email: CleanUpCrew@dealwithit.org.uk

Deal Hop Farm Harvest starts today #hops

 The 2020 Deal Hop Farm harvest starts today.

We will see many of of the members (we have 265 sites this year) later today at Captains Garden or at our next ones on the 10th and 17th.

We are also hop picking the Captains Garden's Hops at 3pm if you would like sample some hop picking

We have about 80 sites booked for this evenings drop off - please follow the social distancing guidance when dropping off #hops

Time & Tide use tonights hops in their Green Hop Pale Ale which should be available in the towns pubs in about 2-3 weeks time

Happy Hop Harvest Day Hopinistas!