Relaxed Farming - our farm in your classroom

The polytunnel continues to provide us with a fabulous variety of vegetables: courgettes, greens, peppers, peas, salad leaves, butternut squash, pumpkin, parsnip and carrot and the occasional tomato.
Our peppers (first photo) have been absolutely amazing this year. They were planted on the 18th April, the first growth was spotted on 4th May, ten plants went on to grow and then flower and we first began to harvest the peppers themselves on 18th August. Every day since then we have been able to pick as many as we want (usually at least ten) and as you can see from the photo, there are masses still available.
We are not sure why they have been so successful this year (which is a shame because it would be good to know how to repeat this success NEXT year). We have had more leaves nibbled than normal by various minibeasts but this does not seem to have got in the way of the flowers and fruit! We eat our peppers raw in yogurt, stir-fried or cooked in soups and stews. We say 'we' but actually Jack doesn't like them: a fact that David is not at all unhappy about as it means all the more for him!!!
The peas in photos two and three (whole pods and then open pods) are our second crop this year - neither crop has been fabulous but we have had a fair few peas from them. At first we ate a lot of the pods when they were still flat and the peas inside them tiny - these were chopped and stir fried or eaten raw in sandwiches. At the moment however we are leaving them to mature and develop into big, fat juicy peas that, as the photo shows, completely fill the pod and are bursting to get out. Delicious!!