Crofting on the land!

Although KelpCrofters does most of its growing at sea on our seaweed farm, we also have a 3Ha (8 acre) croft outside Plockton, on the mainland by the Isle of Skye, where the business is based.  This time of year we are frantically trying to get planting completed on the croft before our attention turns at the end of April to the busy harvesting season on the kelp farm.

The polytunnel and numerous veggie beds have needed sorting out and digging over, and seeds bringing on on multiple window ledges.  Nowadays, the croft also benefits from the fruits of our seaweed operations; we have just finished adding compost infused with dried seaweed to the new potato bed, and turned over what will be the onion and leek bed which received a healthy covering of seaweed last autumn before it was covered with a spare tarp for the winter. And our silage fields are being sprayed with our liquid seaweed biostimulant as I write this!

It has been busy, but we are on top of things to the extent that we have had time to write this blog!  In the next week or two, we will be heading back out to our crofting operations at sea to start the main kelp harvest.  After a couple of years refining our harvesting procedures and equipment, we are less busy in preparation for the harvest this year.  Much of the crop is to be washed, chopped and ensiled for biostimulant trials and sale for spring ‘26, but we also have a healthy order book for various food grade dried products.  Fingers crossed the good weather holds and harvesting is as smooth as we anticipate.

Spreading seaweed compost into the potato drills

KelpCrofters seaweed biostimulant being sprayed on grass crop (silage).