Spring has arrived...hopefully!

At last the temperature has crept up to the dizzy heights of 10 or 12C, without any wind chill! A beautiful day today, barely a breath of wind all day and proper t-shirt and shorts weather. However because it was a clear starlit sky last night there was a ground frost this morning. Hopefully nothing to trouble the crops under fleece.

This is one of the carrot fields - first lot under fleece, sown in mid Feb have germinated and need weeding, the next rows (not yet under fleece) were sown last week and should be up before the end of the month.

Early potatoes are poking up, rhubarb is unfurling, asparagus is looking lively and the glasshouse is filling up with seed trays with green shoots in!

There's always a danger of falling behind before you've started at this time of year, with so much to do. With cultivations, sowing, planting and weeding to do the list of jobs is as long as my arm.

Oh, and there's there a polytunnel to put up and cover, 700 strawberries and 150 blackcurrants to plant. Better stop typing and get on with it.

Some nice photos from the morning commute to work to finish with...

Local Food map photos

The season gets going

I always think that I don't really get busy growing until mid March - but in reality it's much more like mid January! Recently I've been planting early spuds, sowing carrots, oats, wheat and phacelia outside. In the glasshouse lots of salad crops, leafy crops, flowers, herbs and polytunnel crops have been sown.

The temperature outside varies from a quite pleasant 10C to a much less pleasant wind chill of 3 or 4C; however it feels like spring is just round the corner and everything will burst in to life.

This is a photo from Sunday when it really did fell warm in the sun - could almost pass as a summer's day!

Compost and glasshouse

In preparation for a new blackcurrant area I've been carting some nice compost on to beds that were previously used for vegetables. This is good stuff that's been rotting steadily since last summer and will now provide nutrients for the currant bushes.

Meanwhile in the glasshouse the first spring salads have been sown in modules - things like mizuna, rocket and mustard. These should be ready in around 8 weeks, in time for Easter (hopefuly...). All these are members of the Brassica family and are hardier than the more tender lettuce, though not nearly so good as lettuce in the warmer summer months.

Whilst the days are drawing out with light until 6.00, this week is looking cold with East and North Easterly winds again checking the start of the season. We wait and see whether spring will break properly before the end of February...

First spuds have been planted!

Yesterday was a day of rain nearly all day, but today looked promising from the start and developed in to a stunning day for January. Air temperature was around 11C, but feeling much warmer than that in the sun out of the wind - indeed it was this year's first t-shirt and shorts day!

Perhaps somewhat foolhardily I decided it was time to plant some early spuds. Ordinarily I would've started planting 2 weeks ago, but with the cold spell I decided to hold back until now. If it turns frosty again I'll be OK until the leaves start showing above the surface...

The soil is wet, but the seaweed has made a tremendous difference to the feel of the soil - spongy, dark and fertile. Two sacks of Swift have gone in, covered with fleece. I would expect to ridge these up in the early March and to be digging them in early May. Fingers crossed...

Won't be long before planting now

January comes round again and the seaweed is rotting on down nicely with all the winter rain. I actually did some rotavating in preparation for early potatoes yesterday. The first planting will probably be end of January, with the aim of lifting in early May; second planting in late Feb to lift mid May onwards and the rest in March which will be second earlies and maincrop from June through to September.

After the quieter months of November and December suddenly the farming year starts to pick up pace again, leading up to the very busy period from April to June when all the sowing, planting and weeding takes place - with a fair amount of picking thrown in too.

The weather has been quite cold recently, we even had some snow and ice. But in comparison with everywhere else it's been mild really. The question is, will it stay mild enough to plant early spuds, or will it go cold again? If only we could know an accurate 3 month weather forecast!

Beetroot

These intensely red leaved purple roots are often overlooked as a great vegetable. Stacked full of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants they are revered by nutritionists and cooks alike. And the colour you get out of them when making soup is something else!

Here are some beetroot in rows in the market garden back in sunny July; we also had a load more down at Lawrences fields. There was a fair crop this year, they like the sandy soil once they get their roots down. But rabbits have been a big problem, where the fluffy beasts have literally munched away at the tops of the roots in the field.

Raw beetroot grated with grated carrot has to be one of the best ways of eating it, though Borsch (soup) is also very good. We're also busy pickling the excess beetroot at the moment, which will be available to buy next spring.