17th February

Last week there was no weekly newsletter from the farm.

The reason being, I was away for my yearly week of skiing.

This year I went to Italy and Erin was with me.

My first time skiing in Italy, and Erin's first time on a plane, and skiing abroad.

Next Year Calum will be joining us also.

We arrived back on Saturday, and on Sunday I was at the farm Rotovating tunnels.

A bit of a difference in one day, skiing and an Italian sunny mountain, to the next day sitting on the Fergie.

There were a few jobs I knew I was needing to get to straight away as soon as Monday came along.

And a Monday is always quite a hectic Day, so I though better just get things done.

We have spring onions, Ruby chard and Spinach in the wee tunnel and the greenhouse, and they are needing planted.

I didn’t have time before, with all the tunnel clearing up work needing done.

So, today (Sunday) I rotovated two ninety-meter rows in the big cosy tunnel, then rotovated four rows in tunnel three, and lastly rotovated tunnel two.

After rotovating I then put on a roller that marks holes in the soil for where we then plant the plants.

I done this in the cosy tunnel and tunnel three.

Tunnel two is where we are going to lay down all the leek and onion trays after blocking the seeds.

So, in here after rotovating, I run up and down the tunnel making the soil firm, then go over it with a machine that makes everything level.

Once that is all done, it is time to pull out two rolls of terminate.

These are for the trays to sit on top off after we have blocked the seeds.

We will be doing two hundred and ten thousand seeds, between the leeks and onions.

So that will be one thousand four hundred and fifty-eight trays, all lying down in tunnel two.

These seeds we always do first.

Firstly, they take a long time to germinate and sit in the trays the longest before they are ready for planting.

And secondly these seeds don’t mind a bit of frost, so it is quite safe to do them early.

The next thing I need to look at, is ordering forty new legs for the cosy tunnel, and eight five-hundred-meter rolls of rope, and a dozen bracing bars.

One cosy tunnel got a bit of damage from the storm and lost its sheet.

This ne we will re sheet first, as the polythene is roped down.

Tunnel four and five, I will wait a wee bit, these tunnels the polythene is earthed in.

They re sheet better if there is a bit of heat on the polythene, which helps stretch the polythene getting it tighter.