20th May

 It has been a great week of weather and work.

We now have all the cucumbers in and two hundred and fifty courgettes in the tunnel.

All the main crop brassicas, seventy thousand onions and the seventy thousand early leeks all planted, and the beetroot, swede and carrots are all direct sown, and with only me and Rab.

This year so far, we have not managed to get any seasonal workers.

Usually, we take on three for the planting, that puts four on the planter and I keep them going with plants and taking the empty trays away, and Rab is on the tractor.

But it was just me and Rab, so we just had to make a start, seven days a week and long hours

Evenings and weekends getting ground ready and at night direct sowing the beetroot, swede, and carrots.                                                                                                                                   It is not as hard as it sounds the extra hours are all tractor work, shades on and radio playing.

When the weather is great and the works getting done all is great.

The forecast for the next two weeks is looking pretty settled.

And if it is correct, we will have all the late leeks, squash plants and the first half of the winter brassicas planted by the end of May.

That means we will have finished planting a week earlier than last year, and we already have the cucumbers planted, that usually happens after we finish planting.

This year for a trial I have direct sown the swede and carrots in between the onions.

Seemingly if you do this the fly that eats all the seeds cannot smell them and hate flying up and over the onions to get to them.

I am still a bit un convinced about this.

How do they know this, this fly that I have never seen, but have had, all my swede crop and carrots eaten by it, is completely invisable, I have never ever seen one, they are supposed to be tiny.

So, when I was planting the onions, I would skip a bed, eventually having eight two hundred- and fifty-meter beds ready for planting the swede and carrots.

And a couple of evenings I went down and direct sowed these beds.

Hopefully this does work, and the SAS NINJA fly does not get past my onion defences.

Time will tell, I should know in a fortnight.