22nd April

 Wow what a difference a week of warm weather makes for the plants planted and seeds blocked in the trays.

The onions have taken on a huge growth spurt, and half of the leeks are poking through.

The spring cabbage and mixed salad that have been planted are almost double the size from last week.

We also had to rotavate and roll beds in the tunnel, so we could plant the four thousand kohl Rabi and the five thousand Rubi chard.

I thought they wouldn’t need planted until this week.

Rab also managed to get all the brassicas seeds blocked, we now only have the ten thousand squash plants to do, but I’m going to wait a week or so just to be sure the frosts have finished before we start them.

After they are done that’s all the field crops blocked, we will continue to do small amounts for the tunnels throughout the year, but that’s the bulk of it done.

Building the new tunnel was getting on great this week, all the wooden framework is now done, so its just the job of taping up the bolts and brackets so the polythene slides over smoothly and doesn’t get caught and torn, then fixing the bottom side vents, and we can then get the polythene pulled over.

But the plants took priority and we had to leave the tunnel and get on with planting.

So hopefully we get a chance to sheet it next week, but there are jobs starting to pile up, with the bed former machine needing its seventy-four blades all replaced with new ones, this is the machine that prepares the beds in the field for the field plants to get planted in, and the field tractor work is a about to start, when that starts, that takes up hrs in every day seven days a week.

So I do plan to get the tunnel ready for this season, but time is rolling on.