22nd February

At long last the fields have defrosted, and the water pipes have water in them and not ice.

So we have managed to get back to harvesting again, and the blocking re started.

One reason we can’t block the seeds without water, is that when we have the seed trays filled with compost, we then run it through the seeder machine which drops a seed into each cell, there are 144 cells per tray, the tray then gets covered with a thin layer of vermiculite, this helps keep the moisture in the compost.

The Compost is always dry when we put it in the trays, so after the seeds are sown and the vermiculite covering the trays done, we then need to water each tray before we can then take them to the tunnels, with the pipes being frozen for the last few weeks, we are a wee bit behind on the blocking.

So far, we have blocked of five thousand Pak choy, five thousand spring cabbage, five thousand red onions and we are onto the start of sixty thousand white onions.

In the tunnels I got one tunnel ploughed, rotovated and rolled, in here I have direct sown, mixed salad, mizuna and red frills mustard.

This week in another tunnel I will be direct sowing some Spinach.

That’s the new season started now, and before we know it, we will have seed trays filling two tunnels, with plants waiting to be planted, ground needing bed formed, tunnels needing harvested, weeded and re planted and we won’t have enough hours in each day, or enough days in the week.

It’s a good time of the year.