29th March

We are a whisker away from April, and the field work has started.

Last week we got the dung spread in the field, then ploughed.

Then I went over the ploughed field, with a machine called a triple K, this has loads of spring tynes and crumbling rollers at the back, its job is to smooth out all the lumpy parts of the field, leaving it smooth and hopefully no clods of mud, this then makes bed forming for planting a better and smoother job.

So last week was the start of late night tractor work, this is normal from now until May, now there isn’t enough hours in the day.

So on Sunday and Monday night I was bedforming ground, and getting beds ready to plant broad beans.

These are planted as seed, and should be ready for harvesting around June/ July.

So on Tuesday morning we got our new field planter out, and got around one acre of broad beans planted.

Inside the tunnels, we rotovated and rolled two tunnels.                                      One of these we direct sowed with Choggie beetroot seed, these beetroot are very sweet and come early, and have rings like the rings of a tree in them when you cut them in half, next week we will direct sow more of these in the field.

In the other tunnel, we direct sowed mixed salad seeds these were, mizuna. Red frills, a seed called green in snow, this has a slight mustardy taste and very good when all mixed together with lettuce.

Hopefully next week we will be planting in the tunnels, five thousand mixed lettuce, five thousand spring cabbage and five thousand red Kohl rabi plants.

These were all blocked in February and all looking healthy, and almost ready for planting.