1st June

Finally I got the John deere rebuilt, but the delivery of the new water pump was delayed because of the bank holiday weekend, so it never arrived until Tuesday, much later than expected, so it was a late Tuesday night rebuilding it so we could get the planting started.

So, on Monday I decide we would just make a start on planting the squash plants, because as soon as the John Deere was up and running, we would go straight onto planting the remaining eighty thousand over winter leeks.

With only the auld vintage Fergie to work with it, was going to be planting by hand the old-fashioned way.

We have a bulb holler, which is just a long tool about the size of a spade, the bottom of it is circular, and all you do is press it into the soil lift it out and it leaves a nice size hole for the squash plant, then one goes along dropping a plant in each hole, then another worker presses the plant in and covers it with soil, by Tuesday we had eight thousand sqaush planted and fleeced,

We have to fleece before leaving the field, as the crows come in straight away and lift the plant out to get the beasties from under the plant, I don’t know how much they get to eat, cant be a lot, years ago we left the plants un covered  just to come in first thing in the morning with every plant lifted out.

This week we have swede, beetroot, three varieties of winter cabbage and black kale to plant there is only fifteen thousand to get planted which only takes the morning, these also need fleeced because the pigeons come in and eat their leaves, after these are planted that is all the plants planted that were sitting out desperately needing planted.

Rab has been out in the van for over a month now after Andrew leaving and two unsuccessful van drivers put us back.

We now have a new Driver James who has been a delivery driver before for Evri taking on the Job, Rab will still be doing a wee bit of off each run until James gets to know the runs,

But that only takes Rab away in the morning for a couple of hrs, so as soon as he gets in from the deliveries, he will be straight onto more blocking of seeds.

We have lots of tunnel seeds need blocked and a few thousand more seeds for planting out in the field, and we now need to make a start on hand weeding in between the plants on the bed weeder out in the field.