27th March

Last week we got a lot of planting done in the tunnels.

All the spring cabbage, Kohl rabi, lettuce and ruby chard are all planted.

But we have had to fleece them, this week there is forecast of minus temperatures yet again. The cold temperatures were always a worry when I blocked the Courgette, Cucumber and Chillie seeds.

Luckily, they are in the greenhouse with a heater on, and in here the temperature stays at 18 degrees.

But this has also brought them on, in five days we have a lot already through with two leaves.

This is great, if we can protect them until mid-April, and hopefully the worst of the hard frosts should be over, and we will be off to a nice early start in the season.

But we could also lose them all, if we get a really late frost after we have planted them.

So far all the blocked plants are coming on really well, and we are about one month ahead of where we would normally be at this time of the year.

The leeks and onions that I posted a picture of,  have doubled in size.

These plants will be ok if we get a frost,  they will just sit and do nothing, so no real problem here.

Another couple of jobs we got done this week, was replacing all the bedformer blades, as soon as the ground dries out, I am going to bedform about half an acre of ground out in the field, then direct sow Carrots, Neeps and Beetroot, these we will fleece straight away.

I also made two new boxes out of old pallets; these are used for taking all the plants out to the field for planting, we get six thousand plants, per box.

So far the early season has gone to plan, and we are ahead of where we would usually be.

We do still need to put polythene over the new tunnel we put up.

But that job will only take a morning its only fifty meters by eight meters, and it is ready, so the first calm day we will get that job done.