2021 Week 3 - Seeds of Hope

The Passing of the Seasons

It's been a quiet week here. Mornings zooming into school and darkness by 5 means that I have to squeeze the smallholding work in when I can.

One problem with this time of year is that one or two days of bad weather, if they coincide with my free time, can set everything a week back. And so it's been this week, with the clear, cold air replaced with wet and windy conditions, even a little bit of snow, though we escaped very lightly compared to those hit badly by Storm Christoph.

There were some slight hints of Spring with Great Tits and Robins warmed into song with every odd ray sunshine that forced its way through. But just to remind us, the flooded fields and hawthorn hedges are still jumping with winter thrushes.

The five roe deer have reduced to four, which is a little sad. They spend much of their time sat out in the open, occasionally bounding across the landscape when something spooks them. But a couple of days back I was watching these four and then, scanning across the fields, I came across another three. Each group has one stag with their wonderful suede-like antlers. I guess this is the result of the rutting I observed a while back now. A happy ending.

I have invested in a simple rain gauge which indicated some very significant evaporation after the heavy rain on Tuesday night - either that or the ducks have found a new place to drink from. I'll need to find a new site for it.

I've been shifting compost from the heaps onto the beds. The polytunnel is as empty as it's going to be so I am topping up the beds in there as a priority. I've been cutting and chipping wood too. The woodchip goes onto the perennial beds to keep the weeds down and gradually to be naturally incorporated into the soil. I've had to se some on the muddy paths too, as mud skating is no fun when you're trying to push a barrow full of compost or animal feed. 

Seeds of the Future

Outdoor work has been a bit splodgy of late and has quickly resulted in numb fingertips. This is where the polytunnel comes in handy. Early sowings have germinated well. The mangetout is shooting up as are the lettuce seedlings. They are already out in a mini greenhouse in the polytunnel.

I am most pleased that the coriander seeds I stripped from their stalks last week have already begun to germinate strongly. That's one more thing we will be completely self-sufficient in. Coriander is a bit of a marmite herb, but I love it.
I've sown some lupin seed which I collected last year too and the first four varieties of onions have been started so they will hopefully have plenty of time to bulb up later in the year.

In preparation for the imminent tide of sowing and growing my peat-free compost delivery arrived this week too. I order for a few people so I can get it delivered. I do the same with animal feed, ordering for half a dozen smallholdings. It saves everybody having to drive a long way to pick up stock feed and it's a nice way to keep in touch with each other, in a social distancing manner of course.

All three of my yacon buds have thrown up shoots too. More about some of these novel vegetables I am growing in future posts.

I'm glad I was super-organised this year and ordered all my seeds very early, for again this year seed companies are already closing their order books. Wouldn't it be fantastic if this renewed interest in gardening continued when the new normal emerges

Carrot clearance

A more familiar crop is carrots, though I do grow many different colours. The outdoor crop got a bit forgotten again this year, mainly because they were bountiful in the polytunnel. Before I lost them all, we pulled the carrots from the wet soil and Sue did a sterling job of processing them. When picked so late, there were plenty of rejects and cut off ends to keep the geese happy for a while too. There is one variety called Resistafly which is unattractive to carrotfly. Unfortunately they don't yet do one called Resistavole. In fact I think mine are of the variety Irresistavole!

Judging from these two carrots, there should be plenty of baby carrots next year - well, I think that's how it works anyway.

Covid news
Sadly this week we experienced the highest death figures of the pandemic so far. All hope lies in a successful vaccination roll out. Locally we've been aware of more cases than previous and I must admit to feeling much safer on the weeks I am teaching from home rather than in school.

A Glint of Light

There has been reason for hope this week too. We are finally rid of Trump. It was uplifting to hear Joe Biden's inauguration speech. Things need to calm down and many poor decisions and angry policies need to be reversed and the damage mended. 

Hopefully we can see the way out of a very dark winter.

Towards the end of the week, a couple of very late evenings had me researching my newest project, edible perennials. My plans have, as usual, escalated. I don't really know how to do things in a half-hearted way.

This will be the main subject of next week's post.