RIP Terry The Turkey :-(

I've decided to try a slightly different format for my blog posts from now on. At this time of year I'm incredibly busy with sowing, mowing and growing... and that's not to mention looking after all the animals. At the end of the day I'm often just too whacked to keep up with the blog. So I've decided to go over to a diary style blog with occasional longer posts devoted to one subject. That way I get to keep a record of everything I do on the smallholding (and you get a true sense of everything that is involved). Hopefully I'll catch up with myself within a week or two.
22nd April
The broad beans are finally up. I used seed collected from last year and it's always an interminably long wait for them to poke their heads up. I don't plant in the autumn like many do as I don't see the point in such an early start. Besides, if the cold and wet didn't get them, the chickens sure would!
One of our Muscovy girls has started sitting already. I did read that they were very prolific, but she can only just have had time to lay enough eggs before plonking herself down on them.
She's in the corner of the big chicken house.
Two nights ago I got fantastic views of a Short-eared Owl hunting down in the young woodland I have planted. This is an infrequent visitor to the farm and must be on its way back to its breeding grounds. Anyway, tonight it was back again, swooping into the grass hunting voles. Unfortunately I've not seen the barn owls for a while now, not since the farmer who bought the field grubbed up all the scrub in the corner where the barn owl box is. As he did this during the breeding season, it's odds on the owls will have abandoned their nest. Let's hope they return.

23rd April
I'm trying Mangetout outside again this year, but I've bought a variety called Golden Sweet which has yellow pods. Hopefully they'll be easier to spot when harvest time comes around. I constructed a frame for them to grow up made of bamboo sticks interwoven with semi-dry willow which I harvested from around the farm during the winter and I planted them out this morning. I raised them in pots in the polytunnel and have been hardening them off for a couple of days. I prefer not to plant straight out as I've lost them all in the past, either to voles, slugs or pigeons. I've planted them close to a large water butt too so I can prevent them becoming too dry.
I also sowed some Salsify and Scorzonera today. Closely related, these plants have very different roots. The scorzonera has been sown in some of my new 'mini-permaculture' beds as this plant is a perennial and if the roots don't develop enough in the first year they can be harvested at the end of next year instead. If they were sown in with the root crops, that space would be needed by potatoes next year.
Next to them I sowed some Sokol Breadseed Poppies. These should give a harvest of white poppy seeds, as well as a fine display of flowers. The seed heads don't have holes around the edge so the seeds are easily collected.

24th April
Time to sow the sweetcorn. This year I have 100 sweetcorn seeds. I am growing a supersweet variety again. The past two years my sweetcorn harvest has been disappointing after rats moved out of the fields before the corn was ripe enough to harvest. So this year I'll be growing some in the polytunnel and some further from the field edge in my main vegetable plot. I'm planning to undersow it with my prize mangel wurzels!
I'm also giving Minipop another go. This is harvested for miniature cobs before the tassels develop and hence before pollination. Therefore it shouldn't cross pollenate with the maincrop, which would risk spoiling it.
25th April
I have started some cucumbers off earlier than normal this year and this evening I took the plunge and planted three seedlings into the polytunnel beds. I grow Burpless Tasty Green - it's the bulk standard variety but serves me very well indeed when grown in the tunnel. I have tried others but found the yield inferior and the skin tougher. I will grow my cucumbers in two or three batches to extend the harvest period.
26th April
Mangel Wurzels and Finch Seed Mix.
Today I got a very big sowing job done. I have a 'spare veg patch' away from the main one, where I grow tougher crops which require more space. The soil is heavy clay here and pretty compacted, having been arable in the past. One quarter of this area is reserved for fodder crops. They only make a small donation to the animal food bill, but are a top up treat in the winter. I grow mostly Mangel Brigadier, but have sown some Yellow Eckendorff too. In all I sowed 1400 seeds, two every 15 inches or so!
Another quarter is, for the first time this year, reserved for the wild birds. I have sown a finch and bunting seed mix which should help out some of our disappearing farmland birds during the winter and early spring. Luckily this mix was simply broadcast and lightly turned in with the rotavator.
27th April

Hail and snow today and some pretty tasty thunderstorms. So I spent much of the evening in the polytunnel. I potted up all my tomato plants. These are the ones to go outside, always a bit of a gamble in our climate but I'm determined to manage them properly this year, taking off lower leaves and nipping sideshoots to give them the best chance of ripening and avoiding blight.
While I was potting up, I pricked out the celeriac seedlings too. Some of these won't be ready till late next winter so I don't want to hold up their growth even one little bit.
The storms obviously grounded a few migrant birds as my first Whitethroat for the year was calling scratchily from the dyke and a Chiffchaff was calling from the ash trees.

28th April

What a terrible start to the day. Sue was up at a ridiculously early hour and came back in to tell me that she thought Terry The Turkey had been killed. Terry is, or was, our turkey stag, a gentle giant who followed me everywhere. Only yesterday he had been stomping around in the kitchen with me. Up to now he had led a charmed life, firstly surviving Christmas and now settled with a wife and poults on the way. I went outside to investigate, but it was clear from the trail of feathers that something awful had happened. We had given up putting the pair of turkeys in housing at nights since they started roosting in random places. I often got a face full of flapping wing when I tried to move them. We've only ever lost one goose and a couple of guinea fowl to the fox, so this was a bit of a shock. He may even have died trying to protect his hen, who has been sat on her nest in the planter at the front of the house and only has 2 days to go until the chicks hopefully hatch out.

Early Spuds, Broad Beans and Companions



Strong chits on my Red Duke of Yorks

The potatoes have been sitting in egg boxes to chit since early February. The cool entrance porchway seems to have been a good place to do this, as the earlies have developed good, strong chits.
But the big question is, when to plant them out? Some say Easter Friday, but this is clearly ridiculous as that's not even a fixed date. When potatoes first came over to Britain they were, apparently, not well thought of. Devil's food, in fact. Hence the belief that they should be planted on Good Friday. Needless to say, I don't believe in that.
Others say to plant out on St Patrick's Day. For me that's a tad early. I don't want to be spending cold evenings earthing up potatoes to try to stop the frost nipping their leaves, nor do I want to be running in and out with fleece, trying to keep it weighed down and avoid churning it up in the mower.

Almond blossom signals time to plant the Early spuds

For this reason, I go early on the Earlies, but the Mains can wait till Good Friday! (Well, actually about the second week of April.) March 17th is still a bit too early, even for the Earlies. I tend to wait a week or so. To compensate, I have six plants already poking their leaves above the soil in the polytunnel. I've grown these in the soil this year, as previous attempts to grow them in the polytunnel in bags have not gone well, mainly due to difficulties in regulating their water.

Maybe a better sign for me to start preparing the way for the Earlies to go outside might be the blossoming of the almond tree. That's more likely to take into account the vagaries of the weather in any particular year.

It has to be said, another factor in my decision has to be when the school holidays fall. For two weeks holiday gives me a great chance to catch up if I've already started falling behind.
And it doesn't take much for that to happen. My long weekend in Latvia, for example, coincided with a weekend of perfect weather and perfect soil conditions. By the time I'd returned and made up all the work days I needed to, the soil was too dry to rotavate.
But heavy overnight rain was forecast for late last week. This is the very best type of rain for a couple of days later and the soil was just begging to be worked one final time before being planted up.

Now, I had intended just to rotavate a few of the bean beds and a couple of the potato beds. The broad beans were a little overdue to be sown. Having said that, we've still got some in the freezer from last year so there's no rush to produce the first beans.
As it was, I ended up rotavating for nearly 8 hours yesterday. I can't tell you how much my body knew about it last night! The soil was in such good condition that I just kept doing one more bed. I decided to stop when the tank of petrol ran out. An incredible 18 beds later and that finally happened, just as I was finishing anyway.
Mr Rotavator the Motivator had done me proud. As a reward, I have booked him in for a service.

The leeks had to make way for the rotavator,
so I've healed them in until I need them.

I'd worked so hard on this, though, that I never did get the broad beans sown or the Early spuds planted. With rain forecast for midday today, I was up nice and early. My muscles had had a chance to recuperate and I was out into the garden. The broad beans took no time to sow. I used seed saved from last year, Broad Bean Bunyard's Exhibition. Having tried Sutton and Aquadulce, this is the variety that seems to serve me best.

The potatoes didn't take too long either. I don't bother digging almighty trenches. As long as the soil is well worked, I just place my seed potatoes and sink each one as deep as I can get it with a trowel before all the soil falls back into the hole. I then simply go along each row drawing up the earth. I mark everything with a string. It's surprising how, once you've buried the spuds, how quickly you begin to forget exactly along what line they were planted.

The Earlies ready to go in.
I leave as much space as I can between rows and run the rows
so that the prevailing wind can blow down them.
Hopefully blight won't be a problem with the earlies,
but last year it struck as early as June.

As a new precaution this year, I hauled some old chicken wire over the bed until the soil settles down. Otherwise the few chickens who can scale the fence into the veg garden plus the resident trio of ducks and the guinea fowl all do their best to make the earth flat again!

Oh, I should have said. I have settled on Red Duke of York and Arran Pilot for my earlies. The Red Duke of York are my favourite, for they are floury and make excellent chips - there's not many early spuds you can say that about. Arran Pilot are a good, solid early variety and they seem to keep pretty well in the ground in case you've not eaten them all come the summer.

One last word. I used to grow pot marigolds in the trenches between my rows of potatoes. They are a good companion plant. However, I have decided that I'd rather leave nice airy corridors instead. Also, growing the marigolds made it virtually impossible to weed between the potatoes. I know they crowd out most weeds, but our fertile fenland soil ensures that the occasional stinging nettle, and boy ours certainly do sting, can give you a nasty surprise and really spoil your day when you're harvesting.
The marigolds will still find a place in the garden. I'm growing them between the asparagus plants this year in an effort to control the asparagus beetles. I grew tomatoes there last year (another good companion for asparagus) but don't want to keep growing toms in the same spot.

I have also tried planting a horse radish plant in each potato bed in the past, but I find that they do not really get established before the potatoes get dug up. Maybe I should be more organised and plant them two years ahead! I don't think that's likely to happen. Besides, they'd probably get mangled by the rotavator as they disappear below ground for the winter and are only now just starting to poke their crinkled leaves above the surface.

Well, that rain has come and the wind's picked up, which is why I've retreated indoors for a while. But I'm back out in a moment. The poached egg plants have self-seeded from last year and I want to move them, for they are there as companions to the broad beans. It may just be luck, or the exposed site, but I've never had blackfly on my broad beans (you know what will happen now!) as long as I've grown them with poached egg plants underneath. Besides, they look pretty and the bees like them too.

Barcelona Beans

Barcelona have Messi, Neymar and Suarez up front. A ridiculous embarrassment of riches.

I have a similar embarrassment of riches. I have Borlotti, Rocquencourt and Cobra, plus Tendergreens, Canada Wonders, Pea Beans and Blue Lake - an embarrassment of beans.
They all grow well (as long as I am patient and leave sowing them until uncomfortably late in the spring). They all crop well. They all taste delicious.

I also grow runner beans, two types. I feel I should grow runner beans. Every veg patch has runner beans. I can't be a proper gardener if I don't grow runner beans. If you know your football, runner beans are my Fred. In the team, but nobody quite knows why.
To be honest if you put a runner bean and a French bean next to each other, I'd go for the French every time. And there's no risk of ending up with a mouthful of stringiness (even 'stringless' runners end up stringy if you neglect picking them, which I inevitably do when all those crisp, fresh French beans are growing right next door.)

I do like the flowers, though, as do the bees. So the runners survive in the plan, but just for drying and using through the winter.



The French beans
You'll have to excuse the long grass - the mower's broken... again.

The French beans fall into two categories. Borlottis, Pea Beans and Canada Wonder are all grown just for drying, for the beans inside the pods.

The rest are grown for the pods, to be eaten fresh or sliced and frozen for later.
Cobra beans are climbers, which crop early and heavily, but which are gone all too soon. Blue Lake are similar. There's nothing between them really, but I suspect that if I measured the yield carefully the Cobras would just edge it. Besides, they have wonderful black beans inside. The Blue Lake have white beans.
Then there are the Rocquencourts. Dwarf yellow beans which snap crisply and have a wonderful waxy texture. Even with a failure first time round (too cold, too dry, didn't make it past the slugs and rabbits), the second attempt which I netted has yielded several bags of beans for the freezer.
So that just leaves the Dwarf Tendergreens. These came in a mixed packet from Poundland or some such shop, so I wasn't expecting too much. In fact, I forgot about them until yesterday when I noticed bunches of beans hiding below the leaves. So I picked a few to try and they were disappointingly good, even the ones which had grown a little long and fat. I say 'disappointingly' as this leaves me with my Barcelona bean situation. A ubiquity of quality.

Then there are the broad beans and, just for the extravagance, the Yardlong beans in the polytunnel.

So, here's my team. The final eleven.

Borlotti Bean 'Lingua de Fuoco'

French Bean 'Canada Wonder' (kidney beans)

Pea Bean

Runner Bean Armstrong (red)

Runner Bean 'White Lady'

Climbing French Bean 'Cobra'

Climbing French Bean 'Blue Lake'

Dwarf French Bean 'Tendergreen'

Dwarf French Bean 'Rocquencourt'

Broad Bean 'Bunyard's Exhibition'

Yardlong Bean

 

Just don't make me choose one to leave on the bench.

Welcome to the world, Mr Bean

Water from a tap and water from the sky are two completely different compounds.

 

A few days ago I connected up the hosepipe to fill all the animal drinkers and duck pools - the ducks have new pools so were most excited. quacking happily and nodding their heads up and down.

Happiness is...

While I was waiting for them to fill, I inspected the onion sets. A couple of them were just beginning to emerge, but none of them was exactly in a hurry. I inspected the broad beans too. More precisely, I gazed at the soil in search of something that didn't resemble a marigold seedling. But nowt. This happens with broad beans every year. They wait until I've almost given up hope, then they appear.

Overnight it rained. What a result! For rain water doesn't just keep plants alive, it breathes life into them. So I entered the garden this morning and voila!

The first broad bean seedlings
shoving the soil out of their way
and onions two inches tall!

Generally speaking, broad beans are the first outdoor sown seed to come through in my veg patch. From now on its onward and upward.

 

The shallots put on an amazing spurt of growth too.

Broad Bean Bumper Crop

Broad beans as they stood
before the storms

The couple of storms we've had of late (most welcome they were too) half flattened the broad beans, so I decided that today we would harvest them all.

I have grown two varieties this year. Neither of them did I attempt to overwinter, for we have got down to 16 below during each of the last two winters. Not only that, but the ground at the end of last year was completely waterlogged. But come spring, broad beans are always one of the first crops in the ground.



Sue busy podding beans



The Aquadulces I bought for 10p a packet late last year from QD. They have grown well, though not so tall or so prolific as the Bunyard's Exhibition, a variety which came in a multipack of beans from a pound shop!



Tall isn't necessarily a good thing though, especially in such an exposed location as out here on The Fens, but I have always found that shorter plants give shorter pods too.



Some of the Aquadulces had strange black marks on the outside of the pods and some had gone even further, completely black at one end and split open. The culprit seemed to be small caterpillars which had got inside. This has left me befuddled as I can find no reference to this on the interweb. I've had problems with Pea Moth caterpillars in my peas, but I don't think these are supposed to attack Broad Beans.

What's more, it only seems to be the Aquadulces which are affected.

So all the more reason to harvest them all before the crop took heavier losses.

Any which were infested I fed to the chickens, who turned their noses up at them. I seem to remember the chooks not being keen on broad beans last year. So I tried the pigs, with the same result unless I podded the beans for them. Clearly they were not keen on eating the furry pods. Not surprising until you consider that even banana skins are considered a delicacy by Daisy and her daughters.

At least the compost heap would appreciate all the greenery. I was careful to leave the roots in the ground though. The small nodules which fix the nitrogen in leguminous plants were clearly visible and will be dug in to nourish the soil for the brassicas which will follow on in the rotation next year.

Once we had two baskets overflowing with beans, I decided to leave a few plants standing (and staked) so that I could collect the seed for next year, as long as the caterpillars don't get to them all. After all, I may be not be lucky enough to get them for 10p again.



some of today's other harvest
French beans, Yardlong beans, turnips and beetroots 



I left the Bunyard's Exhibition for another day, as these plants, despite their extra height, had withstood the battering from the storms and were looking much healthier.

I'll have to perform a proper taste test. If, as I suspect, there's not much discernible difference, then at least on this year's performance it'll be the Bunyard's seeds I'll be saving and not the Aquadulces. Of course, there's a strong possibility that they will have cross-pollinated as they were grown in the same bed, so I could well end up growing Bunyardulces anyway!

And finally, Sue has insisted that I point out that she does not always dress so skankily as in the photo above. It's just that she's been doing lots of this...

and this...

Harvest is upon us

OK, we've already had the rhubarb and the asparagus. And most welcome they were too.

But for the last couple of weeks harvest has been well under way. In fact, some crops have come and gone already and the freezers are starting to groan.

It all started with the soft fruits. Punnet upon punnet of strawberries, enough to share a few with the guineafowl. It's been a good year for them.

Strawberries in preparation for freezing.

They lose their texture when frozen, but still make excellent jams and sauces.

The gooseberries weren't far behind. The Red Hinnomakis were the first to ripen and the most prolific. This variety is incredibly sweet. Close your eyes and you could be eating a grape.

Meanwhile some of the veg were responding to the warm weather. Turnips swelled nicely, both outside and in the polytunnel. The courgette plant in the polytunnel - I never meant to grow one in there, the labels must have got mixed up - started throwing out its offerings, closely followed by one of the more advanced plants outside. A night of heavy rain magically transformed skinny green fingers into fat, foot long giants.

Elsewhere in the polytunnel, hidden amongst the jungle of leaves, I came upon a wealth of French beans. I am growing the climbing variety Cobra in there and it is yielding a huge quantity of beans. Unlike some others which I've grown previously, Cobra's beans don't seem to get tough and stringy if you miss them by a couple of days.

The Borlottis and Pea Beans are producing pods too, but these will be saved for the beans rather than eating the pods.

And the potatoes have finally swelled. We've made a small dent in the Earlies, Arran Pilot and Red Duke of York, as well as starting on the Charlottes.  

I pick a little from each crop and suddenly
we have enough to more than fill our plates

Peas are ready too now. I have grown Sugar Snaps, Mangetout and normal peas. Unfortunately I seem to have a problem with the Pea Moth in my garden, which means that each pea in each pod has to be checked for the tiny caterpillars which burrow into individual peas. A complete pain, and it means that the Sugar Snaps, whose pods I would usually eat whole and raw, have become a bit useless. Still, the Mangetout are still OK as long as I catch them before the peas swell.



You can't get this freshness and crispness in the shops.



The broad beans have done exceptionally well this year. I wasn't intending on freezing any, but we've hardly even made a dent in the harvest and I don't want the beans inside to get too big and leathery.

 

But I've saved the best till last. For on the way to the chickens I get to pluck fresh raspberries every day. The varieties have got a bit mixed up now, but the tastiest are definitely the smallest ones, the most difficult to pick and definitely not the ones you would ever find in a shop. Imagine a ruby with exquisite taste. No. Imagine hundreds of rubies, then more and more every day, for the raspberries have been very fruitful this year.

Not every crop has fared so well this year. It's been a very poor year for dwarf beans and, as I've mentioned, the Sugar Snaps will be going to the chickens. But it looks as if we'll have plenty enough to keep us extravagantly supplied in delicious fresh food. And when that runs out there'll be a freezer full of produce and a pantry full of jams and preserves. If my planning goes right, there should still be some more hardy veg coming through the winter and there'll be a store of root crops in the ground or packed in boxes in a cool, dark place. Oh, and there'll be mountains of pumpkins too.

The greatest delight about all this is that we've put all our efforts into it and now we are reaping the rewards. And what a reward! For what you can buy in the shops just falls flat on its face, both for choice and most especially for freshness. The crunch of a carrot pulled straight from the ground, the juiciness of a strawberry ripened by the sun while still on the plant, the bite of a gooseberry teased from the prickly branch, the freshness of a peapod plucked straight from the plant, the earthiness of a potato fresh from the soil.  

All these things make our harvest special.

Broad beans, peas and asparagus pea pods with bacon and chilli.





All our own produce.
A gastronomic delight.

Chickens to go back in their pen.

From tomorrow, the chickens are banished from the spare veg patch!

For they have now discovered that they enjoy the leaves of the mangold wurzels, which have only just seen the light following the removal of the sowthistle jungle. Hopefully they will have had a significant impact on the slug population.

Migrants still in garden

Fortunately three Willow Warblers and the Whitethroat have chosen to hang around in the garden. This is the delight of autumn migration. Instead of being in a rush to get to their breeding grounds, birds hang around feeding up. The willow warblers in particular have become very showy flitting about just outside the lounge window. I have spent many a moment engrossed in their antics.

A new exercise fad?

Pulling weeds is an excellent all-round exercise. I can certainly attest to that after yesterday's efforts. In fact, maybe it could become the next fad in exercise. I could make a living and get my veg patches weeded.

The reason I mention this is that I promised myself (and Sue) that we'd have some days off this holiday and today seemed like a good choice to give my body a rest. So off we went shopping to a wholesale nursery just outside Wisbech which lets Jo Public in. We did very well indeed, keeping our spending below the three-figure mark! The back of my car resembled a mobile Chelsea Flower Show Garden.

It was tempting to buy several of everything, as drifts and patches of plants look more natural and have more visual impact than a random assortment of individuals. But this is where I need to be patient. For my next area of learning is going to be the world of propagation, especially now that I have my polytunnel. We cannot possibly afford to fill our garden with plants bought from nurseries, but if each plant can multiply, then just maybe...

A gastronomic delight

On our return, I roamed the veg patch trying to come up with some inspiration for what to cook with the reduced price pair of trout we managed to get today. Potatoes, in some form, are still obligatory with every meal. Despite the strike of blight we still seem to have a decent selection of potatoes in the ground. They just need a little sorting.

I picked four different types of courgette before they got too big - a glut is just about upon us now. However, they've been on the menu in one form or another for the last three days too. Best of all was Sue's curried courgette soup yesterday. She even managed to thicken it with a few potatoes.



Broad beans, peas and asparagus peas.

As I passed the broad bean plants, in various stages of cropping, I remembered that somebody (me!!) had left the freezer door slightly ajar yesterday and we had some streaky bacon to eat (thanks Squiggle and Curl). These two ingredients would combine beautifully. And why not throw in some peas too. And the asparagus peas are podding up now, so a few of those for variety.


Last time I cooked up a batch of broad beans, I loosely followed a recipe for broad bean and chilli mash. The delicacy of the double-podded broad beans went really well with the zing of the chilli, so I decided to incorporte this into my meal too.

So we ended up with broad bean, peas and asparagus pea pods with bacon and chilli. And baked trout and chips too. The result was a gastronomic delight.

Monday 6th August 2012
Sunny intervals with occasional torrential downpours again.

and then there were seven.

Tuesday 8th May 2012
After a night of rain, the smallest hole in the clouds hints at a sunrise.

And then there were seven...
Life after the childcatcher.

A night of heavy rain created a quagmire in the pig enclosure. Just imagine if I'd had to catch them in this!

First job of the day was to move all the seedlings back out, indoor to greenhouse, greenhouse to coldframe, coldframe to sheltered outside position.

Just as I finished that job, I heard the beeping of a lorry reversing into the yard.
The polytunnel! ... All 28 packages of it. Now I just need to wait for a warm, sunny weekend with no wind. Should be up by August then!

The calendar reminded me, too, that today was day 19 for the incubator eggs. Two days to go before due date. This is important, since now they need to stop being turned and I need to raise the humidity in the incubator. With a bit of luck, we'll improve our hatching success rate this time.


The weather was nothing to shout about today, but it was nothing to shout at either. It actually stayed dry enough for me to get out and plant a few more seeds in the veg beds.

I've always achieved 100% success with germinating broad beans, but this time it looks like I'm down to about 50%. It seems a long time ago that I poked these seeds into the ground - I seem to remember them sitting in very dry ground for a couple of weeks, since when they've been sodden. No real surprise, then, that they didn't all get through. So today I filled the gaps. This will count as my second sowing of broad beans, ensuring that they do not all crop at once.
The pak choi seedlings have not fare at all well either. I suspect slugs this year. This is one vegetable where seed packets do not seem to contain a century's supply of seed! Anyhow, I have resown the seeds and applied a liberal sprinkling of slug granules (not the type which poison everything, but clay pellets which the slugs shouldn't like to crawl over). As I trimmed the (now very long) grass edging to the bed, it became apparent where the slugs were living. They have clearly enjoyed a month of rain, as well as my pak choi plants. 

Last seeds to be sown today were some of the quick growing brassicas - radishes and turnips, which get sown every few weeks to give a constant supply.

I am painfully aware that there are more seeds which need to go in soon (well, last week really) but a small delay won't do much harm. They won't get far until the weather improves anyway.
But the native weeds have really been enjoying the weather. Their seeds have been laying in the soil since last year and got off to an early start. Now they are racing ahead of all useful plants. That reminds me, I must do a post soon on "weeds", some of which I actually encourage in the right place.

The soil today was perfect for weeding though, even the most deeply rooted dandelions and docks coming straight out, roots and all. So that little job kept me busy till 8 in the evening, when I only stopped because the builder came round to discuss our forthcoming upheaval.