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.

Carrots, carrots, carrots, carrots, carrots...

Read on for details

Growing carrots is surprisingly tricky. They are really hard to get going.

So many times they just don't appear. I should rephrase that. So many times the slugs get to them before you even see them.
Starting them in modules inside where they are more protected is not really an option either.

I have found a way round this problem though. The polytunnel has proved to be a perfect place to grow carrots directly in the ground and I have had a bumper crop from quite a small space.

As for the outdoor carrots, it is the first sowings of the year which are the most unreliable. In fact now that I have the polytunnel option, which also brings the harvest even further forwards, I probably won't bother with the first outdoor sowing dates.

Another problem with outdoor carrots is carrot flies which can smell a carrot from miles away. They lay their eggs and the larvae burrow into the carrots and munch away. The polytunnel keeps the carrots safe provided the doors are shut. Outside I have found the only sure-fire successful deterrent to be covering the crop with mesh.

And so to this year's crop. With the early outdoor sowings largely failing and the crop covered with mesh, I confess I just kept walking past and not checking what was happening. There were plenty enough carrots for our needs being produced in the polytunnel.

Two days ago it was time to sort out the bed where the carrots were sown, to clear it and prepare it for next year's crop which will be potatoes.

To my surprise there was a bumper crop of carrots! Some had grown overly large. Some had slug holes, though not too many. Some had just grown into very inconvenient shapes as I had failed to thin out the seedlings earlier in the year.
I'm not setting a good example here, am I?

I pulled, scrubbed and cleaned up a whole sink full of carrots and more, then went onto the internet in search of inspiring carrot recipes.
I like to cook like this, picking a crop and then having a day preparing all sorts of dishes.

On the menu were soups (fantastic for using up bulk amounts of vegetables), a couple of dip-type concoctions and some frittery type treats.

I worked on three dishes at a time. Most of my effort went into peeling, chopping and grating which left a bowl full of treats for the chickens and geese (as any food which has been near inside a kitchen is not permissible to feed to livestock, I obviously performed the vegetable prep outside).

By the end of the day I had a kitchen full of carroty treats.

Left to right: Falafels with carrots hidden inside; sausage, carrot and cumin hash; roast carrot soup; Thai carrot and lemongrass soup; carrot, cumin and sunflower seed dip; carrot, sweet potato and feta fritters; carrot pate with lime and coriander seed. Spot the theme?

Ran out of time to make carrot and walnut cake. Tomorrow.

All recipes can be found on the internet.

My next day like this will be leeks (if the pumpkins in the hallway don't start going soft).

Almost a Valentine's Goose Egg

16th February 2017
A typical day on the smallholding, with all sorts going on. It is the variety of tasks every day that I love.
In no particular order:

Trip to Holbeach to stock up on nails, disinfectant, fencing staples and onion sets.
Carrots and turnips sown in polytunnel
Stables cleaned and disinfected
Blackberry posts erected
First goose egg.
Pyrethrum arrived.


A few words about some of these. First off, the first goose egg of the year! Just two days after Valentine's, the traditional start of laying. Sue snaffled it as goose eggs are her favourite. We'll take the eggs for quite some time before leaving the females to sit on a few eggs. After trying goose for the first time a few weeks ago, we'll definitely be aiming for a few young birds this year.
The carrots and turnips are the first seeds I have sown directly into the soil this year. I only grow very early turnips in the polytunnel as when it becomes a humid jungle later in the year the turnips are very quick to rot.
Meanwhile, the mangetout plants are shooting up and will be ready to go into the beds when they are 3" high.

The pyrethrum arriving is very exciting. Pyrethrum has always been a favourite of organic gardeners. As with any chemical it is still a last resort, always being better to encourage natural predators. But as I have said before, the polytunnel is hardly a natural environment. Pyrethrum has only just come back onto the market, having disappeared due to crazy and prohibitively expensive licensing rules clearly designed to favour the big multinational peddlers.
Although harmful to bees (it is after all an insecticide), if applied in the evening it does its job and won't hurt the bees in the morning.

I am trying a new way of erecting the blackberry posts. The problem is that when you strain the wires which will support the canes, they inevitably pull the posts inwards and the wires slacken off. This time I am using an idea from a very old book, nailing underground cross-braces onto the posts. They greatly increase the surface area which is pushing against the soil and should hopefully limit movement.

17th February 2017
I put up bird houses today. A colonial nest box which I hope the sparrows will find. It will probably be the house sparrows, but I am really hoping it is tree sparrows. Both these species are colonial nesters. I moved another old bird box which was incorrectly sited - facing south-east west, into the sun and the prevailing wind and rain.




Finally, an open-fronted teapot nestbox designed for birds such as robins, wrens and wagtails. I have tucked it against an ivy clad trunk near the house.
While all this was going on, unbeknown to me Sue was shooing a Sparrowhawk out of the hallway.

Next job was to finish off the blackberry posts using a system called Gripple to tension the nylon wires. It works by passing the nylon through a little gizmo which completely prevents it sliding back the other way. This is okay until you pull it a little too far onto the wire! Fortunately they provide a small wire tool just for this situation... until that gets stuck as well. Eventually I managed to extricate it with brute force and a screwdriver.
I took out my frustration on the edible hedgerow, applying the annual severe haircut. It seems drastic, but helps the hedge to bush up. Done at this time of year, it has minimal impact on the birds. This is a perilous job as the blackthorn has a habit of biting back.

Last job for the day was to rearrange the heras fencing to create an area for the turkeys to live in when they are allowed out. It needs to be netted, as otherwise the turkeys will just hop the fence and be wandering everywhere. Even with some of the restrictions lifted, this would still not be permitted.

18th February 2017
I spent some time in the dyke a the end of the land today. The reason being that, after 6 years, I spotted 3 drainage pipes leading into it from my land. I guess they must have become more exposed last time the drainage board cleared the dyke. There was quite a trickle of water coming from each pipe, but the entrances were clogged up. I cleared them, then spent some time playing with the water levels in the dyke!
I got a new species for the farm too, for there were two one inch long fish in the shallow water. I have no idea what type.

The Ixworth trio, who will lay the eggs which will become our meat chickens for the year, have settled well into the small stable. They are laying (well, the two hens at least) but today I erected a hay feeder in the corner in the hope that they start laying in there.

Meanwhile, back on the farm

In between my autumn birding trips I have actually spent a little bit of time on the farm. So here's a few of the bits and bobs which have been happening.

A New Potting Shed
We are splashing out on a new conservatory - I haven't told Sue yet that I will be using it in the spring for raising all my seedlings. The base has gone down and we are waiting for it to be finished in a couple of weeks time.
Gerry decided to enter The Hall of Fame by leaving his mark for eternity in the concrete floor. I'm surprised he didn't just write "Gerry woz 'ere"!


The builders found the old well, but unfortunately it's now under the conservatory floor! Shame.

Lady Penelope lives on
Having given up on Lady Penelope the Peahen, she has reappeared in the field margin across the road. She still has one chick which is growing fast. With the loss of Captain Peacock, this may be her one and only chance to be a parent.
On a similar vein, our guinea fowl numbers have gone down to four... or so we thought, until Sue found one sitting on eggs in exactly the same spot where Lady Penelope laid eggs last year. Why do guinea fowl wait till so late in the year to incubate? The chicks will have no chance in the long, wet autumn grass, Our plan is to catch the whole family once hatched and to confine them in a stable for their own safety.

Barn Owl and Badger road casualties
While the builders were here doing the conservatory base, someone appeared at the gate clutching onto an injured barn owl. It had been picked up by the side of the road. I tried to place it on one of the beams in the stable but it fell off and started running along the floor - nothing wrong with its legs but its wing looked pretty plowed.

I put it into a cat carrier and took it along to Baytree Owl Centre - they keep captive owls, which I don't really agree with, but they would have access to a wildlife vet and were listed on the Barn Owl Trust site.
The man there informed me that the owl was a male and that it had good levels of body fat. Surprisingly, he also said the wing had been broken for some time, but it was very badly broken. I left the owl with them, not expecting to hear any more. It had a ring on its leg but it was impossible to read the number.

On the subject of road casualties there was a young badger dead by the side of the road not 100 yards from the farm the other day. Sad that it came to such an end, but good that they are around.

A Carrot Harvest
I was determined to grow carrots this year. After successive years of poor germination and then any crop I did manage to grow being ravaged by carrot fly, this year I took the step of purchasing a vegetable net.
The carrots grew well, though I was guilty of underusing the fresh crop. However you net, it always adds a level of inconvenience to weeding and harvesting.
I had entered into my spreadsheet to harvest all maincrop carrots by early October. However, birding got in the way and I only got round to it yesterday. The good news was that the carrots had grown very well and were free of carrot fly. Bad news was that the voles had found quite a few of them and the slugs were starting to move in.
However, I still managed to salvage enough to fill quite a few bags in the freezer. Next year I'll definitely be using the netting again, but I'll have to give a little more thought to voles and slugs. I'll make sure I harvest them in good time too.
One other lesson - the final sowing was a bit late going in (by about three weeks) and has come to nothing. Next year I think I'll sow more earlier in the season, not too early though or they don't germinate, and harvest them earlier.

We should be safe from vampires this year

1st August
Happy Cotton Anniversary To Us!
Today is mine and Sue's second anniversary. It has been a low key affair getting on with the business of smallholding.

While I harvested the onions and a few broad beans and peas, Sue inspected her bees. It's been a testing year for Sue and her bees. On her last inspection she was pleased to finally find some eggs in the first hive, though it appears she has lost the queen from the second hive. The third hive continues to do well. But today's inspection brought more disheartening news as the brood pattern in the first hive didn't look correct. It seems most likely that the young queen was not properly mated and is laying drone eggs. Either that or there is a laying worker.


Meanwhile Boris has learned to jump through the open window to get in and out of the garden. Unfortunately, he has not yet learned that the window is not always open!!! I've heard of birds colliding with windows, but a labradoodle!

We should be safe from vampires this year
Sue then continued celebrating our anniversary by plaiting garlic and trying her hand at pickled garlic.



2nd August
The polytunnel tomatoes are doing well this year. I have squeezed in fewer plants but it makes managing and harvesting  them much easier. I still have 18 plants which should give us plenty, even if we don't get any from the outdoor plants.
I sacrificed the two courgette plants which were running rampant in their tunnel bed. Unfortunately they seemed more intent on producing a jungle of leaves than on producing viable fruits. I only really grew them as insurance in case the outdoor plants failed (as they did last year).

At lunch time I tried my raspberry and redcurrant juice for the first time. It was delicious but it didn't last long! I'll make more next year.



Here is the last photo of all the geese together (along with the turkeys). For tomorrow the two young white geese move to a new home. I was intending to stable them up this evening and then risk my life catching the two young ones. Fortunately this afternoon the opportunity suddenly came up to achieve the separation. As the geese headed down the central path, I noticed the two youngsters in the lead. I quickly jumped in, aided (not!) by Boris and Arthur and hurried them along with the plan to close the gate before all the adults could get through. It felt like some surreal dreamtime version of One Man And His Dog where they are tasked with separating off two specific sheep.
I managed to narrow the group down to three and the final adult was easily separated from the others in the stables.

3rd August

Arthur has caught a mole! He is very proud of himself. It must be the Daschund in him. Daschunds were bred for hunting badgers, but Arthur certainly won't be doing that. The Jack Russell in him has started chasing after rabbits, bouncing down the land to try to surprise them, but he lacks technique at the moment.
I don't really mind him catching a mole. Unlike most other people, I think moles are absolutely amazing creatures and that we should be very proud to have such a special creature native to this country. Sadly most people are more precious about their monoculture flat lawns. However, there are plenty of moles here on the farm. Unusually Arthur didn't eat the mole, despite the fact that he devours the voles and rabbits that our cat Gerry brings back as presents for him. Apparently moles don't taste very nice at all. I won't be testing out that particular theory.

Carrot success
The sun has been shining lately and the vegetables have responded. Today I harvested my first mini sweetcorn cobs from outside and the courgettes have started to crop in reasonable numbers too.
Main job for the day was to sort out the carrot patch. I lifted the mesh netting, in place to keep carrotfly at bay, and tackled the weeds. There weren't too many as the carrots have done so well they have crowded out any weeds. My carrot crops have been pretty disastrous in the past, so I was pleased to find rows of carrots doing very well indeed.
It was a little overdue, but I did one last sowing today which should give us plenty of carrots to harvest before winter arrives.

The two young white geese have gone now, to a new home just down the road where I hope they will be very happy. Already, without young to protect, the rest of the geese have calmed down and are being a lot less macho.

The day ended with a stunning sunset across the road.

4th August
Flatpacked Frustration
The day started with an attempt to construct a flatpack garden table. It came with what were probably the worst set of instructions I have ever seen. Some of the bolts came in and out six times as I basically had to work everything out as I went along. I got there in the end.

Roma defeated!
I'm not talking football, but tomatoes. I have been endeavouring to protect my row of Roma tomatoes from blight but it has been a losing battle. I've been picking off any leaves at the first signs of infection and have been spraying them with a bicarbonate spray - this is supposed to create an alkaline environment where the fungus cannot thrive. But it was inevitable following the ravaging of the potatoes that the blight would reach the tomatoes. Today I took the decision to uproot the row of Romas as the blight had clearly got into the stems. Hopefully some of the other tomatoes outside will be far enough away to escape the scourge.

On a brighter note, I harvested the first of the sweetcorn proper (as opposed to the Minipop which I grow for baby cobs) from the polytunnel today. When I pulled back the husk it was a real gem and went very nicely with the pork ribs and stir fry which I made for dinner - almost totally our own produce. The stir fry had fourteen ingredients from the garden!

Following on from sowing carrots yesterday, I did one last sowing of Boltardy beetroot today. It should stand in the ground over winter. I've sown plenty as any spare will be gobbled up by the sheep or the geese.
I also sowed a trial crop, Spanish Black Round Radish. This is unlike other radishes as it is a winter veg which is cooked. I'm expecting it to be more like a turnip. We'll see. Some of my trial crops earn a place in the veg patch, many fall by the wayside.

5th August


Not put off by the flatpack garden furniture experience yesterday, I decided to get the woodwork tools out today and do a complete overhaul of one of the chicken houses. Here it is having been completely disassembled and half rebuilt. This is as far as I've got as it took quite a lot longer than anticipated.

Same Old, Same Old Gulls
The morning was interrupted by a flock of gulls in the neighbouring field. The rape straw has been baled and collected up and today they were harrowing the field which was pulling in the gulls. I scanned through the flock with my telescope and, as every year, it was composed mainly of Black-headed gulls with lesser numbers of Common Gulls and a few Lesser Black-backed and Herring Gulls. One year I'll find something different in amongst them.
At one point the whole flock rose suddenly, along with the starlings, lapwings and a small group of Stock Doves. The reason for the panic soon became obvious as a Peregrine Falcon torpedoed through the flock, the first of the winter.
Bizarrely a roe deer appeared in the field as well today, right out in the open.

The day was flying by. Sue is away again with friends visiting Venice, Florence and Piza. Looking after all the animals, myself and the crops is a lot of work and I have been putting in very long days.
The young chicks needed cleaning out as well today. They are growing up fast and it won't be long before they get to go outside during the day.

For the second evening there was a stunning fire in the sky. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.

In between Unst and Uist

Finally back from Unst, Shetland, two days after seeing the Green Warbler

I missed basket weaving at the weekend but

Sue made this lovely fish to hang over the veg patch pond.

You can see too the reflection of one of the

willow dragonflies she made.

17th May
Mangetout picked again. Growing it in the polytunnel has been brilliant. We get a basket full every other day. I've underplanted it with sweetcorn and squash now, so once those get bigger it'll be whipped out just in time to continue harvesting from the outdoor plants.

I separated the last two lambs from their mums this morning. Weaning the lambs is a big step for them but they all seem to be doing ok on their own, there's just quite a lot of loud bleating at the moment! The one looking up at the camera is Rameses. He's given up asking us for his bottle feed now.

Finally we have a third gosling. I don't get goose nest sitting strategy. Unlike other birds, they seem to lay in each others' nests, all sit on each others' eggs, sometimes two on one nest and the eggs seem to hatch one at a time and very unpredictably. I did find one egg rolled away from the nest which had a full grown chick inside. There always seems to be a major issue for goslings cracking their way out.

18th May
I don't often moan, but today was a really crappy day. Work things. Best forgotten about. Maybe if the government set an example and valued teachers (not to mention doctors, nurses...) then parents might too. At least I've got things like this to come home to.

and this...

19th May
Lawns mowed, flower mixes sown.
The hen we put on ten chicken eggs a while back has done a hopeless job of sitting. Today I found her with yolk on her feathers and when I looked in the broody coop there are now only five eggs! What's more, they seem to have rolled all over the place so I'll be surprised if we get any hatch at all.
We'll start collecting the Ixworth eggs and try out the new incubator we bought a while back. It's more intensive for us but should give a bit better result.
20th May
I really struggle to grow sunflowers. Occasionally they spring up randomly round the garden, which I like, but when I sow them straight in the ground they either don't germinate or get eaten before they get a chance to get going. So instead I plant them in modules and plant them out when they're about a foot tall. I planted some at the back end of last week in amongst the mangel wurzels, where I also planted my sweetcorn today. But something ate most of them! To be honest, I suspect the peacock, as I know last year I had to protect my sweetcorn plants from the girl.
Anyway, it's a slower process but I've put tree protectors round the sunflowers and then netted the whole bed until everything gets growing really well.

On a different note, I'm pretty sure we have Ash dieback on the farm. It'll hopefully take a long time to impact on the old trees but some of the young saplings have completely died. Others though, are shooting healthy branches from the base again, so we'll see what happens with that one. I'm currently planting lots of quick growing trees and shrubs such as elder and willow as well as allowing hawthorns to self seed.

21st May
Sue was busy with her bees most of the day. She had to check if the rape honey they've collected had begun to set, as if you leave it too long it turns concrete. In the afternoon she attended another of the West Norfolk group's excellent training courses.
I meantime had a big day in the veg garden, only interrupted several times by the odd one of Sue's angry bees. Mostly I just got pestered but I did endure one sting to the head. I knew this one was going to sting by the buzzing which was more than just inquisitive. Hopefully next month Sue will be able to change the queens and passify the buy little Amazonians!

Back to the veg. I sowed all my climbing beans in pots - Borlotti, Armstrong, Gigantes, Kentucky Wonder Wax, Cobra and Pea Bean. I prefer climbing beans as they use vertical space and give form to the garden. They are also easier to pick, don't hang on the ground getting dirty and chewed by slugs, and crop over a longer period. They also dry better at the end of the season.

My carrot bed had completely disappeared beneath emerging marigold seedlings! But once I did some careful hoeing, there was actually a visible line of carrots and one of spring onions. Carrots seem to be extremely unpredictable so ay crop will be deemed a success. I've got them growing in a fleece frame this year so hopefully I'll get to enjoy my crop rather than simple feeding carrot fly larvae. The unpredictability of carrots is summed up by the fact that the line of Atomic Red I planted outside seem to have failed yet in the polytunnel the same seeds have all come through. It can't be that conditions outside are terrible as the other variety has come well. I just don't understand it.
Anyway, I have optimistically sowed more line of carrots and more lettuces to keep the succession going.

While I had the hoe out I uncovered the turnip and kohl rabi bed. It is apparent that all the seedling have been munched by flea beetles. The two plants which had got past them I decided to hoe up so I could start over. Maybe sowing later will have better luck, but just in case I'm sowing I modules tto so I can transplant when the plants are large enough to outgrow the chewing little insects.
I've also interplanted the rows with tagetes seedlings (French marigolds) as this has worked in the past. These pretty flowers smell strongly and are avoided by most creepy crawlies. Unfortunately they are tender, so I raise trays of them in the polytunnel to plant out about now when we should be frost free. This does mean that they can't protect early sowings though.

And lastly, I've taken my first harvest of new potatoes from the polytunnel. Here is the product of just one plant in the basket I made last week. They're not as small as they look - it's a big basket!

We literally stopped using the stored potatoes last week - they have started to soften and to sprout a lot. This means that our potatoes now last us right through the year.

Coming next: Going Completely Cuckoo on North Uist

The Mangetout are Through

Not the most exciting photos in the world, but today was a big day in the 2016 growing season.

The mangetout peas I sowed for growing early in the polytunnel are starting to poke through the soil surface and reach for the skies. Green shoots and all that.

The sowing season has gone up a gear too. Today I sowed my aubergine seeds. It's very early and I will have to tend the delicate little things for quite some time, but until now I've had precious little success with aubergines. They are a temperamental crop. Some people do well with them. Some people just can't get a decent aubergine off them. I come firmly in the latter group. Until now. This is the year when I plan to join the former. The tender treatment starts now, with the seeds soaked in tepid water for 24 hours (obviously the water was cold by the end!) and now in a small heated propagator, which I purchased over the winter. It's just a crude, basic one but I'm hoping it is just enough to kickstart seeds into growth. After that, for most crops, double and triple cloches in the polytunnel should afford enough protection until springtime proper arrives.

I sowed lettuces too. I always grow too many at once and never keep up the succession properly, resulting in fields of lettuce all ready at the same time, most of which go on to bolt, followed by no lettuce whatsoever. This year, that changes and I've started by sowing some very early lettuce which I hope will germinate under bubble wrap in the tunnel - similar to the mangetout. The crucial thing with lettuces is that the temperature is not too low (below about 5C) and not too high (above 20C) for the first couple of days after sowing. The second of these is often far more difficult to achieve in the polytunnel and once we get into March I'll probably be using the cold frame for germination.
The varieties for so early in the year are the Cos types and the looseleaf (green rather than red). I have sown seeds of Little Gem, Lobjoits Green Cos and Buttercrunch.

Finally I have sown early carrots too today. Early Nantes, straight into the polytunnel beds. If we were in a cold snap, I would hold off on this, but the bees have been out for a couple of days this week, a song thrush was singing today and it is beginning to feel like spring already. I'm sure that winter will still have a say at some point. I hope so.

I've learned from last year and covered the rows with mesh. There always seems to be an interminable wait for carrotlings to emerge, so you can imagine how disheartening it was last year when first the chickens got in and destroyed a couple of rows and then Boris discovered that the polytunnel was a very good place to go digging.

Tomorrow the first turnips go into the polytunnel beds.

Meanwhile the outside  jobs are more winter-like. Moving, pruning and taking cuttings from dormant plants. Digging, shifting compost, rotavating when I can.