Tunnel vision

The frame is up

Last week was the week of the polytunnel construction. Since there were 2.5 days without wind forecast (!) we were determined to get it erected. Just the week before we'd decided to locate the polytunnel (20ft by 8ft) in the veg garden rather than in the southwest corner of the top paddock. This had several advantages: the ground was already almost level, water access was easier, shelter probably better and it wouldn't spoil the view.

The bit that took the longest was getting the anchors correctly positioned and the right angles established at all corners. Very faffy, with a lot of tying of string, measuring, moving the string slightly, measuring again, moving rocks out of the way etc. Getting the cover on (which we'd been dreading) was easy by comparison.

Tucking in the cover

Securing the cover around the door

Of course, as so often happens with self-assembly stuff, there were several bits missing so we couldn't complete the sliding door on the last windless day. But the manufacturer (Northern Polytunnels) sent the missing parts immediately and the next day we'd finished the tunnel - just in time for 30 tomato plants to move in.

The finished product

The first residents

The grapevine has moved in, too

A thorough feline inspection came back with full marks.

Domino approves

Other animals were taking it easy in the meantime.

Cosy dust bath for three

The three days of focused polytunnel construction meant that we'd fallen behind with everything else and it's felt a bit as if we were training for the Good Life Iron Man to get caught up. Maybe we should run a Good Life Iron Man here. The disciplines could be: saw, split and stack a log; scythe 50 square metres; dig over 10 square metres; weed two vegetable beds; pot up 100 seedlings; mill 1kg of grain into flour.

Green leaves

The wonder of fresh spring green is starting to pervade the garden. First up were the berries:

Jostaberry - first crop this year?

Gooseberry Invicta

Goji berry - another potential first crop this year

Then some of the hedge we planted two years ago burst out:

Elders

Blackthorn

And now some of the fruit trees are making their move:

Quince Vranja

The comfrey already looks well established:

Hello, comfrey!

And some flowers other than daffodils are getting going:

Primula

Forget me nots

Inside the greenhouse my new grapevine is unfurling its first leaves:

Golden Champion grape

The grass has also grown to the extent that Jim's started the first mow of the season. Quite challenging with all the daffodils around!

Mown vs unmown grass

We've already got quite a few crops sown, especially in the middle paddock.

Jerusalem artichokes, onions, potatoes and parsnips are in there

In the veg garden, the overwintering crops are growing, especially the garlic.

Hoping for a better crop than last year

And Jim's digging away at the rest of the area.

Freshly dug

The new hedges have not put out much fresh green yet, but hopefully they'll get going soon:

New hedge

The partitioned bottom paddock

As usual, the last to produce leaves, and possibly the most spectacular, are the beech trees, but they're still looking distinctly wintry. Come on, beeches!

Swing on leafless beech

Sowin' in the rain

Pak choi seedlings

The sowing season has begun in earnest. While it's pouring outside, I've been sowing crystal lemon cucumbers, melons, achochas, tomatillos (purple, green and yellow), okra (good luck needed here), lettuces, mangetout, fennel, coriander and a lot of modules of brassica (Romanesco and 'normal' cauliflower, red, white and Savoy cabbage, kale, calabrese, broccoli, Brussels sprouts). Just the celeriac left to do - everything else will either be sown direct (carrots, parsnips, chard, rapini, herbs, rocket) or in early May (courgettes, squashes, pumpkins, beans, sweetcorn).

The conservatory is filling up

It's very satisfying to sow all the things we'll be eating in the coming year. Everything I sow is potentially on the menu, but we never know which veg are going to have a good year in advance. Anything I forget to sow will be off the menu.

I've been trying to be a bit disciplined and use up the older seed packets so that I can start with fresh seeds next year. Quite hard when the brassica packets contain hundreds of seeds and we really only want a dozen or so plants of each.

Oca

Another new item on the veg menu, hopefully, will be oca, another one of these versatile South American tubers and very pretty to boot. I've been given some by a local gardener who's had great success with them. I'm planning to treat them like maincrop potatoes and sow them in late April, direct into a trench. At the moment they are sitting in an egg carton under an attic window, just like the maincrop potatoes, and awaiting their turn. We've tried a few raw in salads, where they add a nice bit of crunch, and boiled in a stew - should be a good addition to the winter vegetables.

Just a tad wet out there

Despite the rainy, windy weather we've managed to plant 400 sets of onions and the first earlies on the one lovely, sunny day we've had this week. And they got nicely watered in the next day, without any effort on our behalf.

Note the size of the burn

We've also managed to plant another 240 hedge plants. Now the bottom paddock is partitioned into usable and protected chunks of ground, and hedged all the way around. It's always a lottery when you're ordering bareroot plants what the weather will be like when they get delivered. As they really need to go into the ground as soon as possible you haven't got much choice but to plant them no matter what the weather. True to form (this is our third year of hedge planting), we had one day of nasty planting conditions, with a cold, cold wind, but the other two days were pleasant at least.

New cotoneaster hedge

We're reaching the end of a lot of vegetables now - the last of the celeriacs were mashed yesterday, the last of the leeks will be had today, the kale is starting to put out flowers and I took the Brussels sprout leaves off before taking out the remaining plants (the sprouts were no good unfortunately). One last winter lettuce remains in the greenhouse. But there are also some new things on the menu: rhubarb, spring cabbage, wild rocket.

Soruss is getting a bit cocky now that spring is under way. Unfortunately, he is just as guest-unfriendly as his dad. So far he's tried to attack almost every guest and had a couple of satisfying attacks when my cousin and her 10-year-old daughter stumbled while fighting him. One of his tricks is to fly up behind people, aiming for the backs of their knees. But at least he's very content in his territory and safely contained within it. The general safety advice is: Take a stick when traversing his territory and keep an eye on him, even after you've walked past him, and you'll be fine.

Cheerful daffodil on a rainy day