The Need for Self Restraint
The image above sums up the weather we’ve had in the past couple of weeks; cloudy, windy and pretty darn cold. I’m excited to begin the market garden season. To get my fingers into the dirt. To start seeing those beautiful green shoots of freshly germinating seeds. But I’m trying my best to restrain myself at this time of year because starting too soon could result in chaos later.
Work on the farm has been pretty quiet this past week, largely due to the weather and in particular the wind. I can stand rain and snow. I may moan in the height of summer about simmering temperatures but I’ll cope. Wind? I hate it! As you can see from the two latest videos below, it’s almost impossible to film during howling gales and blustery weather. I’d love to get some black sheeting down on weedy market garden beds, but alas I fear they’d just blow away. And so most farm work has been tending to animals, making sure they’re comfortable and planning for the season ahead.
I have managed to seed start a few things; there are salad bowl lettuces (both green and red) starting to germinate in the polytunnel. I have pots of hesperis, yarrow and sweet williams all sat awaiting to be planted out. And in the shed, my anemone and ranunculus are shooting away … well, if they manage to avoid the darn mice! Field mice are super sweet and very pretty but they do like to nibble on things I’d rather they avoided.
My hyacinth and paperwhite stems are also beginning to come good and I’m excited to actually start selling some. I’ve decided to forego the February markets as I just don’t have enough produce, so instead I’ll sell at the garden gate. However, it’s so windy I’m afraid they’d get broken so I’ve had to hold off putting them on offer.
I’m happy with how they’ve come out. A small glass tumbler, a little horticultural grit and then some moss around the top and I think they look lovely and would be really quite happy to have them on my windowsill or perhaps each end of a mantel piece. The paperwhites are a little behind but as I’m not doing markets this is actually a help as it means instead of needing them all in flower at once, I’ll have product to put out consistently over the next few weeks.
I’m not entirely sure why, but the pink hyacinths seem to have made the first bid for freedom with not a white flower in sight, despite being started at the same time. I’m sure they’re on their way!
Finally, I welcomed the first chick of 2022 last night! I use the Brinsea Ovation Incubator (you can get them on eBay) and though they are not cheap, they are wonderful. I’ve never had as successful hatching as I now do. This little Ixworth came from my lovely flock and I hope to be selling a lot of these this year, both as young birds and hatching eggs. They are a fantastic variety of chicken homebred here in Suffolk - Ixworth as you might have guessed. They are also dual purpose like many heritage breeds so you can hatch out and enjoy the hens for eggs and the cockerels for lunch.
And so we continue to head towards March and the excitement of lambing. In fact, though sowing may not be in order at the moment, the next fortnight will see me completely rearranging the barn as I bring the ewes in for their vaccinations and bed them down on the maternity ward. Then from the beginning of March onwards I’ll be on the lamb-cam, waiting for signs of new babies. Exciting!
