April was another wet month, which meant we had very few days when the ground conditions were dry enough to do any field work and planting. We have managed to plant over half of the onion sets, and fitted in just one part day and one longer day of transplanting. The potatoes we planted in February are growing well now but we need to get more planted as well as the rest of the onion sets and more transplanting. It's a lovely day today though (May 1) and Martin is weeding the early kale and hoping to sow more outdoor salad.
We still have a small amount of leeks and carrots in the field, the green garlic harvest is starting just as the wild garlic harvest finishes. We still have some stored Crown Prince squash, and small amounts of stored, potatoes and onions but the 'Hungry Gap' is a tough one this year.
In the seeding glasshouse we have started to sow trays of courgettes and squash and in the polytunnels we have cleared out some over wintered salad, and replanted with parsley and nasturtium. At least the plants that are hardening off outside haven't needed watering very often!
We have just started the supplementary feeding for turtle doves again and were very happy to hear one purring on 30 April. On the same day 24 different species were recorded on a bird call ID app (Merlin) within half an hour. The app is great, but not 100% accurate but still likely to have been 20 different birds heard from our smaller fields at Crundale. And we had a visit from a heron to our small pond recently, but there’s not much in there to feed a heron so just a quick visit!
