Most of the seed potatoes arrived mid February and are under cover. The first planting dates for our early potatoes vary a lot year to year depending on the weather. Last year England had its driest February since records began and we managed to plant some early but February has been far too wet this year for any field cultivations and planting.
We have continued with seeding into trays when we’re not harvesting and packing and having just paid the leek seed bill, I can see that we have ordered 125,000 seeds this year, so with an average of 2-3 seeds per plug, with 216 plugs per tray that’s more than 200 trays of leek seeds to fill, seed and look after.
The signs of spring are in the fields now as the kale starts to flower, ready to produce seeds. A benefit of this is the delicious flower shoots that the cavolo nero (black kale) produces, which are great in a stir fry (or eaten raw straight from the field!). And the carpet of weeds/wild flowers that are growing between the crops start to fill the ground with colour with lots of red dead nettle and speedwell.
Another sign of spring is that we have just started to harvest wild garlic from woodland near Egerton, which will be included in salad bags and stir fry bags over the coming weeks, as well as on its own.
Whilst cutting back the brambles on a 2-year-old stretch of hedge this week, we were very excited to find a harvest mouse nest in the long grass between the 2 rows of hedging. The nest would have been used for breeding between May and October last year. Harvest mice are Britain’s smallest rodent, weighing just 4-6 grams, and mostly active at dawn and dusk so very hard to spot. Finding a nest is the easiest way to know that they are present in our fields. More info on harvest mice here https://kent.wildwoodtrust.org/explore/list-of-animals/harvest-mouse/
