There’s lots happening in the fields at this time of year with the changover from one season’s crops to the next. We are still harvesting leeks and leafy greens from the fields. Seed potatoes and onion sets are in the ground and we transplanted the first of the lettuce and kales just before Easter at our Crundale site. The plants will need covering with crop covers straight away to prevent the rabbits and pigeons helping themselves. The crop covers will provide some protection from the wind too. And a grass/clover seed mix is being sown in some of last year’s vegetable ground, beginning the two year fertility building phase in the rotation.
We had some lovely sunny weather for the easter holidays but we’ve had to irrigate the kale and lettuce that we transplanted just before Easter and water the baby plants daily for a few days (both preferable avoided so early in the season)!
The RSPB turtle dove advisor dropped off seed to us this week ready for supplementary feeding again this year, starting at the end of April. Based on the last couple of years it seems that we have only had fleeting visits from a turtle dove and not had any nesting but we still have the right habitat so hopefully they will return to nest in our fields again sometime. More about this endangered bird here
https://www.operationturtledove.org/turtle-doves/what-is-a-turtle-dove/
