I believe it’s been about 4 weeks since we last had decent rain – in fact I think it’s been 4 weeks since we had any rain at all. Scary. So today, whilst I was meant to be digging out pathways in the garden, I noticed that some of the veggies down the patch were beginning to suffer from a lack of water. Before you know it, Suz, I and the children are down there sowing, weeding and watering – amazing how you can get carried away.

Reading back, I now realise I said we’d be sowing some Kestrel F1 beetroot later this year, as a decent storage beetroot to complement the early Cylindra variety we’ve already sown. I forgot, and we’ve just sown another 10′ of Cylindra…doh! With the spring cabbage almost ready to start pulling up, we’ll probably pop some Kestrel F1 in there.

The first row of Prinz Robin radish were also pulled up yesterday – those that were sown in the same row as the parsnips. As the parsnips were being de-weeded, now that they’re a decent size, it made sense to pull the radish and so, today, more of the same variety were squeezed in at the end of an onion row.

The Chantenay Red Cored 2 carrots were also de-weeded today, though not quite large enough to thin. A second 10′ row of the same were added, to stagger the harvest. Again, we could do with another row at some stage, but no idea where we can fit it! I’m sure we’ll find somewhere.

And continuing on a tradition started a few years ago, Jay and Smiler planted their pumpkin seeds this year on a compost heap. We’re a good 6 weeks earlier than last year doing this, so hopefully we’ll get a better crop (though we couldn’t get through the last lot!).

Other potential victims of the lack of water are the trees, so Suz spent an hour and a half watering the baby fruit trees, something we need to do until their root system is decent enough to tap into the water flowing under our feet in the valley.

Last, but by no means least, we have found another taker for our orchard fruit once it’s available, in three years’ time. A local dairy farm that began to make their own ice cream two years ago have shown an interest, especially in the plums and cherries. Apparently it’s practically impossible to source local fruit, so we could be on to something here! They also said that strawberries and raspberries are hard to come by as well, as the only local strawberry grower is not interested in supplying fruit and only serve the pick your own market. Hmm…cogs are turning…watch this space. Merrybower Fruit Growers might be something on the horizon 😉