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Morning all,

It is the last day of January……can you believe it! But how good, as the daylight lasts a little longer each day, and we can see signs of new life.

As you can see from the photo above the lovely boys from the polytunnel people have been working really hard. The boys arrived on Monday and cracked on with their work. By Tuesday night the frames for all three of our new polytunnels were up! Good going boys! The boys will probably be here for the rest of this week and into the beginning of next week.

Bob and I cannot believe how big the inside of each polytunnel is. They are each 24 feet wide and 54 feet long, but seem so much bigger inside!!!!. We now have seven very large polytunnels, so we are going to be able to grow, and be in more control of, so much more produce from now on. In addition to growing more we will also greatly extend our growing season for a lot more crops. For instance, last year our tomatoes, growing in the polytunnels, were still being harvested in November! We are are sooooo excited to start using the new tunnels.

Other tasks during this week have mainly concentrated on starting to organise areas where the pigs and piglets can be moved into….yes the piglets will be going outside shortly.

We are also checking our chickens and ducks on a regular basis. Bird avian flu has been noted in two areas in the South of the country. DEFRA have advised that the risk is “very low”, but we remain vigilant and look out for updates from DEFRA.

The existing polytunnels which are already in operation are starting to produce many new crops, for example turnips, spinach, leaves. The broad beans survived December and January. There are small shoots coming from the carrots, peas, beetroot, onions, shallots and garlic. Not a bad start to this year.

The herb garden….well I was buzzing on Sunday…everything is popping back to life.

The greenhouse is also starting to show new life…..the cauliflowers, lettuce and leeks are all coming along very nicely.

The big activity for next week, on completion of the polytunnels, is the delivery of eight tons of cow manure from one of our local farmers! Bob cant wait to start moving that around – I will leave him to this task!

It is all go at the moment, we love our life on the farm.

Fingers crossed for a bumper harvest this year in all our polytunnels.

This coming Saturday we are at Morpeth Farmers Market, if you are nearby please pop by and say hello.

Till next week, take care,

Ann