Newsletter
HAPPY NEW YEAR! May it be properly seasonal and slug free.
The gods smiled on us today. Despite a nasty weather forecast, the frost lifted, the sun came out and the water troughs melted. After struggling for the last three days to get veggies lifted during a brief thaw in the middle of the day, today we managed to cut almost defrosted cabbages and greens. It gave us a chance to discover the extent of the frost damage so far and also the extent of the pigeon damage. Thankfully, most crops are still pretty reasonable. The casualties have been the spinach, baby spinach, swiss chard, coriander and dill. The latter two are mush, but the first three will recover when we get some prolonged mild weather. Every inch of fleece and mesh had been put to use this afternoon to protect what crops we can against tonight’s predicted frost of -5C. A similar prediction on Saturday night resulted in -9C first thing on Sunday morning! That is the coldest we have experienced in several years. All the water troughs were frozen solid, even the one in the barn where the cows are. Tonight we have coiled the hosepipe up inside and covered it and the tap in several layers of sacking to try and have water for the cows tomorrow.
The frost has given Simon the opportunity to rotivate the empty parts of the field in the hope that it will kill the slug eggs exposed to the cold. It also meant that we could get the root lifter out and lift a row of parsnips this morning.
Tomorrow, the vet is coming to do our annual T.B. test on the cows and also look at a lump on Solow’s mouth. The recent news is that there has been an outbreak locally in a herd of cows that has never before had it which may alter the frequency of testing’s. We have an annual test for the first four years as our herd is deemed to be a new one but the rest of our area is currently on a four year testing cycle. It is a stressful and dangerous job but thankfully having sold the suckler cows last year we have only to deal with calves of various ages.
On the job list this week is clearing out the propagating house, repairing the heated tent and sowing the first seeds of the new season: early leeks, Pentland Brig kale, Greyhound and Derby Day cabbage and early cauliflower. This will mean turning the heating on in the evenings, so much as I am appreciating proper winter weather; it would be nice if it didn’t continue for much longer. We are going to try very hard with the early season crops this year, as this will make us more competitive with imported produce. The fall in sterling will be reflected in the price rises of imported produce.
With this in mind, our new year’s resolution is to try and buy British for all our foodstuffs. Having thought about it, the hardest to source is going to be bread, cereals and pasta which are not the things that immediately spring to mind as being imported.
Merricks Winter Salad: Shred raddichio, cabbage into a bowl. Add grated apple, carrot, turnip (or swede, radish, squash). Toast some seeds (sunflower, sesame, pumpkin) and add to the bowl. Drizzle equal quantities of rape seed oil (or olive) and vinegar. Toss well and serve
It’s good along side soup and a jacket potato at lunchtime.