Spring is arriving

Since being back from holiday spring seems to clearly be arriving. In the polytunnel spring is in full flow with everything in there growing at a pace. It's usually really warm in there during the day now and it's a fantastic place to be if it's not so good outside. Some of the plants that have been in there over winter are now bolting like the Pak Choi (Zoe is very pleased as she doesn't really like it anyway), but the carrots ,coriander, beetroot and loads of greens are really taking off. That means I have salad now and  should have carrots and beetroot ready when this years crop are just seedlings. That's the plan anyway, I haven't really had any luck with carrots since we left our house in London about eight years ago so we'll see how they go.

It's fantastic having a freezer full of such good pork. We've been trying one of our hams this week. It tastes pretty good. That's the plain cure, I still have the one cured in beer and black treacle to try. I reckon that should be pretty amazing. I think I might get a side of bacon out to try this week. It looks pretty tasty. I don't have a bacon slicer though. I'm not sure how neat a job I'll manage of slicing it with a knife. Perhaps I ought to have a look on ebay and see if I can get one cheap there.
I have finally put in me seed order. A little later than planned, but not by much. Nothing is really late yet (apart from garlic). Planting will really start in earnest in March.... Oh I just checked the date and it is March! Well I know the seeds are on the way so still no hassle. There is still a lot of work to do before seedlings can be planted out. Last week I hired a turfer which removes grass into nice neat turf (that's the theory) and removed the turf from all of the new beds. If you have a lovely flat field then I am sure the turf will come out neat. However if your field is ridge and furrow and riddled with mole hills it more hacks the turf apart and a lot of manual effort is needed to get the machine to move at all. Next week I should hopefully be hiring a rotivator to dig over all of the beds and the couple of large planting areas the pigs kindly rooted over and removed all the grass from.

I am gradually making more food in order to have a well stocked market stall at a couple of the local farmers markets in a couple of weekends time. I already have 70 jars of marmalade of 5 different varieties. Last week I made 20 jars of spicy Mango chutney. I think I might make a mild version this week. I think the first market I am going to try is the one in South Cave. That gives me a couple of weeks to make a few more things to sell.

I have started decorating the room connected to the conservatory. As usual with these things what initially looks like a quick lick of paint gradually grows into a much larger and more involved tasks as more and more issues that need dealing with are found. It's not too bad but I think it will certainly extent beyond a quick afternoon with a paint brush.
Next week I have a visit from East Yorkshire council to give me a star rating on my food production. I have a load of gardening to do. Zoe's Uncle Michael was here while we were away and kindly removed vast areas of weeds from our garden. I just need to get out there quick and apply lots of mulch before it just turns back into weeds again. Luckily for us the army base seems to have been in over winter clearing bushes from their perimeter fence. They have then shredded it all and left it in our garden, perfect mulch. That will be a lot cheaper than getting it from the garden centre. I'm really looking forward to planting and the growing season starting in earnest this week.