February begins

NIR HALFON

“the buds are swelling and the first signs of spring are being felt.”

December and January are very quiet months in the garden. During the winter months, most of the time is spent cleaning and clearing up last season’s debris and thinking about the next season. Several projects have been occupying our time and slowly we have progressed on each one. The time comes to tick off those projects and in earnest begin gardening and growing again. Different loose ends and half done projects have been coming to fruition: we have acquired a restored old plough to use in the coming season that came from Michael Duveen. It is a three furrow Massey Ferguson conventional plough. We hope to use it in the garden to prepare the fields for cropping. Until now we used the farm’s tractor and plough which are quite big and heavy for the small garden fields. We felt that a smaller one which can be used with our little Massey 148 will be more suitable. When it arrived, it had some parts missing and some parts seized. A bit of oil, grease and some help from Richard Evans and we are on the road to a working plough. 

The Ford blue tractor had a rusty cab. So much so that the support beams underneath were in danger of rusting away. The tractor works all year round. In the winter it scrapes the yard and in the summer mows the fields. It was a challenge to remove the cab and flip it up side down. Stephan worked his magic and rebuilt the cab floor. It is now painted and back on. Hopefully in the next week the last bits will be finished. The Ford will be back in the yard scraping; another job ticked off.

During the winter some of the fencing in the car park fell to disrepair. The hedge behind it has grown to the ideal size for hedge laying. Fortunately, Nick from Pericles is one of the local hedge layers and works around Sussex to lay hedges and teach the craft. It was a short section but we all learned a new skill. It looks very beautiful; we may do the rest of that hedge line in the future. 

We have re-covered the last two poly tunnels that were in needs of it this winter. They are the last poly tunnels to have been re-covered in the 11 years that Liz has been managing the garden. As part of re-covering them, their surroundings have been mulched with wood chip. This helps keep the grass short around the tunnels in the summer and protecting the plastic. On rainy days we have been washing the tunnels. It’s a mammoth task and this is the first year we managed to wash all the tunnels over winter.

A real change is often felt after the first week of February. The celebration of Candlemas marks the turning of the sap. The change in the day’s length becomes more noticeable and although it is still cold (and this year very wet), the buds are swelling and the first signs of spring are being felt. 

In the garden, the first sowings of 2020 are growing in the propagator and some of them have been planted already. Beds begin to be cleared and turned. In the next weeks we will be increasingly planting new beds.

Still, autumn-planted chard, spinach and spring greens are coming to their own with fresh lush growth in the tunnels. Our potato and onion stores have a bit more produce. I expect the spring should be bountiful.