Following on from my last ramblings, spring seems to be more off than on. This feels like the longest winter I can remember. But maybe we have just gone soft. The retired farm manager for the main farm here, tells me that in his day, the cattle troughs used to freeze over sometime in November and didn't thaw until the spring!
My main concern at the moment is the lack of sunlight that can affect the health of the seedlings in the propagation glasshouse. Cool, wet conditions attract a fungal disease called 'damping off', typically affecting brassicas, beets and tomatoes. Our main defences are careful watering and good ventilation, both of which are tricky when it is so cold. We have activated a fan, which we keep for such conditions.
The recent salad vegetables shortage has once again highlighted the importance of eating seasonally and building a network of small producers. It also underlines how rubbish the supermarkets are with their onerous pricing and supply contracts!
We are able to offer mixed leaf salad 52 weeks of the year. One of the key salad ingredients at this time of year is Winter Purslane (also known as Claytonia and Miner's Lettuce) which, as the name suggests, is winter hardy. We have an abundance of it at the moment so I am going to be putting bags of just purslane in the veg boxes. As well as eating it as a salad, you can cook with it and even make a type of pesto. Do have a look on the internet if you need some ideas.
Despite my gloomy beginning, we are anticipating Spring, (and Summer) by sowing lots of seeds including our peppers, tomatoes, and cucumbers. There shall be no shortage of salad around these parts if we can help it!