In the bleak midwinter

This cold weather is causing us no end of problems. For example, last week we were going to put red cabbages in the bags but, after we had harvested them, we discovered on cutting them up that they were rotten inside. So we had to throw the whole lot away and have lost the whole crop due to the severe frosts. There have been many nights when we have had temperatures as low as -8 Celsius. We have everything covered with fleeces in so far as we can but with such low temperatures, it is entirely possible that many crops will be badly damaged. We even have all the crops in the poly tunnel covered with fleece. That helps but does not guarantee that they won't be affected.

And now everything is covered with thick snow as you can see in the first picture. Yes, that's our leeks somewhere under there! Below, you can see the poly tunnel with snow piled up along the sides following avalanches off the cover. In front, the poor brassicas are half buried and frozen solid.

The upshot of this is that we do not know whether they we shall be able to produce bags next  Thursday as promised. Everything depends on the weather and whether we shall be able to dig the vegetables out of the ground or harvest brussels sprouts and poly tunnel veg of good enough quality. We'll let you know by e-mail if there is a change of plan. Happy Solstice on the 21st and then, roll on spring!