Well here goes....

I am going to take up The The NewFarmerette's Challenge and write a blog a day for April. I probably start one in my head everyday anyway. One that has started in my had several times and never got any further is to say that Mike is no longer working at Brown Envelope Seeds. For the last four years he has worked with me, and been very badly paid for all his help. In spite of this the business cannot support both of us, and so, sadly, I am doing it on my own again. Sometimes we worked well together and sometimes we didn't. Living and working together is a challenge, and trying to keep any kind of business together at the moment is really hard.  I  want to say is thank you to Mike for all he has done for Brown Envelope Seeds and good luck with what ever he decides to do next. I could just say to him, couldn't I?

Its a bit mad to be buying compost from Germany but that is the only certified organic stuff available locally, so we have been making some of our own. Here is Mike sieving a mixture of composted farm manure and soil from the polytunnel together, to make a potting-on compost. We will still use the imported compost for small seeds as the home made stuff is a bit weedy. Maybe we will work out a way of killing the weed seeds but time is a real limiting factor at this time of the year.

The peas in the photo are growing in our home made compost in the polytunnel. We are experimenting with several varieties to see which perform best as cut and come-again salad or stir-fry pea shoots. The Winterkefe, were quickest to emerge in the low, early February, temperatures and look almost ready for cut. I predict that cut-and-come again peas are going to become fashionable.