Guy's news: frozen patience

Looking up to the north there is snow on the moors, while in the valley the emerging wild garlic and snowdrops are frozen into the ground. After months of warm, wet Atlantic air giving a mild start to winter and an abundance of green veg, high pressure has anchored itself over Ireland.

Looking up to the north there is snow on the moors, while in the valley the emerging wild garlic and snowdrops are frozen into the ground. After months of warm, wet Atlantic air giving a mild start to winter and an abundance of green veg, high pressure has anchored itself over Ireland. This is bringing bright skies and cold winds from the north and east; a mixed blessing for a vegetable farmer. Our southern-facing banks (the same fields we plant with our early crops) are not clear of frost until 10am, and we are unable to harvest leeks, cabbage, kale and the first of our purple sprouting broccoli until that time. Meanwhile our north facing slopes hold frost all day, and the sun is equally welcomed by crops and pickers. Any growth encouraged by longer days has stopped and I suspect we will be short of cauliflower, purple sprouting and anything green by the end of the month.

On the positive side it is lovely to see the sun, and, though there is nothing as sticky and slippery as recently thawed ground, most of the time there is less mud on your boots. It is also possible for the tractors to move without damaging our soil, especially in the morning when the frost is hardest. In my younger days we would have been hitching up the muck spreader and even the plough, but I soon learned that ploughing down frost was like thawing ice in a tea cosy; impatience just cooled the soil and delayed spring. Spreading muck on frozen ground is also a bad idea, partly because of the danger of run-off polluting water courses, and partly because we now realise that 60% of the precious nitrogen can be lost to the atmosphere as ammonia. In warmer conditions this is avoided by swiftly mixing the muck into the soil by ploughing or shallow cultivation, which helps the nitrogen attach to soil clay particles where it is held until a plant root absorbs it.

We are busy planting in France but in Devon we must be patient a little longer. As soon as the frost is out of the ground we will busy as nesting swallows; spreading muck, ploughing and planting the first early potatoes, carrots and spring broad beans. 28 years on, my heart still quickens a little at the thought.

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