Spring

(just)

So eventually the rain stopped (at least for a while), the ground started to dry and although the wind was bitterly cold we could start to consider Spring.

It is always a busy time and, as the soil temperature slowly rises, we can begin to think about planting. Ideally we are looking for a soil temperature of around 7-10°C. Ultimately, having done this for a while, I find myself fantasising about the perfect combination of soil temperature, some rainfall and, of course, sunlight. I know I need to get out more.

So much of farming is about what you think the weather is going to do rather than what it is doing now. Climate change has made this gamble harder and the odds can be tipped against us much more easily. There is nothing quite as depressing as planting expensive seed during a warm, showery week with a good forecast, only for the weather to instantly turn dry and cold.

If that happens - and it frequently does - then if the seed hasn’t started to germinate it will generally just sit there and wait. But if the process has already started during the good weather then it will likely perish and we end up with a patchy crop or, in extreme circumstances, back at square one again - a geographical location I am very familiar with.

To me the evidence of climate change is overwhelming. When I compare much of my lifetime experience of better defined seasons and a generally temperate climate against the almost unpredictable blur of more extreme and ever-changing weather patterns we experience now, then growing anything becomes much more of a lottery.

There is a desire inside any farmer to get it right - to grow something, whatever that might be, that you can be proud of. And when it doesn’t go your way, the strength to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again is an integral part of the DNA of farmers everywhere.

I salute them.

P.S. A big shout out to Leonard

A neighbouring farmer in his eighties doing what he has done all is life, getting up the hill is harder, even with the benefit of new hips and knees but it’s lambing and there is work to be done and it won’t wait.