Early evening, not only see's me putting my chickens and ducks to bed but also my potatoes.
I planted some early potatoes in the polytunnel weeks and weeks ago and over the last month, I've had to earth them up several times. To be honest, I've been feeling smug about them, maybe a trifle too smug. I've been fantasizing about the taste of some really early new potatoes for sometime now, so imagine my horror the otherday when I saw that their tops had been frosted and that they'd turned black.
I've cut the black bits off with scissors and ever since, each night I've been covering the rows up with two layers of tarpaulin. Its now a case of fingers crossed and hope that I can keep the frost at bay. For the last three weeks, we've had temperatures first thing in the morning of around minus five, six and seven. I reckon that I would have got away with my early early potatoes in any other year other than this one. There's not a sign of any improvement, what a winter we've been having !