May 9th Update

A trip around the early peas, Sleaford and A15 towards Lincoln area, gave an insight as to what to expect at the begining of the season. The picture shows peas that should flower within the next seven days given the current spell of glorious weather. This is about the normal time, but one to two weeks later than the previous two years. Whilst it is hard to be specific, it looks like a harvesting start date of about 20th June. Pigeons still remain to be a thorn in our side and have caused considerable damage in some cases.

On mainland Europe, Portugal and Spain are now harvesting, with Italy and Hungary not too far away from starting. It is far too early to call how their crops will do. As far as drilling goes, we completed the South of Boston area on Wednesday and have now moved North of Boston. All being well we shall complete drilling all the peas by Wednesday next week. Peas, as well as other crops are now growing rapidly. Some pea crops are emerging within six days!