Future salads

These are a few of my tiny Little Gem lettuce seedlings; I think it's the third day since they started to appear. I love seeing the cases of the seeds from which they have emerged, and marvelling at their relative size after such a short time. Cauliflowers, rocket and the first tomatoes and aubergines are also up, less than a week after my first sowings, so although I've started much later than usual, I hope they will catch up. 

Today was the warmest day of our sunny week, after several frosty mornings. The sheep and lambs arrived in the next door field; they are late arriving this year too, and already well grown. J and I enjoyed some of our weekend baking (chocolate caramel squares - more to her taste than mine) in the sun on the deck. I photographed violets in a tangle of grass, reluctantly relegated to the extra, and tiny wild strawberry flowers. In between these pleasures, I prepared three large bags of chard for the freezer - it's time to harvest the last of the winter greens before they run to seed - and supported J with some admin and social media posts relating to her animation. We are in our third week without her main PA, whose whole family have had Covid one after another, but tomorrow S will be here and I will have time for some gardening.