The swallows arrived weeks ago and are happily twittering as they swoop over the fields catching insects to feed to their young. They are a mesmerising distraction from our real work – planting.

We’ve been sowing up literally thousands of different tree seeds; many different types of betula sp. and alnus sp. along with other nitrogren-fixing trees like lupinus arboresus and caragana arborescens, and some crazy experiments just to see what happens like pinus pinea (although perhaps with climate change not so crazy?).

To my great surprise and delight many of the seeds are starting to germinate already. So along with all the sowing we have been pricking out and potting on too. With any luck we will be ready to plant a lot of these young trees this autumn.

Thankfully we have had some glorious weather (in between the rain showers) and I have a (face and hands – it’s not that warm yet!) suntan already! One thing is for sure, I LOVE planting trees