Gervase, barley is a foreign crop - wheat is the traditional one, and if you think about it, we've had some strange weather recently. April was boiling hot for a lot of it and in May it pissed down. Plus the seed we plant now has been treated to make it more resistant to damp enduced fungus and rot so it is plantable in winter/early spring making a much earlier crop. When there was no modified or treated seed, we had to do it natures' way, and thus we had the first crops at Petertide.

Sorry, but I'm sober now..... and it really is 6.15am, you were right yesterday, I am an insomniac. Now I'm going to work.

LTS