Nature is winning I fear!

  The weather has been cold cold cold. Continuing minus temperatures over night (-10C and below) means that the polytunnel has finally given up. I went in the other day to find the soil frozen and my fork solidly stuck in the ground! The polytunnel fleece clouche is slowly but surely getting cooler. Average temperature over the last week has been around 10C. Germinated seeds close to the entrance have been touched by frost and I have lost those, however, the more cold tolerant seedlings, onions, leeks, early peas continue to survive and all I can do is keep my fingers crossed! Such is the joy and sadness of trying to beat the weather. This time last year I was out in the garden digging and enjoying warm sunshine. The water butts have frozen solid and one has fallen over, a solid lump of ice. Trying to harvest winter crops is impossible. Leeks are frozen into the ground as are swede and turnips. I managed to dig a swede out and found that it was giving in to frost damage. Not surprising really. Well, I still need to get my seed potatoes and bar a major snowfall a trip to the nursery next week will have to be made.
  The river is freezing over. Two/three feet out from both banks is thick ice and areas that are running slow the ice is almost touching the bed of the river. Weather outlook is for it to get milder by a few degrees!