So much for saying everything is progressing well. A bed (11M x 1.5M) containing cauliflower plants covered with enviromesh has been decimated, probably by rabbits..

Fortunately they’ve not found other produce.

Some vegetable seeds have not germinated or just sporadically, so there have been second sowings but now everything is progressing well and needing much weeding and watering in this continuous dry spell, today being helped to harvest by pupils interested to see our communal allotment.

A quick report. Purple sprouting broccoli producing well.

Leaf beet seedlings appearing, sown in a poly for transplanting outside later.

Radishes growing well under cover and lettuces – have grown well!

A glorious spring morning with much to do, from harvesting to digging, rotovating, adding manure, sowing seeds, plus onions and shallots, as well as watering; we’re experiencing a spell of dry days.

Blue sky, sunshine, warmer temperature and only a slight wind, so –

with several hands (and step ladders, wood battens, screws, spades, etc), the poly has been covered.

Important winter jobs – recycling plastic from the old polytunnel, so the lean to can be recovered and making a start on weeding the autumn raspberry patch. Note the long stinging nettle root.

A glorious winter’s morning; sun in a blue sky.

A trench is in the process of being dug around the new poly frame, in preparation for the fitting and weighing down of the plastic cover.

Other jobs today were the on-going removal of old, lower leaves from the brassicas and today’s harvest of cabbages, leeks, brussels sprouts and curly kale.

Odd jobs done –

collecting loads of leaves to be cut up later with the lawn mower, to aid breaking down for compost, has entailed transporting them in wheelbarrows and builders’ bags;

painting marker posts for the beds;

and removing the plastic and the frame of the old, largest polytunnel – as the new frame is in place 🙂

We’ve had some frosty mornings but beds have already been covered, ready for the next crops, while others still in production have enviromesh to protect them, not only from the cold but from rabbits, deer, etc.

Under the cover of the old poly, work is continuing on the new one.

Work progresses on the poly.