A lovely Sunday morning

Sunday 17th February
Arriving for my regular Sunday morning visit I stopped at the Trading Hut to buy half a dozen 8 foot canes to train up the wayward Loganberry. I also visited the plots where rotavating had been requested. One lady had done so much work the machine was not necessary. The other had a small patch covered with plastic where I could rotavate but I need to check.
Finally getting to the plot and after emptying the kitchen waste, I left the canes alongside the Loganberry ready to install when I have the right tools.
I was then offered the use of some plastic cloches by a neighbour which I will use to warm the soil for early crops.




I then set about mulching the path beside the autumn raspberries. As I moved the horse litter from the heap on the bed next door I came across a green shoot. Digging down I found it was a 'volunteer' spud in the soil below the heap with a foot long shoot growing from it!


















​I soon had the path covered and firmed down and moved on to planting my sets.

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​The shallots, Golden Gourmet, were absolutely huge and I only had enough for one row of nine. The remaining four I gave away to a neighbour with the rest of the Red Baron onion sets left from the last session.







​In the late brassica tunnel I pulled up the cauliflower that had gone mouldy and covered over the others by bending leaves over the curd. Normally this is done to protect the curd from the sun but I did it to protect it from frost.
While in the tunnel I harvested a picking off purple sprouting.
Exiting the tunnel I took a roll of landscape fabric and covered over the strip where I plan to show my parsnips in a couple of weeks.
I finished off by clearing some old poles from on top of the bags of leaves so I could reach more of the crab apples on my tree and start stripping them from the tree. I got nearly half a bucket full which went straight on the compost heap as most had already started rotting!
Before I went home I remembered I had an empty margarine tub to turn into a slug trap. I had found half a dozen slugs under a plank left on the ground by the chard so I removed it. I cut two long slits in the side near the top to form a slot with the flap pushed inwards. A stone weight to stop it blowing away and a slug of beer completed the trap which I placed next to the chard.

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​As a temporary measure, while I wait to empty another margarine tub, the rest of the beer went into a plastic bottle pegged down further along the row.