After the storm

Sunday 20th November
​Having been away all week, my Sunday morning visit was planned to be mainly exploratory to check for storm damage. Having checked up on the current situation with various committee members while having my coffee and cake at the cafe, I went down to the plot. Surprisingly there was no damage from last night's storm and the peas still showed no sign of mouse damage. Nevertheless I gave them the usual sprinkling of paraffin.
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​Now that most of the asparagus fern was going yellow, now was the time to cut them down and clear the weeds. I tried the bill hook but the stems were too hard so I finished up using the secateurs. After that I carried the mass of fronds to the compost, though they probably will almost disappear when the bin packs down. Then I used a hand trowel to ease the mat of chickweed and other weeds from between the remaining stalks and then it was just a matter of spreading the mulch of compost I had dumped there a couple of weeks ago.

​Nice and tidy!

​The heap of weeds can be seen in the foreground and I have marked each plant with a cane marker to avoid damaging it when the shoots come through next year.
I then turned to harvesting. I pulled the largest of three cauliflowers that were heading nicely, noting that the sprouting broccoli/calabrese was nearly ready to pick and that the home sown cauliflower looked more like calabrese so would mix in as well.
Having sought advice from Hugh Merret about my fennel and been told that it does not withstand much frost, I dug up three, one to eat and two to try freezing. I then covered the remaining the plants in fleece pending their harvest later.
Just as I was about leave, having tidied weeds into the compost bin and emptied a bag of leaves from a neighbour into the leaf bin, I saw I had forgotten last time to remove the old brassica leaves from the net tunnel. While in there picking them up I noticed how well developed the 'Kilaton' cabbages were. Having dumped the leaves into the compost I went back and pulled a cabbage. I removed the largest leaves but left it on the stalk and roots as this cabbage is supposed to last week's if hung in a dry airy place - like my garage!
Finally I went home for lunch but now cannot remember closing the net tunnel door! Hopefully the pigeons don't find the opening!