Sunday 26th February
I brought the trailer down to the plot today filled with material destined either for the tip or the compost bin.
I sorted out the garden waste for the compost bin and then started repairing the bin itself. For some reason when I reinforced the front of one of the bins I thought a single screw at each end of the reinforcing batten would be enough. Under the pressure from within one screw snapped of requiring me to force the front panel back into place so I could replace the screw and add several more. Then, while I had my cordless drill out, I unscrewed one of the brassica tunnels from the pegs that hold it in place ready to lift it over to it's new patch. I do hope we don't have another gale before I can gather a team of people to help lift it over.
Gathering my thick leather gloves and a pair of secateurs I pruned the fancy gooseberries, a yellow Japanese named variety (that I can neither say nor spell) and a standard one (on a three foot stem) that has yet to produce. Both were rather to closely constrained under a loose covering of netting last year and had become badly congested.
Having emptied the compost material out of the trailer onto the bins I bagged up some of the brassica stalks and gooseberry prunings ready to take them to the tip. I also bagged up the twigs I had sorted out from my leaves together with any other natural woody bits that I had collected just inside my gate, making the plot look very untidy. All were loaded on to the trailer together with the remains of a broken pallet and a few bits of useless timber. I will have to make a trip down to the tip in the next few days.
With time marching towards the time of the kickoff of the England rugby match, I harvested a couple of leeks, quite a few Brussels, some cabbage tops (the Savoys just did not heart up) and a parsnip.

Monday 20th February
 The other day, while in Stewarts getting a few 1st early potatoes to grow on in bags in the greenhouse, I picked up a plant of an autumn raspberry called 'Joan J'. Today I decided I would replace one of my inherited raspberry plants with the new one. I hope to propagate more plants from the new root next year and eventually replace all the old roots which are those transferred from the patch I inherited when I took the plot on.
While digging out the old root I found some bindweed roots and remembered I had some problems with it last year. Fortunately the bindweed seems to have only grown through the mulch so, once I had planted the new root, I set about doing my annual dig of the path beside the row. Now the plot next door is being cleared by the new tenant, much to my relief, it is worth trying to eradicate the thistles and bindweed. Unfortunately the soil was very compacted and wet so I struggled to remove the roots especially as some of them go down below the spade depth. I am wondering whether I can get the time to double dig that part once the soil dries out a bit.
However I did not have time immediately as I had to rush home early to meet my son who was coming round to help level up my shed at home as it is subsiding into the hole I made grubbing out a tree stump.
I went home without any veg, just a couple of large chunks of paving slab to go under the shed foundations.

Sunday 19th February
 Over the last couple of days I have been planting the onion and shallot sets I had ordered last November and had arrived last week. I finished off by planting the last two rows this morning. I had to dig the patch over first and this was fairly heavy going as, being part of last year's brassica patch, it had not been dug since the autumn of 2015. There were also a multitude of thornless blackberry plantlets that had to be dug out as I had not kept my main plant under control and it had rooted wherever it had touched ground. I gave several plantlets away and left several at the 'Surplus' table by the Trading Hut and several at the front of my plot. I think the original plant was 'Reuben', a lovely blackberry but, though thornless, very vigorous.
Having dug the patch over I used my hand cultivator the create a fine tilth before planting the sets. With freshly dug soil I could just push them in but don't do this with more compact soil as you will damage the root plate at the bottom of the set. I make sure the tips are just under the surface, ignoring the advice to leave the tips showing as the birds pull them out thinking they may be a worm or insect. With the light soil on my plot I find it makes no difference burying them just under the surface.

​I finished up with a row of 'Jermor' shallots, a row of 'Golden Gourmet' shallots (well spaced as there were only 13 in the bag - they had better be good!), a row of 'Red Baron' onions and a row of 'Sturon' onions. I have won prizes with my Jermor shallots but Golden Gourmet may just be better.

As usual I have planted far more than I need. Last autumn I planted a row of Red Baron onions,  two rows of garlic and one and a half rows of 'Eschallotte Grise' shallots and half a row of Jermor shallots. Eschallotte Grise is my favourite for dicing into salads but it doesn't grow very well in our temperate climate preferring really hot summers. Quite a few of the Red Baron sets have rotted away and, as I paid top whack for them in Stewarts, not worth repeating next year.
I am also pleased to report I seem to have finally dealt with my rat problem. Having checked that the box of poison from the Trading Hut worked out cheaper than that from InExcess, though the initial outlay may be greater, the new bait has been left alone and I don't get a kerfuffle from the back of my shed when I open the door and the rats beat a retreat from their nest under the rubbish!

Sunday 5th February
I got down to the plot for my normal Sunday morning session despite not having managed to get down at all during the week. When the weather was good I was otherwise engaged and the rest of the week it poured with rain.
I started on my bedraggled broad beans which had collapsed under the wind, cold and rain even though they are under a protective net tunnel. I had brought a bundle of twigs from pruning in my garden, birch and hazel, which I used to lift the plants from where they had flopped onto the ground so they were propped up in the twigs. They were still bent and twisted but will grow upwards as it warms up. Some of the shoots had rotted off completely but most had new young shoots emerging at the base.
I finished by giving both the beans and the parallel row of peas a dose of chicken manure and a light sprinkling of slug bait as some of the leaves on the peas had disappeared. It may be mice that are nibbling them but I cannot easily deal with mice, slugs are much easier to deal with.
Finally the beans were tucked up under the net tunnels.

I then turned my attention to pruning the gooseberries. Earlier I had cut off all the branches that were sagging down to the ground so today I concentrated on pruning back the tips by a third and removing any inward pointing or crossing twigs. The result was a heap of cuttings for the incinerator and nice tidy bushes.

​The blackberry in the background still needs pruning and tying up onto wires. It is so rampant that it had spread all over and into the gooseberries. If you look carefully there are a couple of rooted vines that would transplant when I have time to dig them out. Anyone fancy a thornless Blackberry plant?
However, the fancy gooseberries in another bed are in an even more tangled state and still await the secateurs.

I then pruned the young pear tree next to my shed. I removed a branch encroaching on the path and all those pointing inward. I them shortened side shoots by a third and leaders by half. Now I need to check I have done it right!
I spent a little time picking useful equipment and materials out of the shed and stacking them in the greenhouse before I got a phone call reminding me when the rugby was starting soon so I hurried to finish.
Before harvesting, I found one trap by the shed had caught a rat, which explained perhaps why I had not heard them rustling out the back of the shed. I put down some of the new poison I had bought at the Trading Hut. It is a different constituent poison from the one I get from In-Excess and it is, dose for dose, cheaper. Hopefully it will be a shade more effective!
Finally I harvested leeks, a cabbage, a parsnip and some Brussel Sprouts and rushed home to watch the match. I had to nip back down after the game had finished as, in the rush,  I had forgotten to shut the greenhouse!

Sunday 29th January 2017
I have not posted anything in the blog for more than a week because I have spent the whole time fitting the polycarbonate sheeting into my greenhouse frame. I have laid down some rat poison at each visit but otherwise done nothing except cut poly-carbonate sheets and wrestle with glazing clips.
While the side panels went in reasonably easily and square, the roof proved to be well out of true. I remembered that in the gales last year the frame had been blown across the plot and up against the shed. On closer examination I could see where the gable end had taken a knock and was askew so each panel had to be trimmed top and bottom in order to fit. Thank goodness I used plastic; I could never have trimmed glass sheets to fit!

​Today I managed to fit the glass louvre slats and fixed the roof vent so it won't blow open in a gale. Now I can shut the door and seal the greenhouse ready for growing. I plan to fit a couple of automatic struts to control the roof and louvre vents before I start in earnest. At least now I have somewhere dry to put the useable items from when I start clearing my shed of all the accumulated rubbish that currently fills it.
Yesterday I took time out to rotavate the plot of a new tenant. (The committee, by way of encouragement, now offers to rotavate any new tenant's plot when they have cleared the weeds and loosened the soil.) The plot had been cleared and dug over so the machine worked well, though my muscles are a bit sore from the unaccustomed exercise! However after Friday's rain the machine got covered in wet soil and took longer to clean than the job itself!