​Finishing netting the first brassica cage

Saturday 13th April
Having missed a visit or two with a throat infection and the installation of my wood stove, I made an extra visit today. With the Working Party tomorrow, Sunday, I will get nothing done on my plot then.
My main target was to finish netting my half completed brassica cage. Both sides are pigeon proof but the top and door are open. The old netting was stored rolled on its batten in the shed, with the runner bean canes. A couple of staples held the end on the back rail and I rolled the batten along to top and dropped it down the front over the doorway. With a bit of adjustment I was able to staple the netting to the top side rail, folding the slack with a stapled 'Hospital corner' at each end where it bent over the end hoop. The end, rolled on the batten, lays on the ground and held in place with stakes and a couple of short post ends laid to trap the netting against the stakes. That covers the doorway.

With the netting complete I was able to remove the netting and bottles protecting the plants within. Having the young cabbages under the bottomless plastic milk bottles has got them off to a good start and the autumn planted cabbages are beginning to heart up and will do better now they are not shaded by the net tunnel.
​Once I had put my tools away I started harvesting. I pulled the row of curly and black kale plants as I need the space to plant my maincrop potatoes. They had started flowering but, after lifting the plants, I chopped off the root so I could take the whole plant home to harvest what is useable.
Then I started picking the purple sprouting broccoli. The heads were very loose with an odd flower but there was masses of it and it took a while to pick it all!

While picking it I saw that a couple of cauliflowers had headed. One was a good size but the second had separated. Even so they were both useable though they took an effort to uproot. Finally I dug up a couple of leeks.
Then I bagged up a load of rubbish from my dump just inside the gate and from my neighbour's heap outside his and squeezed it into the trailer alongside my garden waste, taking it to the tip on the way home.