First week of February

​On Thursday I was dropped off by my wife at the garage on her way to shop so walked in with just my cordless drill to unscrew the brassica tunnel's securing stakes ready for the annual move.
However, I wanted some energetic jobs to stay warm so started pulling the metal stakes that form the centre for the climbing bean teepee out of the ground. I then moved on to the autumn raspberry support posts, including one broken and strapped to a support post. The two end ones came up easily, even the support post, but I worked up quite a sweat trying to remove the centre post and eventually gave up to dig it out later (on a No-Dig plot?) when I dig out the raspberries to move them elsewhere.
Now nice and warm, I turned to the brassica patch where in the autumn I had planted various brassicas for the spring. I had used several grids and some fleece as protection against pigeons (successful) and frost (unsuccessful). I uprooted the remains of the frosted plants, leaving the few survivors before returning the grids for the time being. I was particularly disappointed at the expensive spring cauliflower seed as all had rotted stems and were dead.
The strawberries and asparagus needed rescuing from under heaps of compost or leafmould that had been too frozen to spread out recently. Spreading the compost out on the strawberry bed I soon realised I had left far too much on the bed and scraped nearly half off, barrowing the surplus to my 'Others' bed (sweet corn, squashes etc




The asparagus bed was very similar but I just scraped the surplus off leaving it beside the bed ready to remove later.














Then, using my cordless drill, I unscrewed the tunnel frame from the stakes securing it to the ground, hoping we don't have a gale before I gather a team of six to lift it and move it on to this year's brassica patch I had just tidied.

​​That done I collected my kneeler from the shed and the barrow and started clearing the tunnel of brassica stumps and weeds. While the stumps needed the No-Dig 'twist and pull' technique to get them up with minimal soil disturbance, the weeds all came out easily being almost all rooted in the old compost mulch. I was pleased that the brassica roots were well developed (we've had a really good cauliflower crop through the winter from Trading Hut plants). There was no sign of clubroot - the addition of lime when planting seems worthwhile. The barrow load of weeds went straight in the compost.
Expecting my lift home to arrive anytime I tidied up and was just folding some of the old fleece as the car arrived to take me home. The end of a very successful session!

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​On Saturday I came down in the morning with my trailer to help with the pothole filling. I had the easy job of driving round transporting the roadstone to where it was needed while the others were shovelling it into the trailer and out into the holes. I did do some shoveling when I could help.


At the end I managed to persuade 5 of them to help me move my brassica tunnel to this year's brassica patch.








​Unfortunately the morning's achievement was somewhat marred by the disappearance of a tailgate to one of the trailers (Fortunately located later that day!)
When we finished many of them retired to the chairman's plot for a coffee break but I had to go back to the plot to brew mine with the Ghillie kettle and by the time I had finished lighting it, boiling the water and brewing it they had all finished and were going home.
Refreshed by coffee I blocked off possible entry points around the base of the tunnel with planks. 

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​​I finished off by lifting some leeks, some for home and some for my neighbour who has eaten all hers already. One leek had swollen so it looked like a garlic bulb - peculiar. I will investigate at home. (I think it was a left-over elephant garlic regrowing!)

​Sunday I had another 10 bags of leaves from my neighbour to bring down in his van. I managed to transfer 3 into larger bags for long term storage and stacked the remainder on a vacant patch of the plot pending proper storage.
I had nothing more to harvest but was very thankful for gifts of a couple of parsnips and a whole stem of Brussels. It's great to have good neighbours! I must return the favour when possible.
As I left I placed a tray of spring cabbage plants and some broad bean plants in the greenhouse ready to plant out on a future visit.