Now it is a little warmer!

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!