​Tying up the blackberry

​Tuesday 13th March
There's much to do on the plot so I had to prioritise. After emptying the kitchen waste and the first bag of grass cuttings of the year from a neighbour, I went straight to collect the canes from the shed. I first needed to hammer in the posts to firm them up so I fetched the thumper and installed all the posts I needed for blackberries and raspberries - and the runner beans. I then cut the bottoms of plastic bottles to be caps to these posts. However, I found I had left the stapler at home so had to collect them all to store in the shed until I can fix them on the posts so the wind won't blow them off.


 I fixed a few more screws to rest 3 canes on and wired them on between the posts and then tied the six remaining vines along them.




​There was a mountain of prunings that will have to be taken to the tip which can be seen in the foreground in front of the lovely tidy gooseberries and blackberries.

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​Thank goodness they are thornless! - And I still need to dig out several shoots where the stems have touched the ground and rooted.
Finally I harvested some Brussels leaving enough for 3 or 4 more meals, though the end plant which was always rather weedy has started producing small buttons that are getting larger.  I then picked a tip from each of the curly kale plants giving enough for a meal of tender small leaves without any whitefly!