15th November

Last week’s job was clearing out the cucumber tunnel.

Its not the best job in the world, with the cucumber plants withered and dead and they are always all full of cob webs.

So when we untie the two hundred and fifty of them, they fall to the ground, or more than usual fall on top of us.

So we usually end up with cob webs and spiders all down our neck, hair and back with an extra topping of dead crumply leaves added to the menu, at no extra charge.

Then we have to lift them into the trailer, so now the cob webs, spiders and dead crumply leaves, this time going down our neck and onto our chest, just to give us an even covering.                                                                  A wee bit like a challenge from I’m a celebrity get me out of here, but with no Ant and Dec.

When we have them all out of the tunnel, the next job is to lift the ground cover.

We always plant the cucumbers through a weed control fabric, this lets the water get through, and supresses the weeds.

We have been using the same fabric for years, its pretty heavy duty, and we can plant through the same holes that we have made years ago.

With this down, after we have planted the cucumbers, we don’t need to weed, we then only have the weekly job of tying them up and cutting off the side shoots.

But the weed control fabric, has been down for ,most of the year, and somehow some weeds do always manage to grow through, which makes it a wee bit harder to lift it.

The cover is fifty meters long by 10 meters wide, so it is pretty big.

Usually what we do is grab a corner each and just walk the length if the tunnel pulling the matting over its self.

This way when we have it outside, it is left pretty clean, so we can then fold it up, and store it away for the following year.

So we are now onto our second test in, I’m a celebrity get me out of here, still no Ant and Dec in sight, just Rab and Me.

So there is a lot of tug a war going on with the weeds, that have managed to grow through the weed prevention fabric.

So we are continually having to go back and pull at the weeds that have made it through, they do have a good hold, and now we are having to pull at the matting that has been against the soil all year, and it’s really Mawkit, and under here there are loads of worms, slugs, snails, and the mysterious Frogs that a talked about before ? where do they come from ? and how do they manage to live under the matting, I am defiantly going to phone David Attenborough about this one.

But eventually we do win, and the tunnel is ready to be disc harrowed, and ready for the next crop.