22nd January

Last week I had talked about building a new tunnel.

This tunnel is only going to have bird netting as a cover not polythene.

I am going to use it only for taking the blocked plants out of the tunnel before planting them in the field.

We usually need two of our tunnels to bring on all the plants.

And if we layed out a whole tunnel of  blocked veg plants, the pigeons and Rabbits would have a grand feast.

So, we leave them in and only take out a weeks worth of planting at a time, this is to harden them of just before we plant them.

But I can make another tunnel out of old bend tunnel hoops, these will not be strong enough to have polythene on them.

They are bend with the result of the wind pushing the polythene and bending tunnel hoops.

But with bird netting there will not be any pressure on them.

With this bird netting tunnel built.

I can then empty one tunnel of plants as soon as they have germinated.

This will then mean I can get that tunnel planted much sooner.

But this week the ground has been frozen solid.

So, there was no way of getting that job started.

And the leek harvesting was great fun.

The warmest morning was minus 3 and the coldest minus 8.

There was no way we could pull the leeks out of the ground.

So, we had to just cut the base of the leek at ground level.

Then take them to the shed and let them thaw out and dress them the following morning, still frozen but slightly better.

So, a few of you might have had frozen veg in your nets this week.

This week it is supposed to turn milder but wet and windy.

Easier for harvesting with the ground no longer frozen.

But I might not make a start on the new tunnel.