26th February

Last week we made a start on blocking the onions, we only have twenty thousand of the fifty thousand seeds in, the rest will be in by the end of the week.

We always do the onions first, followed by sixty thousand early leeks, then it is the sixty thousand winter leeks.

After they are done, we start on the brassicas.

The onions and leeks can still germinate if the temperature drops a wee bit.

But the brassicas like it to be a wee bit warmer, and we usually do not start them until March.

With that number of onions and leeks getting blocked it is one thousand one hundred and eighty trays.

We cannot fit them in the greenhouse or the small tunnel.

So, we had to get into one of the big tunnels and get it ready.

First job is to strim the ends and sides, then rotovate the tunnel followed by rolling so it is nice and flat for all the trays.

Lastly, we lay terminate down, then the tunnel is ready for the trays.

Next job is to put the water pump back on for the irrigation.

Before every winter we take it of so the frost does not crack it.

So, this week I will put it back and put all the sprinklers back on.

Each year we take all the sprinklers out and clean them, and replace any damaged ones.

There is a lot, each tunnel has two irrigation lines with 37 sprinklers per line, the cosy tunnels are longer and have fifty per line

In total there is five hundred and seventy sprinklers to be re fitted.

By Monday afternoon the irrigation should be back in full working order ready do go.