Morning all. Apologies for radio silence the last few days. Good weather and hubs taking a couple of days holiday has meant that we have finally cracked “bramble hell”. After the best part of 5 years, they are gone, banished, no more, and it feels good my friends. Still lots of chain-sawing and log splitting to do but we can now easily keep the area strimmed and clear while this is done.

As we managed to get this done on Saturday, it meant I could get some pressing jobs done in the veg patch, which to date this year hadn’t so much as been touched. First job was to replace the old cover, which lasted a good 2 years before sun and cold in equal measure had made the window fly screens brittle and perish, and the door zips snap. It was held together with duct tape due to the ravages of various storms, so old cover off, new cover on. It needed a day without so much as a whisper of breeze, otherwise it’s like flying a giant kite, and not much fun. It’s on, velcroed to the frame, and tent pegged and guy roped as best I can. Sadly this replacement cover doesn’t have windows down both sides, only one, which is a shame but can’t really be helped. I just hope there will be enough air circulating in there when things are eventually planted.

All the wooden crates that I’d previously used to grow things like cucumbers, aubergines and peppers have been taken out. Their compost tipped on to the floor, (previously covered with membrane), and spread to give a nice thick layer. With the exception of a central path in the tunnel, I’m growing in the ground this year for the first time. When I opened the tunnel yesterday at about lunchtime, the humidity nearly floored me from the newly laid compost and the thermometer read 48 degrees. I figured I leave working inside there alone for the foreseeable.

My 2 long lasagne beds (look it up, there are people that explain this far better than me on the tinterweb), are now semi planted. Potatoes in one, plus a potato bin and a large bucket, and red onion sets in just over half of the other. I’m planning to carve up the useable bits of my old poly tunnel to make some small covers to lay over my small mesh covered wire tunnels, and I’ll put some spinach under one, possibly sow some lettuce under the other. We still have a snow forecast for next week so got to be careful.

For today though, I’ve done some washing, including washed some lovely new fabric for a new kitchen table runner, cleaned the kitchen and hoovered, but the migraine that I woke up with has now persisted into something that required ibuprofen and a lie down, so here I am, under a blanket, while a glorious 22 degree blue sky day passes me by. I know it’ll pass soon enough but where I wanted to work outside will now be in the full sun and I just can’t, even armed with my big hat. I might head outside early evening like I did yesterday and do a bit more. The windowsills continue to groan under the weight of seedlings, and April will open another world of sowing opportunities. I need just a few more weeks before the risk of frosts should be gone, then I can start moving some things outside.

This year is galloping on at an alarming rate……

Laters…… V x