19th January

This week we had our first harvest of the Romanesco Cauliflower that we planted in the cosy tunnel for a trial last year.

We have never tried sowing these seeds late in the year, we always sow spring cabbage, spring onions, spinach, Ruby Chard and over winter lettuce.

We do them late in the year around September, and if we get our timings right, we then plant them when all the summer veg is ending, and these crops fill the tunnels up for over winter.

And if the winter is not too harsh, we get a good early harvest before anything else is ready, and it has worked out well in the past.

We had a wee bit of Romanesco seeds left in a packed last year, so I though better use them up and see if they can sit in the tunnel through the cold weather, and they have had a few days of really cold weather, and they look amazing.

Next year we will fill a full cosy tunnel with them, which should be enough to give every customer a nice fresh Romanesco Cauliflower in the new year.

Last week I was on about taking the polythene of off tunnel two, which needs some repairs, this week we made a start on it.

We now have all the wooden framing of off both ends of the tunnel, the ridge bar is unbolted, and we have nearly finished getting all the tunnel hoops back to being the same high from one end to the other.

This tunnel is really old and through time with the pressure of the winds it can push a tunnel hoop more into the ground or bend one.

And if all the hoops are not the same hight, it is extremely hard to get the polythene tight over each hoop, which then leaves slack areas, and this is where the polythene usually tears.

There are twenty-eight hoops in these tunnels, and we have taken most of them out of the ground and re fixed them in place.

This week we will re bold the ridge bar and see if any are still out of line, and sort any if they are, then it will be the job of making new frames for the doors at each end.

Once that is done, we will get it re sheeted and ready to go.