Brassica cage (at last)

After a week of rain the sun shone today. Next week's forecast is for rain again, so we put in a long session at the allotment. The most pressing task was to construct a brassica cage. I had given in last week and and ordered a build-a-ball cage, but it won't be delivered for another 2 weeks. Meantime my first batch of purple sprouting broccoli was hitting its head against the fleece tunnel - you can just see it beyond the onions in the shot above. So ingenuity was called for, and the children's old climbing frame turned out to be just the thing. Husband and daughter are here manouevering it into position. We tried out all our stock of netting, but none of it was big enough to drape over the frame and attach securely on all sides. Work was therefore suspended for a trip to Homebase. One thing led to another, and it was mid evening before we returned to the plot for the netting ceremony.


I popped in the second row of broccoli plants recently arrived from Delfland Nurseries, seen in the foreground with their little anti-cabbage butterfly collars, and we then pinned and pegged the netting in place. Although we bought the biggest size Homebase offered, we had to cut in in half to cover the whole frame down to the ground. Clothes pegs came in handy to join the two halves of the netting together.


Once my posh build-a-ball frame arrives, we'll use the climbing frame set-up to cover the blackcurrants for next year's crop.

I've just noticed that the first shot shows our pitiful garlic crop. It's the yellow straggly stuff at the front of the picture. This was the first time I've grown spring planted garlic, and probably the last if I get my act together to order the winter variety in the next few weeks.