I’ve managed to claw back some time and my sanity from the madness that is redeployment by spending at least an hour every evening at the Plot, which means stepping away from the keyboard by 1730 at the latest.

Polytunnel life continues to do its thing.  The broad beans are at their ‘show-off’ best and I picked and ate the first harvest at the weekend.

The cauliflowers are magnificent and if I could persuade them to be ready a month earlier, all would be perfect.  However, a Plot Neighbour was a happy recipient and I was happy with that.

I’ve been picking salad leaves for most of April and they just keep sprouting. Love ‘Morton’s secret mix’ from Real Seeds.  In other happy lettuce news, Little Gem has decided to germinate this year and so well that I seem to have succession planting.

The cucumbers are in and the pots readied for the tomato planting scheduled for this coming weekend.  Getting compost has been a challenge but then I got chatting with another new plot neighbour – offering tomato plants (as you do to the unsuspecting newbies) turns out Mr Plot is a landscape gardener and can still procure bags of compost.  He immediately became my new best friend when he agreed to fetch me three bags and now he’s on the Christmas card list by stacking them neatly in the polytunnel the next day!

I usually have salad potatoes peeking through the soil but the panic-buyers, hoarders and preppers wiped out seed potato stocks before I could say coronavirus and I’d resigned myself to go without, but then chatting with my next-door neighbour about the current peculiarities of life and mentioning the prospect of summer without new potatoes, he immediately offered to share a bag he’d been given.  A short row of six Jazzy is now installed.  It’s good to talk!

Did you notice the calabrese at the top of the last picture?  Normally, I’d have hoicked it out at least a month ago, but it’s having a growth spurt and I’m curious to see if it will produce more heads.

See you in May with more stories from the polytunnel.