There are going to be some changes on the farm this year.

As a very first structure I built was a polytunnel – nothing special, a metal frame and a green plastic cover. It was quite big, it was as long as the width of one plot. It was fine for the first few years but then things started going wrong. First of all the zip on the door broke and very soon small holes were appearing in the plastic. I didn’t give up because the frame was sound so I just pulled the plastic cover off and instead of that covered it with green netting. It has been working very well all this time, I have been growing vegetables there every year, rotating the crops regularly.

A new idea came to me this year – to enlarge my soft fruit area. The fruit cage is full but I have decided to use this tunnel to put my blackcurrants there. To make it accessible for the bees and other pollinators I’ve taken the fine mesh off that was the door and will install a new door made out of pea netting.

All I had to do today was to dig it over, spread a few sacks of compost over and next time I can move the bushes. 

There will be a couple of new ones there, two chuckleberry bushes,and the blackcurrants. The two new bushes will be delivered on Thursday together with a new apple tree.

After I’ve done this I’ll just have one more net cage to sort out and all these structures will be ready.

The next task are strawberry beds. I have started already, all I need to do is to move some plants from another net cage (an old greenhouse covered with fine netting) complete one new bed and then just thin out and weed the others.

The net covered greenhouse will be used to grow broccoli as I never grew broccoli there yet.