Since my last posting, I have only been up to my plot a couple of times. We had snow in early December, and my tents caved in under the weight, so I have been doing a few repairs. Of course, I should have taken down the tents over winter, but it is a lot of work to put them back on in the spring. It is apparent that the very fine mesh that I was using on one plot let no snow through at all, so the damage there was very significant. I have taken this off and discarded it, and tidied up a bit. I shall replace it with a coarser mesh material in due course. This will keep off the birds and some of the butterflies etc, but not the smaller insects like carrot flies or pea moth. Perhaps I will cover these with a separate piece of fine mesh material? The coarse mesh will also not keep out the bees, so pollination of eg beans should be OK.
I have started potatoes chitting at home. They should be ready to plant out in March/April. I've also started off some onion sets in modules - I shall put some more out directly in due course if we have some warmer weather - and also planted some broad bean seeds in pots. Again, I shall sow some directly when we get some warmer weather. This should give me a succession, although the ones planted later always try to catch up! If I leave it a month, they will probably be about a week behind at harvest.
