29/11/25 - Strawberries, Mulch and Harvest

Good evening reader!  Thanks for stopping by.  This weekends visit was short and sweet, with about an hour or so of work done on the plot.  It might be cooler, wet and darker earlier, but while the weather keeps the grass from growing and the weeds from germinating, it also means that I get more time to crack on with the other chores.

I had notification this week that my bare root Raspberry plants should be coming via courier soon.  I was hoping that they were going to be here this weekend, but alas, it now looks like Monday.  So today where I should have been getting them into the soil, I took the final 4 pieces of timber up to the plot with me and screwed them to the uprights, ready for supporting wire to be fitted in the spring.  A good job done for the winter, and something that I can now forget about.

Last week, you may recall that I completed the tweaks needed in the polytunnel to help support an additional 10 hanging baskets of strawberry plants.  I moved half of them into the tunnel and left the remaining 10 outside.  This weekend, I have brought the rest into the polytunnel where hopefully they will soon fall dormant for the rest of the winter months.  And with that, the polytunnel is already starting to look busy again.

Remaining the the polytunnel, the broccoli/calabrese down the left side of the picture continue to grow nicely.  The heads are starting to get larger in size and I remain hopeful that I may be able to get a harvest off at least one of the plants for Christmas dinner!  The carrots remain in their mini raised bed at the back right of the tunnel.  I cut the green off them a few weeks ago and they seem to be sitting in there quite happily still.  Meanwhile, we're still harvesting the second sowing of carrots out of the bath tub outside, and probably have a couple of weeks worth out there before starting the harvest the remainder from the polytunnel.

On the subject of harvesting, being the weekend, I lifted another parsnip, a few more carrots, the last of the cauliflowers from outside (which seems to have taken an absolute age to eventually form a head) and a small swede.  The swede will end up in a soup no doubt, while the rest is destined for Sunday dinner.

Harvesting the last of the outdoor cauli meant that I had also freed up another bed, which could be prepared and put down for winter.  I'd already added digestate to half of the bed, so I added a second load, raked it out and covered it over with weed membrane.  There's something satisfying about putting beds down for the winter.  It's as if they're getting a hard earned rest ready for next year.

There were a few other jobs done around the plot today, mostly just tidying up and a bit of mulching around the front flower bed area.  But the weather soon started to close in so it was time to wrap it up for the weekend.  I managed to take this last shot, just as the first of the rain clouds came along.

There you have it.  Another quick visit with a few jobs and another diary entry complete.  I've been having some thoughts about some new additions to the blog, so keep an eye out for those down the left side of the home page.  Something along the lines of some 'How To' type articles, or my plan for the 2026 growing season...  We shall see.  Until next time, be good 😃