A protection racket

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An aerial view of my veg plot confirms that it does contain rather a lot of “hardware”.

Apart from the wooden-frames raised beds, most of the stuff I call hardware is there to provide protection against the elements and/or the local wildlife.

I use these little plastic greenhouses to protect my early potatoes from frost:

The potato plants are getting tall now, so closing the lids is becoming difficult!

The other day (the day before the first photo was taken) we had many hours of heavy rain. Fortunately I had seen the weather forecast predicting this and had covered as many as possible of my young plants to stop them being battered down. Here we see Kohlrabi and Broccoli plants underneath one of my long cloches:

Next to them, under a similar tunnel-cloche, are young Lettuces:

At the end of the same raised bed I have 5 short rows of Radishes (one only just emerging), and these are protected against foxes by wire covers made from the shelves of the mini-greenhouses:

I have two coldframes for protecting seedlings. One is a low one, seen here:

That one is very flimsy, and the “glass” is actually polycarbonate. It is very lightweight and I constantly worry that it will blow away. No such worries with the other coldframe though. This is the Gabriel Ash one, which is very substantial and has real glass.

When that photo was taken, the upper level contained several trays of little seedlings, and down below were my 8 biggest chilli plants.

I nearly forgot to mention the nets covering the raised beds. Without these, my garden would be a complete disaster area. The foxes constantly dig in any piece of unprotected ground.

All this paraphernalia may seem a bit over-the-top to some people, but I think it makes a huge difference. My garden is not big by most peoples’ standards, and every crop is precious. I remember how I felt years ago, before I had all this kit, how soul-destroying it was to come downstairs in the morning to see more of my lovingly-nurtured plants trashed by animals or the weather. One day, when I’m rich, I’ll probably get a polytunnel…

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