Simon.

Simon, from Germany, left the farm today to catch a ferry over to Ireland and continue his wwoofing adventures. Thanks for your help over the past 3 weeks, and good luck for the future.

Skinning the propagation tunnel.

Wednesday 11th February promised a good enough weather forecast to skin our latest polytunnel, with no rain and very mild winds, so we took the opportunity, gathered a group of volunteers, and spent the day getting the plastic cover on and dug in and the doors hung.

Natalie, Pete and Jessie applying anti-hot-spot tape to the frame first thing in the morning.

This is our new propagation tunnel, or "The Propagation Station", where we will raise as many seedlings for the farm as possible, saving us money by not having to buy in seedlings, and allowing us a greater say in what plants we use, and when, and how they are raised. There will be a heated bed, plus an array of wooden shelving - plus tea-making facilities!

The cover on and fastened in place, before morning coffee break.

Discussing the best way to get the plastic as tight as possible.

Inside the tunnel before hanging the doors.

Hanging the last door of the day.

Part of the skinning team at the end of the day.

We'd like to thank everybody who helped to skin the tunnel on the day - Ian, Nikki, Pete and Pete, Simon, Jenny, Willow, Andrew, Jessie, Natalie, Jim, and Tommy - plus the three dogs for keeping us entertained.

Building a hot propagation bed, phase one.

On Tuesday, inside the skeleton of our to-be-completed propagation tunnel, we constructed most of the hot bed on which we will raise this year's polytunnel seedlings (and some for early outdoors crops).

The hot bed frame laid out and being screwed together by Pete and Tommy.

The bed is 7.5 square metres, which we hope is ample to propagate and pot-on this season's tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, peppers, chillies, aubergines, squashes and herbs.

Nikki trimming the lining.

We built a raised bed of 7.5 x 1m, lined it with polytunnel plastic offcuts, added a layer of gravel then coarse sand, and fixed hoops across the top to hold the plastic cloche (see phase two!).

Pete raking the first layer of coarse sand level.

The next phase will be to lay the soil-warming cable, wire it in plus thermostat, lay another layer of coarse sand, and erect the plastic over the hoops. Then to start sowing!

Chapel Street Market and the Transition Penwith Roadshow.

For the third time this winter Bosavern Community Farm had a stall at the Chapel Street Market in Penzance, on Saturday 7th February. This was a special market, as it coincided with a weekend of activities organised by Transition Penwith, including workshops, a street parade, and benefit gig, plus a talk by Rob Hopkins in the Acorn.

Despite a freezing wind, our stall did very well through the morning, encouraged by a Morris display and several choirs performing on the chapel steps.

This year's workshop schedule.

Rudolf.

Rudolf left the farm on Thursday morning to head back to his studies in France, so we'd like to thank him for his work as a volunteer on the farm for 6 weeks, and wish him all the best back at college.

Rudolf pegging down the fruit-cage netting.

Netting the fruit cage.

A beautiful crisp winter day, with a sprinkling of snow on the ground, but the wind was too strong to skin our propagation tunnel so we opted to attach the netting to our new fruit cage instead. Our plan is to cover the ground with woven black mulch (mipex) and plant fruit bushes through holes to minimise weeding - raspberries, blackcurrants, loganberries, and gooseberries.

Laying out the roof (we found this the most difficult step, and ended up tying each mesh corner to each cage corner, then choosing a corner and working away from it along both sides, perpendicular to each other).

Mesh roof on and fastened.

Simon and Natalie fastening side mesh to the uprights.

Almost finished.....