On Sunday I started removing the tomato plants from my polytunnel. In previous years I’ve completely emptied the beds one day and then planted out my Winter salads the next.
This year is a bit different for a number of reasons, the obvious one being that I’m just not physically capable of working that hard right now. However, I also want to try lifting at least some of the pepper plants, potting them up and putting them somewhere warmer than the polytunnel over Winter and I plan to leave a few of the tomato plants for a few weeks longer to see if they’ll ripen the remaining fruit. I’m not that hopeful, but I think I can work around the remaining ones to do whatever needs doing and when the time comes to remove them I just snip the stem off at the base anyhow so there should be no disturbance to anything in the ground.
It was a bit of a slow job with lots of breaks because my shoulders tire very quickly, but I just went down the rows snipping off all the remaining leaves and fruiting spurs (which went straight onto the compost heap) and then unwinding the main stems from the supporting strings. The strings are just attached near the base of the stem using a thumb knot so they’re not that awkward to remove.
Bad light eventually stopped play, but I got the last few remaining plants done the following morning.
Before:
And after:
The stems themselves await feeding through the garden shredder. Whilst it’s still warm enough to exercise my right to bare arms (and in fact bare legs — I’m still in shorts and t-shirts) in the polytunnel however, there’s quite a cold north-easterly breeze, so that can wait for another day.