With a return to work looming, today was my last chance to get it up so to speak. Thanks to Derek and James - and a warm and almost windless day, I finally got the cover on my polytunnel.
To say this was a bit of a struggle is an understatement. Regardless of Derek's exepertise, seemingly endless selection of tools and James's 17 stone to help trosh the base rails down.
There are things they omit to tell you in the instructions, ranging from what the diagonal measurement is actually meant to be when they tell you the diagonals have to be more or less equal; to you'll have to remove the clamps you've bolted on once the cover's tacked into the rebate between the battens on the base rail and then re-fit the bolts, so the rails will drop below the grub screws which hold the hoops to the base poles.
Leaving these minor dramas aside, we did get the cover more or less tight and once it was on and the doors were fitted, it felt good as the interior started warming up in the spring sunshine and I started thinking ahead to what we're going to grow in it.
There are first early spuds in the orange buckets which went in first to make some space in the greenhouse. I dropped a plastic cold frame on a pallet at the other end, with some early peas which have just started shooting.
I hung some hanging baskets on the crop rails, looked at all this undercover space we now have to grow in and cracked open a beer while I pondered different bed layouts.
I reckon one down the middle and one each side, but this might change as we start planting it.
++ Thanks to Derek and James, without whose help this wouldn't have happened.
+++ The tunnel came from First Tunnels.
No comments:
Post a Comment