Poly-tunnel palaver

Guy, unravelling.

Philip and Remy do interpretive dance in the Society's new performance space.

Today we re-covered the Nursery poly-tunnel. We spent a previous Saturday clearing the frame, and digging trenches. Dave and Ben had done more work on weekdays too. We were; Guy, Mandy, Philip, Ben, myself and Remy. We started by doing a little more remedial work on the trenches, and the land drain on one side. We had to apply insulating tape to the frame to stop the metal framework getting hot and weakening the polythene. Then we had a comedy half hour trying to decide how to unwrap, unroll, and handle the huge and unwieldy polythene sheet. When we had got this worked out we draped the sheet over the frame, and began anchoring the sides under hardcore in the trenches. Plus also we had to pin the sheet to the door frames at each end.  3 hours work in the sunshine, followed by a drink at the pub. And homemade oak cookies.

The more or less finished item.

Summer work 2013 - The polytunnel

Guy, Ben, Mandy, Ben and Dave. And blue sky!

First day of our Summer Saturdays, and it was lovely weather. We were doing preparations for the reconstitution of the poly tunnel. Dave and Ben have spent a lot of time clearing the area, and pulling down the massive Roses that had grown over the frame. Today we were digging the trench around the sides, which the tunnel material will be buried into to anchor it. We were: Mandy, Guy, Dave, Philip, myself, Ben, Neil, Geoff and Remy. We were briefly joined by Duncan and Harvey the dog, but they left before any work got done! Cake was a lovely sugary coffee and walnut.

Towards the end Guy and Dave became fixated on some old concreted in fence posts at the bottom end of the poly tunnel. They enjoyed subjecting these to considerable violence.

For your consideration, new tree protection for next season

Cath with tree

While on the Greek Island of Kalymnos, Cath discovers a new type of tree guard. Worth considering for future tree soc use? I'd like to see someone try and strangle one of them.

The phantom tree strangler of Butterley

So, I went up to Butterley to replace some failed trees this morning, putting in 15 Scots Pine and 15 Rowan on a patch we planted with Emma and John Gray. I looked over in the next clough to see how our trees were doing there and discovered a dozen or so trees had had their tubes "strangled". The tubes had been bent, twisted and scrunched, presumably to stop the trees growing out. It is quite a remote spot, and mostly hidden from public view. So someone has deliberately and surreptitiously gone in there and done this. A Twite loving twitcher? Fighting back against the dreaded trees?