Polytunnel

We bought a polytunnel a couple of weeks ago, and I thought "Hey, dead easy to put up.... nothing to it..."
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Ha!
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The first part of the job is to hammer scaffolding tubes into the ground. These are essentially the "foundations" of the polytunnel. Each length of scaffolding acts a sleeve for the main hoops of tubing which make up the "skeleton" of the tunnel.
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Now I'm while fairly robustly built, I'm a bit puny when it comes to wielding a sledgehammer. It took me a full afternoon to get the tubes into the ground at just the right angle to take the hoops. Each hoop is made of of two parts, fitting together with a male/female joint. If the tubes are in the ground at the wrong angle, even slightly, the two halves of the hoops either don't come together at all, or they spring apart with a joyous sproinggggg!!!! noise and you have to start again.
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Next job; get the ground sheet down. Easy enough, but I discover at this point that the supplier has been very economical with the ground pegs. The sheet is down as I place it there, but the first high wind and it'll be "I don't think we're in Kansas any more Toto....". Memo to self: purchase more grounds pegs.
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And today's job: the doors.One either end (i.e. so that when there's a high wind, we can open both ends and avoid the Kansas scenario).
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Of course, when fitting doors, it is a usual assumption that one is fitting the frame and door to a, more or less, "square" structure. i.e. One consisting of right angles, uprights beside which a plumb bob is parallel and horizontal lines which will not embarrass a spirit level.A word to the unwary: bashing scaffolding tubes into the ground is not an exact science. A degree or so out of true is enough to bugger things up completely. A job that I thought would take about an hour for me and another guy - he's six foot two, got a reach like an orang utan and is good with a drill and screwdriver - in fact took all afternoon to sort out just one door, not two. I'd thought we would have the plastic canopy in place by the end of the afternoon.
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Sigh....
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Still a task that was difficult the first time should be easy for the second. It's one of those jobs where there's a way of doing it, and number two should take about an hour. Then my multitudinous seedlings can get some shelter.
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Watch this space......

Cider Apples

We bought a polytunnel last week. Putting it together is hard work. The job starts with hammering in three foot sections of scaffolding into the ground to take the "uprights". I'm a bit undermuscled to handle a sledgehammer, but with my mother's help got it done eventually. So I've got the supports down and the ground sheet, but Sod's Law says that as soon as I'm ready to put up the plastic sheet cover, we get a week of the windiest days for months......

Then, I met a very nice chap in the pub a few days ago. In fact it was my mum who got chatting to him, but it turned out that he is a botanist and specialises, right now anyway, in cider orchards. He's been really helpful. He's provided me with four small cider apples (variety Harry Masters) and gave me a tour of some commercial cider orchards and the associated factory.

He's also donated several strawberry plants, some shade netting for the polytunnel and a bakers bread tray (I've been trying to get hold of some). He also knows a strawberry grower, who after his strawberries have exhausted their compost, has to dispose of it. The compost is no good for strawberries, but is fine for anything else. He's also offered to try to get someone he knows to help us get the caterpillar and the earthmover working.

He's a great chap and full of useful advice. I really hope that we can keep his friendship.

On a change of subject, we have jackdaws nesting in one of the chimneys, so we won't be using the range for a few months. And yesterday i spotted a pair of goldfinches in the garden. I think they were eating dandelion seeds.

Field Mushooms - St George's Mushroom

Hey!! We've got mushrooms in the meadows... one of the best there is: St Georges Mushroom. I spotted them this morning walking the dogs. I saw some areas of darker grass against the background and went to investigate. I found four beautiful "fairy rings" about a meter across.

I'll pick a few to eat, but also I'll move a few to likely areas for them to spore successfully, such as the giant heap of straw and horse manure at one end of the field.

The meadows are looking really beautiful now. I had thought when I first moved here that I'd inherited a "grass desert" from the previous owner, but in fact this just isn't so. As I watch what is growing as Spring moves on, I am finding more diversity all the time.

The meadow contains, apart from the actual grass, buttercups, cuckoo flower (or milkmaids as we called them when I was a kid) and a lot of red clover. Also, the blackthorn hedges have self seeded like mad. As I walk through the grass by the hedgerow, I'm wading through a sea of sicx inch high blackthorn. If humans vacted this site for more than a couple of years, or it didn't get grazed, the hedgerow would take over the field..... just another example of the fact that we live in a country design by nature for the forest.