Category: Grounds (Page 7 of 7)

Polytunnel – Day 5

May 2, 2013 / stephen

And I am almost there. By the end of the day, the frame is covered and waiting to be tensioned. I had to get some help unfolding the plastic before it went onto the frame. I probably could have done it on my, but it is the sort of job that would take an hour on your own or 5 mins with two people. I opted for the two person approach and Rob North kindly lent a hand.

It is starting to look like a polytunnel now, particularly from the inside!

The next job is to tension the plastic and cut off the excess, but that will have to wait until tomorrow.

I must admit that this is a two man job – unfolding the plastic and getting it over the hoops is much easy with two pairs of hands. Rob North kindly assisted.

It only took 5-10 minutes to unfold the plastic and get it onto the frame. Next job is to attached it to the wooden battens that run aroung the base of the frame making sure that it is tensioned correctly. Why do I think of Dougal from the Magic Roundabout?

The plastic is still to be tensioned and the excess material trimmed off around the door, but we are almost there!

Polytunnel – Day 4

April 30, 2013 / stephen

Well, again today, it was really only half a day on the polytunnel. I had to go to the builders merchant this morning and I didn’t get started on the polytunnel until after lunch.

I decided to redo the first door frame that I had installed. Looking back at it, it wasn’t completely vertical and you didn’t really notice until you should back and looked at it. If I didn’t put it right, it would always annoy me in the future. So with that sorted it was then a case of installing the supports for the internal trestle platform. This has only been installed on one side since we are going to put raised beds for vegetables on the other side.

Then it was time to start bolting the timber rail that runs around the bottom of the polytunnel and keeps the polyethene taught. By the time that I had installed half of it, it was time to call it a day. Tomorrow the weather forecast is good, so hopefully I will get the other side of the bottom timber rail done and will then cover the polytunnel with polyethene.

The door frames are vertical – honest!

The timber rail is where the polythene is attached. This rail can be moved down the hoops in order to tension the cover.

Polytunnel – Day 3

April 28, 2013 / stephen

We get most of the framework up today, including the door frames and the doors. We had to cover the doors with the polyethene and netting ourselves. It was a bit fiddly to get the material taught, but we succeed on our first attempt.

There are just a couple of things to do before we can get the polythene on the framework. But it is going to have to wait for another day!

It takes a couple of hours to get the hoops and ridge pole installed. Then the corner stablisers are installed.The stone step from the old chicken house needs centering.

Door frames and doors installed. There is polythene in the bottom part of the door and netting in the top part. This allows air to circulate.

Polytunnel – Day 2

April 28, 2013 / stephen

This morning I was distracted by purchasing a new lawn mower (and giving it a whirl in the garden). So this was really only half a day on the polytunnel.

The anchors are now installed – 10 in total – they are installed in the right position and the anchors are level side to side. The ground does slope slightly along its length, but there isn’t much I can do about it.

Last job of the day is to screw the hoops together ready for tomorrow. Once the frame is installed, we can level out the ground inside. Once the hoops and ridge are installed, this will pull the frame straight and true. Well, let’s see.

Doesn’t look like much for half a day’s work, but the anchors are installed and the hoops are now ready to go on.

Some of this ground is going to need to be even up and the plan is to installed some patio slabs on end to create a “step” on this side. Hopefully, this will make the ground inside level. The tops of the anchors are level and you can see the difference in levels, particularly on this side.

Preparing the ground for the polytunnel

April 22, 2013 / stephen

We are going to install a polytunnel just behind the outbuilding – where the old chicken shed used to be. It was Jo’s Christmas present last year, but we haven’t had the time to put it up. With the outbuilding now re-roofed, and most of the stripping out complete in the cottages, it is time to put the poly tunnel up. I have never done this before, but how difficult can it be!

The polytunnel is 8ft x 20ft – it is exactly the same size as the chicken shed that it is replacing. From what I can understand, the polytunnel should not be placed in direct sunlight (they simply get too hot) and have some protection from the elements (so having some protection from the wind). In which case, the site of the old chicken shed makes a lot of sense. It is also close to the house, but out of the way of any building work. I also purchased a polytunnel that could be moved – rather than the sides of the polytunnel being buried in a trench (to keep the sides down), this version has wooden boards attached to the bottom of the side sheeting. So if it is in the wrong place, it can all be moved. Let’s hope it isn’t!

The polytunnel was purchased from First Tunnels (www.firsttunnels.co.uk). The site contains full sets of instructions and videos on how to construct and site your polytunnel and this looks like the right place to start.

Just in case you don’t know what a polytunnel looks like!

The first job is to dig over the ground underneath the old chicken shed. It is fairly compact and has a fair amount of debris covering it. I did consider hiring a rotivator, but thought the ground might be just too compacted.

It took all day on Sunday to turnover the ground. It was hard work. I haven’t attempted to level the ground yet, just turned the soil over.

This is the site of the old chicken shed, just behind the re-roofed outbuilding. The large slab in the front of the camera is the step into the chicken shed. We will reuse this with the polytunnel.

Digging over this patch of land is hard work – by hand!

The ground is now dug over (removing any large stones and debris), but it needs to be levelled next.

Another view of the ground all turned over and ready to be levelled. The back wall on the outbuilding is now starting to dry out since the gutter and the rainwater pipe have been installed.

Patio 2 – Removed

April 20, 2013 / stephen

It is a sunny Saturday morning and what better to do than remove a patio. We are due in Halifax this afternoon to look at log burning stoves, so we only had a few hours.

This patio is slightly smaller than the other patio, but came up just as easily. We stacked the slabs in the back field using the pickup to move them from one location to around. There is probably a couple of tons of stone here between the two patios that must have covered at least 20 sq m.

To get the truck into this end of the back garden we needed to remove the wooden fence. Jo has been dying to remove this fence for some time, so it was a good excuse. By now we are pretty well-practiced at removing the fence posts using a tow rope and the pickup truck. There is a small amount of fence to be removed, but this needs to wait until we clear the corrugated steel sheets that are leaning against it.

The second patio has now been removed together with the fence at this end of the rear garden. You will also notice that the soil and rainwater pipes have also been removed.

The slabs from both of the patios are now neatly stacked in the back field out of the way.

Patio 1 removed

April 14, 2013 / stephen

There were two patio areas in the rear garden. One about 4m x 4m and a smaller one 2m x 2m. We have removed the fence and the fence posts, so now it is time to remove the patio itself. To be honest, most of the slabs came up very cleanly and whatever sand and cement was left on them came off with a gentle tap with a hammer and chisel.

The patio is made up of Indian sandstone. It does seem strange that this has been shipped all the way to Yorkshire when we are surrounded by the stuff. Still, I guess that is economics for you!

Both patios are made from the same stone, so it looks like we are going to end up with around 20sq m of reasonable patio slabs. I have no idea what we are going to do with them, but it would be a shame to throw them in the skip. Ebay or Freecycle is usually a good way to get ride of this stuff, but we need to decide what we want to do with them first.

The smaller patio will have to wait until another day.

We have stripped all of the slabs that made up the patio as well as the stones that made up the steps (looks like these were originally part of a window sill).

The patio slabs (Indian sandstone, apparently) sorted and stacked. These come in more or less standard sizes to aid laying them out in a consistent manner.

Removing fence posts – the Top Gear approach

March 27, 2013 / stephen

Well, if you have some fence posts in the garden to remove, how do you remove them?

Easy, you put a chain around the base and attach the end to a 4×4. Engage 4 wheel drive and give it some “welly”. Paddy and Jonny have been working on the house for the last couple of days. They both have 4x4s. We have our new (old) 4×4 pickup. So it quickly resorted to a competition!

First attach the chain to the bottom of the post

Then attach the other end to a 4×4

Then give it some “welly”!

It’s not just the post, but the concrete base that is the challenge

My go!

Jonny at the wheel!

The fence pulling team!

Clearing the wall adjoining Hagg Wood

March 18, 2013 / stephen

The lower field has a dry stone wall that adjoins some woodland. The woodland is largely protected by tree presevation orders (TPOs), but the undergrowth is now encroaching on our land and is starting to damage the wall. Jo decided it was time to start cutting some of this back in preparation for the wall being repaired (not quite sure when I am going to find the time for that!).

We haven’t touched any of the trees, but it is largely the holly that has been removed. There are a number of dead trees, or live trees with dead branches – that also need to be cut back. It is going to be a long job, but at least we have made a start!

All together, there is proabably 80-100 metres of wall hidden in this undergrowth. It didn’t take Jo long to clear some of it, but already there is an impressive pile of cuttings.

A very old oak tree with dead branches that has damaged the wall. This will be a case of removing the dead branches and then repairing the wall.

With some of the undergrowth removed, you can start to see the state of the dry stone wall. It doesn’t look brilliant, but we might be able to get away with not having to completely rebuild it. The wall in the centre of this picture has a few big stones too far up the wall – it almost looks as if it is upside down with smaller stones at the bottom and larger ones on the top!