10th April 2022, After the allotment excitement, back to the construction!
While you were away looking at what we have to play with after we have finished here (although you are never finished on an allotment) on the original plot, construction has continued unabated.
You remember me saying that we hadn’t really settled on a design for the rear of the polytunnel, and to be honest that has not changed, it is kind of forming as we go. The original idea was to have a single central pole supporting the rear of the polytunnel, cemented into a sunk bucket of cement which had the pole in it.
That idea was replaced when we thought better of using cement and decided to stick to wood, held together and fitted into the large dug out hole which is where all this is going.
You can see the initial raised bed on the far side of the first picture is now constructed. This fixes the large raised bed on the far side of the polytunnel with this initial square, which in turn is screwed to the upright pole supporting the polytunnel frame. Still working on the rest of the design for this, but the initial bit has gone well so far.
The three main uprights were constructed on the plot opposite ours as we needed a fair amount of space to construct it all. The horizontal back wall planks were all cut to size and then screwed all together. It was all a bit fragile until we had it in place, as the uprights were way heavier than the horizontal slats, which only gained strength when everything was in situ.
This whole back wall is needing to be supported at this time as what it needs doing is for all of it to be screwed together with what is inside the polytunnel, or rather what isn’t yet, but will be😵.
The second picture gives a clearer view of the initial raised bed and how it fits with the original raised bed, although it is a little shorter… no rules in this build… no plan either!!
Take stock of the far compost heap… we are now getting ready with the pallet to finish this task off.
Not losing sight of the plants. They are progressing nicely and a good many (such as tomatoes) have been transferred down here, to get them a little hardier.
Meanwhile inside the polytunnel the outside wall can be clearly seen. We have also tidied up the path still further, and prepared for the eventual installation of an internal wall etc.
Outside, the beer and wine bottles we have been collecting are going to be installed underneath the polytunnel frame, and hopefully provide some barrier for the rats that are still around, although to be fair they are a lot less of a worry compared to last year. While we are sorting out the groundworks at the rear of the polytunnel the new plot is coming in useful as a storage area… nice to know we are not annoying anyone using it now!
