Up at the Crack of Sparrow's

This morning I have an alarm set (rare these days!) and I'm up at the crack of sparrow's while the morning is still cool, to put in a solid hour of weeding in the poly-tunnel. That is just not possible in this sweltering heatwave. I was all done by 07:00 and able to release the chickens, move, water and shade the rabbits and put the geese in the orchard by about quarter to 8 before sliding back in to bed to wake up 'normally' at a sensible time and bring Liz up her 'tay'. Other than that impressive burst of heat-avoiding labour, I achieved precious little today, taking my Old Father Time scythe to some nettles, gathering up our second batch of made hay and a bit of weeding among the spuds later on when the hedge gave me some shade.

My little hay-making efforts are made laughable by the outside activities which are announced by a roar so loud we think that maybe Knock Airport have sneakily extended their runway, and a Boeing jet has landed in Vendor Anna's field over the road. No. The "contractors" have arrived to roar, crash and bang a field into hay for Mike the Cows. It's all BIG equipment compared to what I have known and worked with; big powerful tractors which make an impressive racket when revved up to power the big hay-tedders, balers and wrappers.

I understand that this is something called 'haylage' they are making. The silage is mowed, left to wilt for just a night, then baled green and still fairly damp, so it is baled tight to exclude air and wrapped airtight so that instead of rotting it does (I think; though I do not really know silage; we only ever made hay) a short ferment to use up the oxygen, and then is preserved by its internal chemistry till the winter when it is needed. This haylage is much dryer, so it has to be dried and tossed about with the tedder for a couple of hot sunny days before baling.

As well as the heat, dust and noise, the roar of revving diesel engines and the caterpillar-track noise of the baler belts and the booming clang of the back hatch opening to eject the completed bale, we are impressed by the sheer speed of the operation. This field is only 2 acres or so, but the convoy rolls up, roars about for less than an hour and then moves on to the next field leaving a naked 'aftermath' and a tidy row of wrapped round bales. Quiet, tranquil country sounds, though, they are not!

As our pond is intended to be a wildlife pond, we are always delighted when a new species turns up and today we were really pleased to 'get' our first dragon fly. He seems to be quite happy and gives the impression of having taken over, thank you very much. He rests on the top of a pond-side hosta flower-spike and then flies circuits around the pond and, later, the front lawn. He was settled enough for me to snatch a couple of pictures using the 200 mm lens, so I was able to post these on the Facebook pages for Irish Wildlife and for Kent Wildlife Trust asking for an expert ID. Both came back very quickly with the answer that he is a male 4-spot 'Chaser', (Libellula quadrimaculata) so I have added him to the Irish Bio-Diversity data base for our map reference.

But now it is 9 pm and I must nip out and shut my Marans hens up, who are still the last to go to bed. Liz is out at 'Knit and Natter' with Carolyn and back soon. In other news we now have a date for the arrival of our lambs, the last week in August. This means that the holiday here that the three lovely mini-horses have been enjoying, growing fat and sleek on Roscommon grass must come to an end. One of them, Bob, does not get on with sheep, apparently and tries to run them over and, anyway, our poor, shaved grass needs a few weeks to recover between the horses and the sheep. Carolyn has agreed to take them away by the end of July. We'll be sad to see them go as they have been excellent fun; they are great characters as well as being very picturesque and a beautiful sight grazing the front lawn or galloping madly round the East Field in the early morning dew. Still, once we are through to December and the lambs 'finished', maybe they can come back for another holiday.

Tunneling (3) Beds and Paths

With the cover of the poly tunnel finished and the door and frame built on the western end I can trim off excess plastic and start to think about what to do inside. Ultimately we may do a weed proof membrane and raised beds with planks around, but for now we have decided to do this season with a temporary layout of paths laid with sheet corrugated iron (of which we have plenty) and the soil merely ridged up into beds as in the allotment. We may obtain duck-board walkways for the paths, being more attractive and less likely to inflict cuts. We have laid this out in the intended layout of 2 side beds and a central bed with a stone 'floor' as you step inside to avoid us having to wade about in mud.

The soil has already been dug over, so we know it is a bit of a dog's breakfast of stones, old peat turf, clay and buried stoloniferous grass. As I shovel and rake the ground into beds I am getting a chance to haul out the stones and peat turfs and to break up the bigger lumps of clay. I am getting quite a nice tilth in which the tomatoes should do OK. We are also relieved that the relentless North East winds have only flexed the structure around, puffing the panels in and out and slackening it to a degree, not done any damage. This is good news and we hope means that it will survive a few of those Atlantic storms that come at us from the NW and SW. It is also much much warmer than being out exposed to the NE blasts and the boggy eastern end is drying out superbly. We are very optimistic. We have also been donated some strawberry plants by Mentor Anne (Thank You, Anne!) to kick off our planting. These are in the central bed - you can just see them to the right of the wheel barrow in the 2nd picture.

Outside of the tunnel, meanwhile, the NE wind and cold weather have stopped any Spring like growth in its tracks. Expanding fruit tree buds are the same as they were a week ago. It's not so much that we have hard frosts and we have only had the light dusting of snow seen in this picture, but it is cold over all and growth is on hold. My potatoes and artichokes, planted in sunny enthusiasm on St Patrick's Bank Holiday Monday are hunkered down below ground. Tulips in tubs and Granny's bonnets in the big pots in the yard stopped expanding and the half open show of daffs stopped at the half open stage.

Still, the NE wind will not blow for ever and when it stops everything is well set up to start moving again. Tradition has it that you must get your early potatoes in by St Patrick's and the rest in by Good Friday. Going into St P's I was not at all sure I'd get my earlies in, but we got there in the end. Now going into Easter I am looking at my main crop, the blight resistant Hungarian variety, Sarpo Mira, chitting happily in the Tígín and thinking it would be unkind to plant them into my cold soil. Maybe we will get another warm burst and I will get the chance.

So, there you have it for this post. Liz has been baking again today thanks to another part of Anne's generous gift - a dozen free range, organic eggs. We have a honey and ginger cake, a fruit loaf, plain scones and cheese scones. The range is burning with a good fierce red glow and we have that 'all is safely gathered in' feeling. I leave you with a nice picture of William the Conqueror just because he is such a magnificent lad.

Tunneling (2) The cover is on!

Out of nowhere a beautiful, warm, windless morning has us galvanized into action! We must grab the opportunity to play with the poly tunnel cover. You don't get many windless days here and we know that once we have started we really need to finish as we don't want any unfixed ends of plastic able to flap about should the wind get up tonight. First real job is to stick the anti-condensation "hot spot" tape to the arches and the ridge pole. We are pleased that the supplier has given us a roll for each arch and a roll for the ridge. We use up plenty of off cuts doing an extra pad around the diagonal stress bars and other areas where we are slightly worried that the plastic cover may chafe.

However, the plastic sheet has been in the carport being chilled by the frosty winds, so we decide that we will spread it out on the front lawn while we do the taping. It is 37 feet long and 22 or so wide. The plan is then to gather it up into a series of longways pleats from which we can launch the leading edge over the ridge followed by the rest of it.

Despite our bed making skills, we are 37 feet apart trying to make the pleats, so it is a bit of a struggle. Liz takes charge at this point; one 'boss' is enough for this stuff! With it pleated we then fold in two so that we know where the middle is and then roll ends to middle so that we can put the middle at the central arch and have, in theory, equal amounts of spare at either end. It is a fairly simple matter to launch the sheet across with me standing on a chair on some corrugated, to manage the high ridge-pole.

There is a handy 'ironed' pleat near the first edge to wrap around a lath as a start. We then pull it a bit tighter across the arches but then we must fix it at either end to make it taut longways before fixing down the northern side to another long lath. We now know why the instructions advise a three foot space all around - messing with big box pleats in acres of flappy plastic is a pain especially when we have only dug over (and drained) the boggy soil INSIDE the tunnel; the outside at the caravan end is still a quagmire and we have some fun falling in and out of that and squelching about while we play pleats.

I am constantly delighted that after so many years wed, Liz and I can still work brilliantly as a team and it definitely paid off here. You could not have done this single handed in anything like as little time. We'd started at about ten and by quarter past 1 we had all the pleating done and could retreat in for a coffee. My electric screw-driver battery was pretty much tired out anyway and needed a charge. We had intended to go to see the Patrick's Day Parade in Loughglynn, the local village, but that was due for 13:30 and we were muddy and tired at it was 13:15. We'll do that one in 2014, maybe.

After a dog walk (poor dogs had been so patient but we daren't let them out to watch as they'd be chasing roosters or geese or vanishing over the horizon!) and some soup for lunch, I had another little bash at the door, hanging it and giving it a plastic 'window' but then the screw driver died completely so we wedged the door shut with a stone and decided to call it a day. We will do all the fine tuning. bolt, trim off excess plastic and start worrying about paths and beds tomorrow.

So. There you go. You can see from the pictures that it is not perfectly taut but we are quite pleased with it for a first effort and we can take up some slack in the summer when the plastic is good and warm on a hot day by lifting the arches up to the next 'hole' on the foundation tubes. Meanwhile it is already a lot warmer in there than the outside world. Tonight the wind has got up and is blowing a chilly breeze from the West, so tomorrow I hope that we will find it still standing and also nice and warm inside. How's that for entertainment on a Monday morning?

Tunneling (1)

The bitter NE winds fade and we can get back out into the garden and, although it is way too cold to be handling the plastic sheet yet, we can assemble the poly tunnel structure so that we are ready to throw the sheet over on the first warm day. Plastic sheet is easier to handle and to get taut if it is warm and supple.

We have decided to position the tunnel in what was the westernmost bay of the three-bay former hay barn. In this part of the world it is pretty near impossible to grow tomatoes out of doors, or anything tender, for that matter, so anyone who is anyone in gardening has a poly-tunnel. Everybody tells you this. Neighbours, friends, the lady in the local charity shop.... Everyone is also an expert and advice comes from every direction as soon as anyone gets wind there-of. Some of it we welcome and value, some we take with a pinch of salt.

The official instructions which come with this tunnel say that to get the plastic sheet taut you must dig a trench around the tunnel perimeter. Then you drop the sheeting over your frame and tread it down into this trench before back-filling with soil. The weight of the soil holds the sheet down taut. Our Mentor Anne and partner Simon, however, have played this game before (they used to have a 60 foot tunnel or two when growing organic salad crops commercially in a former life) and Anne tells us that the wind and weather will tend to wreck your plastic cover in 5-10 years and you will need to replace it. You do not want to be digging that trench again and again so it is more sensible to lay a big timber (a 5 by 2 for example) all around the perimeter, fixed to the ground-tubes by metal brackets. You then wrap the sheet edges round long wooden laths and screw these down to the timber, gripping the sheet and keeping it taut but making it easy to dismantle should you need to move the tunnel or replace the cover. Sounded good to us, so we have gone with this method.

We have also been advised that things can get very hot and humid in a tunnel, so that you risk cooking the tomatoes. It is best, apparently, to plant the tomatoes at the sides so that they never reach the hot sweaty apex - you do your more tropical stuff in the centre bed there - melons and cucumbers. More advice has us warned that placing the tunnel in the hay-barn bay, so that it is to the north of the big front garden trees and the barn wall, might mean we are a bit spare on bright sunlight, and this might affect whether we can ripen toms. However, here we stopped listening to a degree.

The barn bay is the most useful position and is, we think, open enough to the sky to be in full sun through July, August and September. If we do suffer any light loss then this might also mean less over-heating and, certainly, being snug in against the wall and the trees will mean that the wind and weather's tendency to shred the plastic will be reduced. Having made all these decisions we then found that just down the lane, one of the McG's also has a poly-tunnel in a similar position with its plastic held down by the wood and laths method and his has lasted 11 years so far except where his dog chewed through one panel (!). Ah well. We will live and learn and if it all goes wrong we will do it differently next time.

You can see from the pictures that we are well under way, with the main arches and now the diagonal bracing installed. This being the floor of a former hay-barn of great vintage (50 years?) it has soil as you might expect - the local subsoil with boulders compacted down into a pan by the passing of generations of feet, animals, carts, tractors and machinery thinly covered with rotted straw-bale debris and the peat turfs they all store in barns here to keep them dry. The local stoloniferous grass has also moved in to create that frustrating rat's nest of roots and stems which stop you swinging a shovel about. It is a wet bog-hole and has been a mush since we moved here, never seeming to dry out.

We decided to dig across the whole floor first to cut through the pan and get some drainage going, second to extract the stones and peat turfs and third to mix the layers and bury the straw mush and stoloniferous grass. This should help it all dry out and might give our tomatoes a better substrate in which to put down roots. We may have to import some top soil from the nearby bank (source of rusty fertilizer spreaders and current home of the horse drawn hay rake). We are hoping that once the cover is on the area should no longer get too wet. The eventual plans may involve a weed-proof membrane and plank-sided raised beds but for this season, while it settles and we are still 'learning' we will just tread some paths and plant into the dug beds in between.

One area of confusion remains. Generally these tunnels seem to have a door at either end to allow ventilation on hot days. This one came as a kit with only the one door, and only the bits for a door frame at one end. That is also how the display model in their yard is set up. We assume that users who require the 2nd door either bodge one themselves or pay extra for the 2-door version. Because our 'other end' is just the caravan 'site' we will probably bodge an opening frame and a removable panel which can be replaced with a chicken wire version in hot weather.

Part 2 of this story when I have some pictures of the finished tunnel.

Too Cold for that Caper

As predicted (but not with any credence from us!) our poly tunnel is delivered this (Sunday) morning. This unlikely event, a bloke doing a delivery of building materials with a lorry on a Sunday is only happening because bloke's Mum and Auntie both live in the nearby village of Loughglynn, it's Mothers' Day and he is bringing his wee daughter over for lunch.

Daughter is fascinated by the rabbits and geese but declines a look around because it's lovely and warm in Dad's lorry-cab and 'out here' there is a fierce Nor'Easterly charging through at what feels like about minus 4 degrees and the forecast is for snow. Donegal, a couple of counties north already has snow. If you stand in the Tígín with the east side door open, the wind chases in behind you and howls out through the gaps around the west door with a noise like a Scott of the Antarctic sound-track. Lawrence Oates quotes resound in our ears. "I am just going outside and I may be some time".

What ever, it's way too cold to play poly tunnels and would be downright dangerous in the wind, so the bits and pieces come off the lorry and will pretty much stay put till the weather improves. Not only do you need it reasonably still to be handling huge sheets of plastic, but it is much easier to get the plastic correctly taut around the frame if the plastic is warm and supple.

Meanwhile, a new complication develops in our gardening, and that is in the pond department. We had hoped that the apparently sticky, heavy Roscommon clay might be gloopy enough to give is a waterproof lining to our intended and half-dug big pond. I have posted in an earlier post about digging a test-pit, filling it with rain water and slapping it about a bit to smear out any obvious worm-holes before leaving it to the geese. Well, to my amazement I woke up on the 2nd morning after creating the test-pit to find it drained dry, so not that waterproof at all! So much for all the 'living in a bog' no drainage nonsense.

Liz and I decided to research this 'puddling' a bit further and the methods as described in our internet searches involve scooping up tennis ball sized lumps  the clay, squishing it in you hands, forming it into hamburger shaped 'tiles' and then creating multiple, interlocked layers of these tiles to 6 inches thickness. This is all totally impractical on a 20 foot by 30 foot pond as is the commercial/industrial/contractor method involving 20 tonne excavators etc. We had a little poke about with our own hands and shovels and discovered that the 'clay' when wetted is actually quite gritty, more like a silty-clay than a pure clay. It definitely did not feel as smooth and clay-like as the stuff I can remember trying to spin on the potters wheel at school. When you try to puddle it with water it falls apart and, even when squished into a ball-shape it splits and breaks apart when kneaded.

The net result of all this mud-pie puddle-ducking is that we now think that a clay liner would not work and that we will have to go for the butyl rubber liner. Butyl rubber round these parts comes at around €8.50 per square metre so you can probably do the sums and see that we are talking about a several hundred euro spend. We have seen the advice which says length is pond length plus twice depth plus 500mm margin but we have also seen the little footnote which says 'if you have dug your pond already, lay a hose pipe along and down into the pond hole and then measure the hose'. The latter is much more efficient and will result in much less waste of expensive rubber sheeting. So I am back in the pond digging game but not in this wind.

Today I am staying indoors for the most part, doing all the cooking to give Liz a Mothers' Day break and keeping the home fires burning. Love to my own Mum (Pud Lady) and Liz's Mum, (Steak Lady) plus to any Mums of our animals; Deefer's Mum (Molly), Towser and Poppy's Mum (Lily), the cats' Mum, and so on. Off to walk the dogs now, though.

"I am just going outside......"