Polytunnel: Part 6 - The Opening Ceremony

Friday 27th July 2012
Will the weather hold?
Most importantly, we need wind speeds of zero mph

Well, I've really pushed my luck on the weather as polytunnel deadlines have slipped further and further back (not or lack of effort). It's been an absolutely scorching week and I have single-mindedly applied myslef to constructing this Olympic-sized polytunnel. Poor Sue, as well as being my third hand and occasional labourer, has had to get on with all the other farm jobs.

There's a race on this morning. Just a couple of jobs to do in readiness for the cover going on, but experience tells me that those jobs could end up taking a lot longer than expected.

Irrigation fitted.
Timber base-rail almost completed.

The last few jobs were completed at breakneck speed, but the wind was freshening and the sky was clouding over. We had been advised by a friend who works in a large commercial nursery that we would need a large team of helpers and many sets of step ladders to get the cover on. Even the manual, which made everything else sound impossibly easy, warned of opening up a giant sail!
We could end up doing some pretty spectacular kite-surfing!

We had a decision to make. Should we attempt to get the cover on today? We would need to get our team together.

Come early afternoon the sun shone, the wind dropped and our luck, already pushed to the limit, continued to hold. In fact, we could not have picked a better day for the job in hand.

Game on!

We assembled our team of helpers. That's me, Sue and Don!!! We're stubbornly independent, whatever the scale of the task in hand.

First job was to lay out the cover. This would tell us how difficult the job would be. If it blew everywhere, we would abandon the attempt.

Sue tries to protect the Jerusalem Artichokes,
but they need a summer trim anyway
to stop the stems being snapped in the wind.
They need to make way for the cover to be spread out.
They'll grow back.

The cover spread out.
Good news is, Sue and I can move it without too much effort.
And it's not blowing away,
though we have tyres, straw bales, telegraph posts
and concrete blocks at the ready to weigh it down.

Warming up nicely in the sun. This will ensure it goes on nice and tight.

With the base rail option, there is no trench.
The bottom of the cover is pulled tight and trapped under battens of wood.  
The fellow with the braces is my wonderful neighbour, Don.

As you can see, the cover went on in no time.
Here I am just going round putting a few extra nails in.

The last screw goes in.

The inside.

The finished product.
There were times when I thought this would never happen.
I am very, very happy with it.
It's taken a week of my life.
I have a good tan, a back which has been injured and healed and a badly strained shoulder.
Overall though, I wouldn't have it any other way.
My thanks to Don for always being there for help when I needed and to Sue for her patience, support, hard work and keeping everything else going.