Monday 12 January 2015

Fixing the Greenhouse Door

Got down to the allotment about 8:30 - Ice on the front of the car and the water sitting on top of beds 15a & 15b were ice. It was chilly but the sun came out to play this morning and made the morning on the allotment really nice.

Just Andy and I as usual on the Sunday morning, beautiful (my robin) didn't make an appearance today and I didn't hear him singing to me so no idea where he was. Perhaps he was not interested in me as I was not digging today.

During the week I picked up 4 lengths of 2.4m decking and cut them in half and they have been laying on the back seat of the car ready for today. I have loads of slug trap POP bottles to deliver as well.

We have been having some high winds over the last few days, and Barry's black trap has all caught up with my young plum tree and the small rope and timber posts along the boundary. The damp proof membrane on bed 11 and blown off and the membrane was over the path and on bed 10. So that got recovered and I used more soft bricks to hold it down.

I started off the fire in the incinerator that has been sitting there with all the dried bean stalks in and I also managed to burn two flower buckets of broken up fencing that I left to dry in the greenhouse last week.

The main job today was to repair the greenhouse door so I removed it and set about trying to find the new wheels for the top runner which meant clearing out the inside of the greenhouse that really needed to be done. I have been storing all the pop bottle slug traps and milk bottles for soft bricks in there plus the timber for making up hoop frames, so the whole lot had to come out.

I found that the Perspex panel behind the sliding door had popped. As I could not get access due to the water butt, I ended up attaching a hose and drainage all the water so I could move the water butt out of the way to gain access. I tried to re fix it but the plastic strips that hold the panels in place never did really hold that corner very well. So next visit I will take a drill and some PK screws and some translucent silicon and glue and screw the corner in place. For the moment I have left material up against the panel to hold it until I can repair it.

It appears that the corner panel was what was popping the door off its bottom runner. I re fixed the door and sprayed the plastic wheels on the top with WD40 and they no longer shriek when the door is opened. I didn't find the replacement wheels until it was nearly time to go home, typical.

So no major advancement other that the greenhouse is much tidier and better ready to cope with the impending trays of young seeding's in a couple of months. I did manage to make 3 more soft milk bottle bricks from the dried sand, and I have filled up all the metal trays so that the sun can dry the next batch of sand out. All the milk bottles are now in a couple of square flower buckets in the tomato grow house against the wall, together with the timber for the hoop frames keeping dry.

I ran out of time, but I did spot the wood preservative, it's on the shelving behind the shed, which means I'm going to have to clear all that out to get at it so that I can paint the bases to the hoop frames before I construct them.

I came home at 1:00 and brought a couple of bags of seedling compost home so that I can have a go at growing onions from seed. After Sunday dinner l washed and cut up the remainder of the nursery seed tray modules to domestic size tray sizes and washed them out ready for sowing.  

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