Gardening Club: the Poly Tunnel moved

March 8, 2014 by Elaine 2 Comments

The tunnel is now 10m closer to the vegetable patch which isn’t a bad thing really

The school poly tunnel is an essential piece of equipment when it comes to Gardening Club and the sowing of seeds and potting on of seedlings etc. and so when I turned up at the school to be asked if I could just pop round to the tunnel, I wasn’t at all concerned.

“We need to move the poly tunnel,” the Head Teacher told me and I have to admit, my stomach sank.

You see there was some essential building going on in the grounds and as part of this, Pre-schools’ large, wooden toy/equipment storage shed had had to be taken down but the intention was that it would be rebuilt in another location and the only place it could go was where the poly tunnel currently stood.

“We thought we could just move it down about 10 metres between the next pair of trees,” one of the workmen said.

It needs some re-organisation but at least it’s still in one piece

I did feel sorry for the workmen, they were obviously reluctant to move it due to the inherent fragility of polythene sheeting, even heavy duty poly tunnel sheeting, especially considering the storms we had had fairly recently. But we had to try to move the tunnel and so I spent the next half hour or so, with the help of four year 5 pupils, emptying it and very soon the contents were carefully stacked, placed and piled along the length of the railings further down from what was to be the tunnels new resting place.

Smaller items went into the small garden shed and I headed for home, not wanting to pile more pressure on the workmen who were understandably concerned about the task in hand and, to be truthful, I couldn’t bring myself to watch the proceedings.

I have to say though that the three men were super stars and by the time I came to pick the Mudlets up, they had successfully moved the tunnel and were in the process of fastening it down. Unfortunately though they ran out of time and didn’t get the front doorway in place which meant that the plastic was left loose over night. Needless to say I spent a worrisome night hoping that the wind would stay away and worrying about the stuff that had been left exposed to the elements, not to mention opportunistic visitors.

The grow-bag staging has been moved nearer to the door for more ventilation

Mother Nature smiled on us that night and by the end of World Book Day (6th March) not only had they refastened the plastic to the front frame but the men had also reinforced the structure where it went into the ground, thereby giving us that touch more security against the weather.

I’ve taken the opportunity to rearrange the staging etc but I still need to sort out the containers for the Foundation Garden and to reinstate the Wooden Container Garden which I think will be for flowers this year. In the meantime the poly tunnel looks a little crowded and I still need to tweak the lay out and I’ll take some more pictures in a couple of weeks, by which time you should see quite a difference ….. I hope.