You might have noticed our van out and about lately – and looking pretty dandy. With the success of our crowdfunding appeal, we’ve been able to turn our once bland white vehicle into a roving ad for the farm as it goes about its deliveries (powered by waste vegetable oil, as we’ve written by the fuel cap). So thank you to everyone who donated.
In other farm makeover news, we’ve been giving some thought to how to move forward from the damage caused to one of our polytunnels by St Jude’s storm a week ago.
Most likely is that we’ll replace it with a smaller polytunnel that won’t be so affected by strong winds. In fact, it’s a good opportunity to ‘reskin’ it with a proper polythene that allows more light through.
We’re also going to do a bit of the old ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ – of the 28 metal poles making up the tunnel, only around 10 are beyond repair, so we’re hoping that most of the skeleton will get a new lease of life as a ‘new’ polytunnel. As Joris says, we are “making the best of a bad lot”.
Some people (thank you, again) have been asking how to help, and if there will be any volunteer opportunities to help reconstruct. We’re aiming to have the replacement up in December, so there will be some hard labour needed to prepare ground and dig holes, and then there will be a need for help with rebuilding the frames. And of course we’re thinking about having a party to celebrate! We’ll keep you posted.
Meanwhile, in other news, everything in the remaining polytunnels is doing very nicely, showing good signs of growth, which bodes well for our winter salads. We’ve now finished planting next year’s garlic, too – and from this week, you can buy bunches of this year’s garlic on the farm shop page.