Re-covery!

After the sad and frustrating incident involving the polytunnel at the weekend, we are delighted to announce that we have managed to re-cover it in record time! Tracey was joined by her team of regulars (Ellis, Dan, Helen, Ray and Lisa) and also by our fantastic polytunnel expert, Mike Gosnall. We all made very little work of removing the slashed covering and, Tracey very quickly went away and came back with a new skin, along with an extremely generous and much appreciated offering of ice creams!  We all sat and ate these before beginning work on the 're-covery' process.  The whole team got together to unfurl and lift the new skin onto the metal framework, ensuring it was level at all sides. 

Pulling the new cover over the frame

We then armed ourselves with hammers, nails, staple guns and planks of wood in order to secure the skin in place. We nailed the planks to the horizontal wooden supports on each side of the polytunnel attaching the skin with the nails.  The doors were then revealed by cutting the plastic around the frames and the remaining flap of plastic was folded inwards and secured with staples.

Mike assesses the site while Ellis, Dan and Ray work out how to help

All hands on deck

Before the rebuilding work could commence however, the ongoing tasks of harvesting and weed removal continued.  Helen and Lisa carried on as they left off the week before, digging out all manner of weeds including dandilions, cootch grass and YET MORE horseradish! Dan also did a brilliant job of weeding the raised bed containing the soon-to-be ripe pumpkins.  Ellis and Mike however spent the morning preparing the ground for the rebuilding work of the polytunnel. A group of highly enthusiastic residents from Framework Older Persons Group also joined us to harvest another large crop of plums, and because we wanted to cheer ourselves up, we harvested and cooked some of the second batch of sweetcorn, which was yummy.

All in all, this was a highly successful day and the team did a brilliant job of lifting spirits and rebuilding the polytunnel - and once more we will never let the thieves and vandals win at Windmill!