Saturday 12 January 2008

One door closes ...

The rain cleared up today, so I thought I'd fix the door onto the greenhouse. It went well - it fits well and once we had screwed the corrugated plastic over it it is very rigid and strong. The greenhouse will need some gaps filling to work well, especially where the corrugated plastic meets an edge - all of the corrugations need filling. Maybe a carefully cut plywood panel, maybe expanding foam, I'm not sure.

The water tank in the greenhouse that catches the rainwater at that side of the shed is full. There was condensation on the greenhouse roof above it, so even with no door fitted there must be enough temperature difference to lift some water. The tank should help to keep the air moist in the greenhouse and could provide a supply for some watering system, maybe capillary matting, we'll see what is needed.

The tank at the greenhouse side is small - it's a header tank for central heating. It is connected with plastic pipes to the two main water butts at the back of the shed. I put them as high as I could under the eaves of the shed so they catch the water yet the height gives a little pressure from a connected hose. When the tanks are full it works, but as the level of water falls, so does the pressure. Fetching water is tedious; we are about as far from both water sources as we could be.

I surveyed the burrow we found yesterday. It is much bigger than I thought, with more than one entrance and each hole quite big. There is a heap of spoil in the field behind the next allotment. It really does look like rabbits, so it's a good thing we took the advice to enclose our plot with a wire fence. The field behind was a hay field last year and looks like it will be again, so maybe the rabbits will be fairly happy in there and leave us alone.

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