Tuesday 17 September 2013

Storm Damage


Today was a depressing day! At one point I cried! The storm that raged for the last couple of days seems to have passed. 
But it left scars!


It broke many tall plants like artichokes and sunflowers, it has removed nearly all the apples from the trees and it has tore the polytunnel. Depressing indeed!




But what was there to do but stay indoors and make apple pie and stewed apple, all destined for the freezer.



The polytunnel will not be such an easy fix. We live in a very wild and windy place and we have wondered if polytunnels are suitable at all for our site. 
We will look into the costings of recovering the polytunnel regularly (3-4 yrs ) compared to building a greenhouse along the veg garden wall and using more cold frames in the outdoor beds.

The bees waited out the storm comfortably in their sheltered apiary. I will need to check them during the week and see if they need more feeding.





3 comments:

  1. Polytunnels are so handy but they are a worry in windy places. My friend G who lives near you phoned yesterday and said the weather was horrible but I didn't realise it was so windy.

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  2. That's how I lost my poly tunnel just before we moved to here, and I thought ours was in a relatively sheltered spot, if the wind is in the wrong direction in a storm it gets you no matter what.

    As my next tunnel is to be at the bottom of a Welsh hillside and in a much more exposed place I am looking to use the type of polythene that has a green mesh woven into it. True it cuts out some of the light but is so much stronger and lasts a bit longer than the usual 3-4 years for normal polythene.

    I am also thinking of a completely net tunnel to sit alongside it to use for fruits and things I don't want nibbled by rabbits and squirrels, we'll have to see how my plans pan out :-)

    At least you have set to and salvaged some of the apples, which just what I was doing yesterday. Our apple tree fell down all by itself, the trunk is rotten at the core, she was a lovely old lady but as we are moving on from here, it's not to upsetting, there was a slight bonus to that though I could reach all the lovely big apples that were at the top of the tree, I'm off out to get some more in a minute, and the chickens are loving all the offcuts and rotten apples.

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  3. Our site, on a hill with open views to the western mountains, is very open compared to most unfortunately.

    That's interesting to hear sue. It's hard to be sure, I am so careful about spending ( more ) money !
    The storm even removed our chimney covers. It is always sad to hear of old apple trees being cut or falling. Some of our neighbours trees are over 100 yrs old. I'm very excited about your move. That's a lot of space and freedom. I'm sure pigs are on your to-do list ;-)

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