Sera saga sequel

Sera being Turkish for polytunnel
A couple of weeks ago having decided that winter might at last be over and with a crew of willing hands, the time had come to take down our somewhat wrecked polytunnel.

This was easier said than done.  First the extremely heavy , wet soil holding the polythene cover down had to be shifted  (Note four footed supervisor).

Then the polythene had to be rolled up and removed

Next all the carefully fitted nylon reinforcing lines had to be removed and coiled up.

Finally the framework was removed

In some ways we were lucky.  Because of the way the tunnel collapsed in the centre, it actually left us the equivalent of a long, rather low U shaped tunnel, which left most of our planted beds unaffected.  I did take to wearing an old builders hard hat when venturing inside after clanging my head on the frames several times.

Our local Sera frame builder tells us that some people lost ten tunnels in the winter, which was apparently "The worse for forty years".   The local gurus of such things have now decided that the reinforcing lines are not a good idea as they stop the snow sliding off. (These sages include the man who sold us the line in the first place.)

Many thanks to Aishling, Juan, Allen and John for their hard work taking the tunnel down and belated thanks to Val, Helen and Bruce for helping us put it up in the first place.

AG

Oh Dear!

Re think needed.       (Oh dear!  is the censored for publication version of what was actually said).

Then the snow

I said yesterday that the season that surprises people is winter, today it surprised me.
After yesterdays blue sky and sun, today dawned with rain, which by mid morning had turned to snow.
By this afternoon I needed the snow chains on the car to get home.

So far we have 5"-6"  (12-15cm), and still falling.

AG

Sun - In January?

If you tell anyone in England that you live in Turkey it is almost always assumed that you must be some where on the south or east coast.   The most common comment is usually along the lines of   "Oo! lovely weather, must be warmer than it is here."

For what we are doing,  that is growing things,  it is lovely weather,  but probably not quite what they mean.

We are actually in North West Turkey.   Here we get four very distinct seasons.   Spring and Autumn are very similar to England.   Summer is dry, and can be very hot in July and August.   The season that surprises people is Winter,  it rains a lot,  we get very cold winds,  directly across the Black Sea from the steppes of Russia,  and we frequently get snow as well.  We are only an hours drive from one of Turkeys main ski resorts.

The thing is, it is green around here,  the forest surrounding us is only here because of the amount of rain. The hills soak up the water like a sponge and the vegetation and trees look surprisingly green even at the end of the summer.
Bearing that in mind it would be churlish to complain about the weather..... but it was lovely to see the sun today.
Because of our location  "Up the Hill and Round the Bend",  we are actually in a hanging valley.  Rain clouds are blown up into the valley and then can't get out.
We have had one such "pet cloud" with us for over a week, sitting there above us and raining.   However the wind must have got up in the night because this morning it was gone, replaced by sun and blue sky,  and very welcome they were.

Please note I will not vouch for the accuracy of my meteorological comments, but they convey the impression you get from here.

AG