Nursery 2.0

About 3 or 4 years ago, we had set up a nursery near our home to grow saplings. The design was a simple, easy-to-construct but sturdy design: made just from 5 lengths of 1.5" PVC pipes bent and inserted at 5' intervals into a slightly larger diameter 2'-long GI pipe bits fixed to the ground. That's it! No concrete, no welding, nothing. And on top of it, we had draped shade net. So we get a structure 20' in length, 10' wide, and about 8' high in the middle.

This structure had served its purpose well, but had begun to come apart in recent months. Anticipating good rains this year (yes, we choose to be optimists), we wanted to fix the nursery again, and we put in a few days' work into it.

First, we took off the torn shade net, and built a 1' retaining wall on the lower side to make the ground more stable.

We used several lengths of our own bamboo to reinforce the PVC pipes: one each along the sides, and one on top. We also used bamboo to define the beds.

Then, we added a fishnet fence about 5' high around the nursery; this was required as the nursery had become a favourite play area for our dogs. The fishnet fence was made with some walking/working space around the nursery, and attaches to a small gate in the front.

Determined not to buy any new material, we salvaged enough green shade net to cover just the top of the structure. This leaves about 3' open in the sides, but that is just as well to let in some sunshine :-)

Of course, all this was the easy part. Now, we have to grow saplings, sow in the seed beds...to work, then! Not much inside yet, but I'll post some pictures as we make some progress.

For Some Serious Fun

We had taken a lot of time, effort and cost to fill out one small area of land right next to our house and to build a drying yard on it. But more than merely for drying coffee beans and other stuff, it was one small patch of level ground suitable for playing, and we have been using it for skating, cycling, group activities, and so on, and of course for the occasional game of shuttle badminton.

But how can you play shuttle badminton without a net and without marking out the lines? After a long time of wishing for it, and always baulking at the task, we finally got down to doing it. 

Fortunately, at 50'x30', the drying yard is just larger than a full-size shuttle badminton court.

Some leftover wall primer came in handy. A small wooden template helped us make a decent 40mm line all around. To our pleasant surprise, it has withstood not only our foot marks, but even a couple of light showers!

Two old paint buckets weighed down with stones, and the net was pulled across. Et voila! What a lovely addition a day's labour has made to our evenings :-)

Fortunately, I had bought two racquets just a few days before the shutdown, and when we ran out of shuttlecocks, a friend of ours somehow got a few and found a way to send them up the mountain to us! And then when the guts on one of the racquets broke, another dear friend sent up a spare racquet that he had...and so, let the games begin...er..continue!!!