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.