Thursday 23 May 2013

The Miscanthus goes for pelleting



The miscanthus (elephant grass) crop, cut and baled a few weeks back, has headed off on the lorry to be pelleted and burnt as a sustainable replacement to coal.

This is a big event as it is the first viable crop we have had off the field since we planted it five years ago.  What with the wet weather in past years, tarpaulins being stolen which covered the stacks and the challenges of selling into a fledgling market, we were unable to sell previous crops before they degraded.  These previous years' crops will be composted and returned to the soil.

This year, however, we got the timing right and the weather held good.  Whether this year's sales will be enough to persuade us to stick with the crop is still yet to be seen - the figures aren't in.  We wait in anticipation.

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Wisteria Update: 21 May 2013

For those in the know...:

Casita will be 'prime time' this weekend (25/26 May)

Next week for the standard wisterias (27/28/29 May)

The plants in front of the house are a little later (first week of June)

Sunday 19 May 2013

Hairstyles you seldom see; Number 101: Fern

Here, 'stone lion' sports a very natural-looking, green hat, resplendent as it catches the sunshine.

Saturday 18 May 2013

Friday 17 May 2013

Garden Update May 17 2013

It's cherry blossom time at Iford.  On the terrace, Peto's last surviving Cherry is in full flow.

 The standard wisterias are a week or two away, but those on a southerly facing wall, such as the front of house are just opening up.  Hopefully we will not have any frosts as the number of buds looks enormous.

 The scent from the Daphne burkwoodii (above) on the Conservatory terrace is overpowering in the evening.  But perhaps the star of the show right now is the cherry in the Japanese garden, hanging like clouds above the 'Fuji' rock.

Friday 10 May 2013

Hydro update

The engineers from Spaans Babcock have been on site this week to rectify the design of the bottom bearing.  Here's what remained of it after this recent breakage:
The offending beam has been removed:
 A new plinth has been cast which now holds the new bearing in place.

Monday 6 May 2013

That hydro electric plant again

 
Disappointment at the hydro-electric plant which has been shut down again for an extended period.  Last year we had a problem with the bottom bearing which blew itself to bits in a way which suggested a design issue; but on the grounds that it could have just been a faulty bearing, we agreed to have the bearing replaced and see what happened.  (Below: what remained of the bearing in 2012).
Well, ten months after the replacement was put in, the problem has returned.  This time, upon inspection it was found that two of the bolts holding the bottom beam upon which the bearing is mounted had sheered off - that's quite a force needed to achieve that, and certainly enough to have caused the damage to the bearing.  What could be causing this?
Our system has the bottom bearing held by a very strong, steel beam (above).  We always had our suspicions about this beam as a design feature - because it is very close to the flights of the screw itself and consequently causes an obstruction to water trying to escape.  This cannot be efficient and as the water falls out of the flight onto the beam, shock waves pass back up through the shaft - these can be felt keenly in the machine room above.  
Have a look below to see the beam causing some serious disruption to exit-flow.
A re-design is required, and so in the coming weeks we shall see a new mounting for the bottom bearing.  

The good news is that it has happened during the first dry spell for months, making the work much easier, and the loss of generation less significant.

Sunday 5 May 2013

3toTea Concert today

Rehearsals are underway for today's free concert given by Kingswood Senior String Orchestra.

If you are nearby why not drop in between 3 and 4 pm?

Peto's famous cherries in bloom

The last of Peto's six spectacular cherry trees in the middle of the garden is in blossom this week.  

Whilst double grafted (at 6 inches, then top-worked at about 5ft), we are getting new growth from the bottom graft.  These plants are over 100 years old now, hence we have lost the others to old age - but it is as though the plant knows it is sadly not long for this world and is trying to give us some new material to propagate from.  
The puzzling thing is how similar the new material off the bottom graft (image below) is compared to the growth from the top (image above).  As I see more of the leaves and get detailed images I'll put more here as a compare and contrast.
 

Jumping the gap: one electric fence, two borders...

 Our electric fence which repels the rabbits from the newly planted borders met with an untimely accident with a lawn mower this week, severing the fence in two.  It would be insensitive to go into the gory details of the fence's demise whilst the other tools are still in shock.
 This created a problem... how to join two pieces of (now rather shorter) electric fence together to protect two separate areas of border (note gap/lawn above).  And here is the simple solution we came up with.  Indeed it could even be employed by intentionally cutting a fence into two sections I suppose.
 This has been so successful that we are thinking of digging in the wire where it crosses the lawn so we can more easily erect the fence as needed in future years.