Richard Perkins had to scrap tree-planting when snow hit, so he cleared the barn, installed a grain mill, built a 40-meter caterpillar tunnel, and added electric fencing instead. His Kickstarter for the Ridgedale Builds book hit 280% funding.
Questions this video answers
20, 30, 40, 50 meter tunnels.
80 centimeter lengths (half buried).
A 2 meter concise end.
An EORI number is required to import from a non-European country.
3 Joule output; reported voltages ~5,600–6,000 V on two 50 m poultry nets.
Chapters
Okay, snow stop play today. So we've decided we're going to clear this barn out, get the grain mill set up in a new position down by the grain silo. We are going to try and get the 40 meter caterpillar tunnel up over here and do a load of odd jobs before we can get back on with tree planting. Because it's not really ideal planting trees when the ground's like this. So incredible storm last night and Woke up probably 11:30 with a massive lightning flash and I thought all the fuses had gone, but it was blowing a gale actually. It was very, very gusty. I decided at that point just to leave the teepee up to see how it would handle the wind and let me know. Seems totally fine. None of the canvas has taken any damage, none of the fittings are falling out. So good sign even with the sides up that everything is ideally. We know we can lash it down if we need to. So. Good. Impressed. Okay, 40 meter caterpillar tunnel to go up. We have sold the other caterpillar tunnels. The way these are set up is pretty simple. You take the central ridge pole, if you have one, and that's the starting point for the first vertical hoop and we mark one and a half meters all the way down. We're using the concise end setup. So normally with a caterpillar tunnel you'll have plastic going three and a half meters this way. But with the concise end I designed, we've got another hoop about 35 degrees and that allows us a 2 meter concise end for compact spaces. So people have been asking if we still sell these. They're available through my colleague Jake Eldridge at Oxerton's Organic in the UK and we're doing all of the sales through caterpillar Tunnels co. It's very difficult with triangulated sales in Europe because the tunnels are actually manufactured in the UK and sent directly from the manufacturer. They're not actually here in Sweden. And so we decided with Brexit and all the tax complications that we'll run it through caterpillar Tunnels co. So we sell 20, 30, 40, 50 meter tunnels through there and anyone outside the UK will need to apply for an EORI number. There's details of that on the website. That's to be able to import things from a non European country. So right now the gang are putting down the markings. We're going to put rebar and we have 80 centimeter lengths that we put half into the ground and then we just stack the hoops onto those. Then we'll bolt on the central ridge pole with the U clamps and get the end webbing lines on. Then we're ready to pull the plastic over. Luckily, we've got a big team. Everyone is here except the garden apprentice, Christian, who is arriving today. Then we've got our full team and hopefully with a bit of luck, we'll have this tunnel up and warming up the ground ready for the first transplants. Okay, look, moving things from A to B. Finally you can see the floor again. So nice. We've got a lot of pallets being delivered very soon. This is the staircase we built in the winter. Now, Janne is going to build a different staircase going up this, the top of here. This is actually where the market gardeners store their row covers and bits and bobs. But we'd like a nice staircase just to make it easier. Now, originally I had started cutting wood to build an exact replica of this one to go sideways on the wall. But it feels like it takes up way too much room for the worth of it. So Jano's come up with an idea to make a steep ladder, 57 degrees.
Or something like that. I need to measure these out to.
About 3 meters long.
And that's all based on the tangent of the opposing side divided by the gazing side.
Trigonometry, you've been brushing up on your.
Yeah, I fake timber, framed a tiny greenhouse just before I got here.
Nice. Perfect. So staircase up, caterpillars up. Lovely. Okay, ridge pole is going on. Okay, tunnel frame is up. Got Kristen arriving for the gardens today, so we're going to do a tour, show the new folks around the farm. So we've decided to leave the tunnel till tomorrow morning. Hopefully it's not too windy. But apparently there's a lamb coming, so go and have a look. So this one is getting ready to birth, but not ready just yet. I expect it'll come soon. I'm going to give her space. So I'm not going to sit and film this, but we will show you the lounge as they all come. Wind is picking up again this evening too. Well, frame is on. You can see these little U bolts. Hold the centre ridge pole on and then we've got our little feet clamps on the end that hold the string that holds the plastic down and gives enough space to pull the plastic up. It's been so incredibly windy. We're going to get all these row covers up now so we can get the farm tidied up and not have to go chasing around row covers. Just been absolutely crazy. Winds last night with a crazy snowfall and thunderstorm. It's pretty sensational. Nice to get this frame up and to clear the barn out as well as get staircase this guy. It's been a nice day of just getting odd jobs done that typically just stack up and don't happen for ages. So the ends of these have purlin straps that just hold the concise angle out. You can see this is our shortened design that I came up with for just working in tight spaces. Works really good. Now the frames up. We've got an irrigation system to go down the middle and we've got the plastic to put on. Bit too windy. And we wanted to show around the new folks to have a little walk around the farm, see their surroundings. Okay, grain mill set up. And this time we've taken. This is actually an insulated container that would have been used for. For insulating the milk churns back in the day when they left the milk churns out for the milkman. And so it fits perfectly. It's been set up in the roof of the barn for years and it will never be used as a milk churn insulator again. So with the mill set up here, we've used that as a lid with a bit of old pipe we had going out the window as a dust extractor. Because this barn just gets so dusty, every little surface. I don't know if you'll make it out on the roof but everything is caked in this grain dust from milling grain over the years for the broilers. And so you can see really here. So that's a nice addition. Staircase is going up very nice. So we'll be able to access the loft perfectly. We've got room for dozens of pallets here and we've got nice organized space up there. So good day. All in all getting little jobs done. We've got new energizers. These are the only energizers I've seen on the market capable of powering a couple of chicken fences. Like 100 meters of chicken fence in grass. This is from Voss Farming. You can find them in Germany. 3 Joule output and people we know using them are reporting 5,6000 volts down to a 2 times 50 meter poultry nets. So we've replaced all our energizers which previously you've seen them in videos in the past were the only model on the market capable of powering two 50 meter poultry nets. But they haven't made them for years now. And so this is the first replacement I've seen it's actually useful. Super lightweight, easy to move around. I'm just going to put them on the ground instead of on pegs. Very nice. Hopefully we get out on pasture sometime soon. Okay folks, here's the Ridgedale library. Still got five days on Kickstarter. We're nearly 280% funded. That's incredible. It'll be amazing to sell over a thousand pre ordered copies. So if you are in for a copy of the Ridgedale Builds book, get on the Kickstarter in the links below. This will be a chance to get the PDF or hardcover copy version well before it's available on sale publicly. There's combos with my manual for generative agriculture. Check it out in the links below. See you in a video soon folks.
