Monday, November 26, 2012

Trials


I just started my second week on the trials team so far the weather has been very dreary being rainy and very windy.  Much of my time has been spent tying the hybrid berry trial that is going on.  We are tying them into a wire and post system to train them into a fan shape for astetic and fruiting value.  It gets quite cold on the hands tying the twine around the stems but a nice cup of hot chocolate is waiting for you at break time.  Another task I have been working is removing the chrysanthemum trial.  The trial is finished so we had to remove the plants as well as all the posts, fencing, and plastic mesh, and irrigation used for the trial.  It took all day and we still did not finish the project everything went fast until it came to ripping out the plants which took forever and was tiring work.  This week started out with putting a new edge on the national rhubarb collection bed.  We used a string line to make sure we got a straight edge since the beds are so long it would be tough to get a nice line otherwise.  I got to use an electric leaf blower today pictured below.  It also comes with another attachment an electric hedger.  The unit is very expensive though between the battery and the attachment it cost around one thousand dollars.  It is very powerful for being electric I was quite suprised and the battery will last you all day.  Quite the piece of equipment!  The bed looks so much better with the new edge on it now we just have to finish filling the holes where some of the rhubarb plants had been removed to plant elsewhere.  So far trials has been great except for the exceptionally bad weather!






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