Work continued on these raised garden beds at the community farm yesterday. While John and Brian worked on the metal uprights Craig, Peter and (another) Craig set about cutting down bamboo grown at the farm for the rafters.
Raised garden beds
We have a huge clump of bamboo growing beside my allotment and they set about cutting down four poles. Here the guys are all ready to go chain saw and safety gear at the ready. Craig doesn’t always wear an orange hat and ear muffs! and Peter’s not really going to chop off his leg with that chain saw. Boys will be boys.
Chain saw at the ready
This photo will give you some idea of the height of the bamboo they were to cut down.
The clump of bamboo
Bamboo poles cleaned of leaves and propped up against the clump of bamboo
A job well done. These bamboo poles can now be used as rafters for the top of the raised beds and will be draped with shade cloth. Nothing goes to waste and the green leaves stripped from the bamboo poles will be mulched for the compost bins.
A job well done
Thanks guys.
Allotment Adventures with Jean 
Aug 08, 2013 @ 09:04:37
Wow! That clump of bamboo has certainly grown tall!
Aug 08, 2013 @ 11:15:40
You could say that Maria! It’s certainly reaching for the sky. I’m lucky that my allotment, although very close, is not shaded by the bamboo or I’d never grow anything. I do love the fact that we can use the bamboo in our building works.
Aug 08, 2013 @ 14:25:40
I love complete circles like that where you start in one place and end up so much the richer for your efforts. We have a big clump of bamboo on Serendipity Farm. It isn’t quite that tall but it is pretty high. It doesn’t seem to be invasive as it is concentrated in one area and the amazing thing about it is that it must be very strong because a large eucalyptus tree fell down into it and didn’t squish it! The bamboo somehow held the canopy in the air. I didn’t realise it was so strong!
Aug 08, 2013 @ 18:19:48
That’s why Craig needed a hard hat when he was using the chain saw. But he knew what he was doing. That bamboo is tuff stuff.
Aug 09, 2013 @ 13:02:14
And strong 😉
Aug 09, 2013 @ 01:49:53
Okay, I don’t know bamboo at all, but WOW! When you said they were using a chainsaw to cut bamboo I was thinking that it was a joke, but good grief! I’ve never seen bamboo like that.
Aug 09, 2013 @ 05:58:36
Cutting that bamboo was a lesson in workplace health and safety. Craig wore the hard hat and the ear muffs. The other two guys stood back while he went in and used the chain saw to cut through the stem of the bamboo. Then it took the three of them to actually pull out the piece of bamboo which complete with all the leaves was amazingly heavy and unwieldy.
The poles are now sitting in a barrel containing Borax and water which will be sucked up by the bamboo’s natural evapotranspiration process and saturate the wood with the preservative.
We can then use it for building the shade cloth covered roof on the raised garden beds and it will last for ages.
Aug 09, 2013 @ 19:35:48
That is huge bamboo! How old was it? I mean, how long id it take to get that big? Its certainly going to be useful. Wood from the shops can be expensive, can’t it! And this is all natural, too, with no chemicals 😀
Are you going to grow some more for future possibilities?
Aug 09, 2013 @ 19:37:09
Hang on a sec, I have to amend my statement. I said ‘no chemicals’, and it just struck me how dumb that sounds as water is a chemical (derp de derp 😛 ) so I want to change it to NASTY chemicals!
Aug 11, 2013 @ 06:53:03
I understand what you mean Mrs Yub about chemicals in the water, but in fact this bunch of bamboo probably has none because I don’t recall anybody ever watering it. Maybe when it was first planted but I wasn’t around then. It just thrived on neglect and water from the skies.
I don’t know when this bamboo was planted, I’ve been there three years now and it was quite small then. So not many years.
This climate must suit it, we don’t need to plant any more.