The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: Connor on July 26, 2013, 09:47:50 pm
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I thought I would tell you all more about my vegetable garden and tell you about my poly-tunnel. I got it in January so I start seeds in it I also grow vegetable plants and sell them to the public a bit like a mini garden centre lol! :excited: My polytunnel has helped me out because there was a lot of rain and the soil was too wet to sow seeds direct.
If any one has a polytunnel please do share some info about it here!
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I've got a polytunnel . I've only had it 3 weeks :excited: . So I haven't got much in it at the moment. Just got a few tomatoes, chilli's, herbs, cucumber and strawberrys. I'm very impatiently waiting for some seeds I've ordered to turn up, so I can get them started in my new tunnel. Looking forward to the start of next years growing season :excited: So I can grow lots of things.
I haven't got a massive tunnel, so I will have to plan where everything is going very carefully.
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Yes, you always need more space in your polytunnel than you have ::)
I've had mine for about 15 years or so Connor, and living where I do on a draughty hilltop in Scotland, at 1000', I wouldn't be growing much without it. I used to grow lots of extra for the family and to sell at the gate, but now I'm a bit decrepit I just grow enough for the two of us.
I find it's much easier to keep the weeds down inside than out as any soil without plants is dry so easy to pull the weeds out. This year mine is very crowded as I am growing just about all my veg inside, because of the past two wash-out summers when I lost a lot of outdoor crops - such a waste of work.
I have a lot of ventilation for my tunnel but even so when the sun shines it can get well into the '90s in there.
Because of the amount of wind we have here I have a small greenhouse, 6x8, inside the polytunnel for raising early seeds, overwintering some hardy things which don't like winter wet - it's unheated and still gets down nearly as low as outside in the winter, but up to 100 or even 110 degrees inside in the summer.
Something else you could try for selling on is hanging baskets. They don't take up extra space as you hang them from the crop bars, and people love to buy beautiful, ready-filled baskets, bursting with flowers and ready to hang. You could even give people a discount the following year if they bring back the used basket for you to refill :thumbsup: :garden: 8)
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I tried the hanging baskets but nobody bought them lol and yes my polytunnel does be very warm this past few weeks i have have the door open and the side windows to keep it cool!
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Oh shame about the baskets not working. I think you might need to plan what's in them according to changing fashion every single year - what's in the plant catalogues, what the gardening programmes have shown, fashion colour of the year. Then of course it would depend on where you offer them for sale too. Some people like really gaudy baskets with every bright colour crammed in, others like a more subtle pastel scheme. Still, if they're not popular in your area it would just be wasting your time.
Do you have side windows in your tunnel? What make is it? Mine just has doors and big louvres at each end, and no way to get a side breeze. I have seen tunnels with mesh sides to about a metre, but mine doesn't have those and would be too cold in the winter.
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it have 8 side windows altogether will put a photo or two to show you!
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Here is a photo of my polytunnel got it off ebay for a good price tell me what you think of it!
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That looks good. I've wanted one for years but nowhere to put it.
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They are brilliant! I don't know where i would be with-out one of them ;D Might isn't a really big one you can get smaller ones that do the same job!
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iv always wanted one. we are collecting fish boxes to use as containers when we finally get one.
did i read smaller ones are warmer - or it is just easier to heat a smaller one?
yours looks great. welldone :thumbsup:
just curious - are those wheels infront of the polytunnel, or a barrel? what do you use it for?
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Not sure about the fish boxes and the car rims are for my goat to stand on and watch me in the polytunnel lol :goat:
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ahh, how cute. what sort of goat do you have?
:thumbsup:
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That should keep you in tender veg :thumbsup: I like the little windows.
If it was mine, I would tension the cover a bit whilst the weather's warm, ready for those winter gales. It's very windy where we are so we daren't have any looseness in the cover. It's so much easier to get it tight in the summer.
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My goat is a 3/4 saneen goat she is from a good milking herd and how would i tighten the cover up?
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My goat is a 3/4 saneen goat she is from a good milking herd and how would i tighten the cover up?
Maybe someone who has the same kind as you will be able to give better advice than I can.
It depends on just what kind of cover it is. Is it fitted? Are the sides buried in the soil - if they are then you should be able to stretch the cover a bit more and pile more soil on. It takes several people to get the tension right.
Our tunnel is bigger and has chunky wooden side rails all around at the bottom. Slats are then wrapped around the edges of the polythene and stretched tight over the bars, then nailed into place. You can also jack up the hoops which fit into uprights, which in our case are concreted into the ground, and this has the effect of making the tunnel a couple of inches taller so the polythene becomes tighter.
Just how you would do it with your cover I don't know because I can't really see how it's held in place. You could look up similar tunnels online and see if instructions are available for them, or if someone describes how to tension the cover.
Even though we have managed to get our cover reasonably tight, still when it's a windy day the whole cover lifts into the air and there's suddenly a gap of about 6" above the central ridge pole. It looks as if the whole thing is going to take off :o (hence the concrete dollies for the side poles)
Sorry I can't give better info about your particular type of tunnel.
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We had a polytunnel from First Tunnels installed about two years ago. It's heavy clay soil here and by the time the diggers had been on the plot to dig the new pond and level the area for the polytunnel, the soil was very compacted.
We dug two large trenches, built up the sides with some planks - and so have two raised/sunken beds which we filled in with imported top soil.
I grow tomatoes, cucumber, aubergines and peppers in there as well as bringing on all the seedlings in the spring. I also have a couple of nasturtium plants in the corner and marigold and basil companion plants.
This year I experimented with doing seedlings in gutter piping suspended to elbow height from the crop bars which was great. I will do much more seedlings like that next year as well as more hanging baskets of chillies and cherry toms.
We have sliding doors at either end and the lower half of one side has an adjustable vent.
I water into upturned two litre pop bottles which are sunk into the soil near the plant roots which keeps the bed surface dry and makes the weeds very easy to pull out. Plant feeding consists of just chucking in half a teaspoon of feed granules in the bottom of the pop bottles and then watering it in with the hose. Seems to work very well.
Each October I turn the previous year's compost onto the beds where it sits in the dry over the winter. I use some of it but most gets raked over in the spring and taken down into the beds.
I don't do much in it over the winter except to keep the current year's strawberry daughters, the herb pots and the wormery dry in there.
I am making plans to get another one soon. Like FW says - one you have one you immediately realise that you need another one.
I love my polytunnel and have a little stool so that I can just sit in there on rainy summer days and inhale the scent of the tomatoes. :love: :love: :love:
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thats ok the cover is in the ground but when its windy its mot too flapy
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Two veg that have been a great succes in the polytunnel this year have been flatleaf parsley and chard. We have a couple of short rows of each and they have produced and stood all summer without any sign of going to seed, providing enough for us and for friends. Chard is a hard sell cos people don't seem very familiar with it but it is great in salads as a lettuce substitute/addition (you can include the stalks cut up small), or cooked up like spinach, or the cooked greens eaten as salad with olive oil and lemon like the greek horta, and the stems can be cooked separately and eaten with white sauce. Flat leaf parsley makes the greatest salad tabbouleh if you've not had it try it, so easy to make and great tasting. The rocket, spinach and coriander all went to seed easy - Cheryl happy about the coriander as she wants to harvest the seed.