[Diann Clarke]

I started work this year as a volunteer in local school garden.  Although I enjoy growing flowers, have never grown veg before apart from the usual tomatoes and peppers. The plot consists of 3 large raised beds, filled with mushroom compost, plus a polytunnel'.  The year has been superb growing peas, beans, potatoes, onions, pumpkins, tomatoes, sweetcorn, cucumber and peppers plus many more.  We won many prizes with the produce at the village annual show and are now enthusiastically looking forward to next year but there are several
matters which we need to tackle.

1.  We need to replace the two black plastic compost bins, as these are inadequate, with proper square bins.  Has anyone any practical suggestions on building these please plus sizes.

2.  The polytunnel is 18' x 56'  and was donated to the school.  Soon after being installed it was vandalised and slashed but the culprit was caught and dealt with and there have been no further acts of vandalism.  We were given over 50 grow bags which produced large crops of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers supported with bamboo canes.  We have  1 raised bed in the tunnel and feel it would be more economical to install a further 5 beds and then use use crop supports.  Have looked on websites but would like advice on buying crop supports and how many we would need.

3.  We have now been given a large amount of horse manure, still in bags, and wondered how long this has to be on the beds before we can plant into it.

The 2/3 mums I work with visit the garden during the week with their pre-school age children who have great fun playing on the site.  On Mondays we worked and discussed what the school children would do the next day.  They visited in groups of 7/8 and so enjoyed planting and harvesting.  We quickly learnt not to let them use the hose pipe but switched them to using watering cans!

To date over £200 has been raised from selling produce at the school gate, local church cafe and outside one of the mum's houses.  We still have tomatoes and peppers to sell plus a large amount of pumpkins, some of which are enormous.

Last month I sowed rye grass in one of the beds and was amazed how quickly it grew.

Discovered this website by 'accident' when looking for crop bars and have enjoyed reading all the articles.

Diann

[HappyHippy]

Hello and welcome to TAS 
I'm not sure I'll be able to answer all your questions, but I'll have a go......... (others will be along soon  )
Compost bins - old pallets are a great (and cheap) way of constructing them. 4 per bin, screwed or nailed together - I always leave the front panel off til they're quite full as it makes it easier to mix the compost (and saves me having to climb up on top of them)

I'm not sure about crop supports - I always use canes and either tie them or wire them together if the crops are heavier. It's probably a more flexible and re-useable option. Use little Yakkult bottles on the ends of the canes to save you jabbing yourself in the eye 

If the horse manure is wellrotted down you should be fine to dig it in now for planting next spring (except for your root crops - carrots, parsnips etc, as they don't do as well in heavily manured soil) if it's still in it's 'raw' state you'll probably need to compost it for at least a year.

Hope this helps a bit ? Well done for taking on a project like this - it's so important to get little ones clued in to where food comes from and fresh produce  So I wish you continued success.
Karen 

[Fleecewife]

Hi Diann - what a lovely thing to be doing.  You are setting the scene for years of delight and good food for the children.
1 - compost bins.  The cheapest option is to get some pallets (someone will donate them)  You will need 4 3x3" stobs and someone to bash them in place, the distance between them to fit the length of the pallets.  Then nail on the pallets, perhaps making the front one removeable for removing the compost.  A lid is helpful and could be a large thrown-out duvet in a bin liner, or just a flat piece of wood.
The volume of these bins is large but needs to be this big to really heat up.  To fill them you could get the children/parents to contribute with compostable stuff from home - not too many grass clippings in one wodge though.  It is best to have two bins (at least) so that after 6 months or so you can turn the first one into the second for its final rot-down, then start filling the first one again.  You could have a third for leaves - the Council would give you a load I'm sure.
2 - crop supports. I have crop bars in my tunnel so I can use string tied to them to support most crops. A possible alternative if your tunnel doesn't have crop bars would be to tie strong tight wire along the length of the tunnel, although at 56' that is probably too long. Wires across the way and tied onto the hoops might work but could cause rubbing against the cover.  Crop bars are usually about 7' above the ground.
You can get bales of canes through LBS Horticulture which work out at a fraction of the cost of those from garden centres.
3 - horse manure - this needs to be stacked until it is well rotted down and looks brown and crumbly with a sweet smell.  How quickly it rots depends on the bedding - straw rots quite quickly but wood shavings can take at least twice as long and should not be applied to the ground unrotted as the shavings will rob the soil of nitrogen.  You could tip it all out into one of the compost bins and leave it over the winter, ready to dig in or spread in spring.

Ah I see Happy Hippy  typed faster than me and has said pretty much the same thing - it must be right then