Wow, this is what I love about gardening. Three weeks ago the yard was a dusty brown wasteland. Well, it still is truth be told, but the tunnel is an explosion of fresh new green!
I read up some on the whole thing with tunnel gardening, I have discovered that the consensus is that you are gaining about 10-12 weeks on the season, 6 at either end which makes a considerable difference in this dodgy climate of ours. I've had so many seasons where I've lavished 6 months care on everything only for much of it to fail to ripen. I've tried starting earlier but that just leaves everything either drowned or frozen.
Most of the stuff is in trays at the moment, I like to get things started off like that, it's easier. I used the shelves from last years growhouse for staging and also bought another one which will also be useful later to stack pots for hardening off etc. They're both only 2ft by 1ft by 5ft tall and only the new one has a cover.
Everything looks rosy :)
Saturday 28 May 2011
Even a girl can do it.....(Well, two, anyway...)
So Polytunnels, I've had a greenhouse before, but sadly, had to abandon it during a house move (it may to this day still be behind Taff's garage, I really don't remember). At this point, with little space and less money, I wanted something different. So I was wandering around the garden centre when I spotted this bijou poytunnel style growhouse that was big enough to stand up in and offered quite a large footprint. Being a child of the information age, I immediately knicked off home to Google it. As luck would have I found it for less than half the price on Garden Selections - http://www.selections.com/GF2091/garden-tunnel-1-9m-x-3m/. They're getting mentioned in despatches because they sent it quickly and it's exactly the same as many I have seen for up to £100 odd online and locally.
The instructions were a bit sparse but happily, more than adequate for erecting it. I had asked my eldest to stay and help cos she's tall, but she wandered off somewhere as teenagers will, so that left me, (short) and my youngest (very short) holding, as it were, the baby.
It would be much, much funnier if the build had been a re-run of our camping holiday in North Devon last year, where the girls and I attempted to put up a 3 bedroomed, semi-detached, dome tent, on top of a cliff in a horizontal force 9 drizzle offensive. Sadly for my blog, nothing could be further from the truth, nobody got yelled at, or grounded for the rest of their natural lives, I didn't end up on my knees weeping and nobody went home early because we were all getting pneumonia. So almost entirely completely unlike a family holiday in Berrynarbour. More like a day on the beach in Barbados, or a walk in the Park.
So this is how it went:
The powder coated frame slots together with springy pins really easily and the cover was quite manageable even for us short folk. In fact we went from getting it out of the box to planting in under an hour which I would say is pretty damn impressive. It's quite sturdy and hasn't yet blown into next-doors garden despite the weather's spirited attempt to test it. The only downside is the chickens using it as an escape route (going over the top) but that's not the tunnels fault.
As for whether it does the job, well I'm impressed so far, for once seeds seem to be behaving exactly like it says on the packet, so for garden geeks I'll submit my records on a stand-alone-page when all the results are in.
The instructions were a bit sparse but happily, more than adequate for erecting it. I had asked my eldest to stay and help cos she's tall, but she wandered off somewhere as teenagers will, so that left me, (short) and my youngest (very short) holding, as it were, the baby.
It would be much, much funnier if the build had been a re-run of our camping holiday in North Devon last year, where the girls and I attempted to put up a 3 bedroomed, semi-detached, dome tent, on top of a cliff in a horizontal force 9 drizzle offensive. Sadly for my blog, nothing could be further from the truth, nobody got yelled at, or grounded for the rest of their natural lives, I didn't end up on my knees weeping and nobody went home early because we were all getting pneumonia. So almost entirely completely unlike a family holiday in Berrynarbour. More like a day on the beach in Barbados, or a walk in the Park.
So this is how it went:
 |
| Big Fish, Little Fish.......Cardboard Box |
 |
| A new perspective on my beautiful young assistant! |
 |
| It slots together just so |
 |
| See? |
 |
| Easier than a dome tent! |
 |
| Just a bit of gentle stretching to chuck the cover over and viola! |
The powder coated frame slots together with springy pins really easily and the cover was quite manageable even for us short folk. In fact we went from getting it out of the box to planting in under an hour which I would say is pretty damn impressive. It's quite sturdy and hasn't yet blown into next-doors garden despite the weather's spirited attempt to test it. The only downside is the chickens using it as an escape route (going over the top) but that's not the tunnels fault.
As for whether it does the job, well I'm impressed so far, for once seeds seem to be behaving exactly like it says on the packet, so for garden geeks I'll submit my records on a stand-alone-page when all the results are in.
Not a scale model of the Somme.......honest!
There are few things more depressing to the avid gardener than watching their garden disappear before their very eyes but that has been my experience since I adopted some chickens last summer. In July last year, it looked like this:
By February 2011 it looked like this:
On the upside, everyone loves a clean palette, so I'm not going to cry about the many plants that lost their fight for survival against both the chickens and the snow, I'm going to rebuild it. I have the technology...and this year it will be bigger, faster, stronger and will make a funny noise.
So here is the Plan (yes, I have a plan on this blog too but it isn't as cunning as the other one!) Buy a polytunnel, plant loads of seeds, have enough to rebuild the garden and some left over to stock the chunk of allotment I share. Then everyone will be happy, me, the chooks and the buns.
And how far have I got?
Well, quite far actually, so next time I will be mostly talking about polytunnels.
On the upside, everyone loves a clean palette, so I'm not going to cry about the many plants that lost their fight for survival against both the chickens and the snow, I'm going to rebuild it. I have the technology...and this year it will be bigger, faster, stronger and will make a funny noise.
So here is the Plan (yes, I have a plan on this blog too but it isn't as cunning as the other one!) Buy a polytunnel, plant loads of seeds, have enough to rebuild the garden and some left over to stock the chunk of allotment I share. Then everyone will be happy, me, the chooks and the buns.
And how far have I got?
Well, quite far actually, so next time I will be mostly talking about polytunnels.
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