Polytunnels

Gardening to 'grow your own food' from square foot to half an acre !!
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lochernepioneers
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Polytunnels

Post by lochernepioneers »

She who must be obeyed,,( Ruth, the wife,)and i were sitting haveng a cuppa,when she says you could get another poly tunnel.we have a 8ft x 10ft one at the moment. When we move to Ireland, we will have an area about 10ft x 30ft that we can useas a growing area .
Do any of you grow in polytunnels to extend the growing season?
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lancashire lass
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Re: Polytunnels

Post by lancashire lass »

I don't use the greenhouses/polytunnel for extending the season - simply because the garden is surround by tall trees and hedge, as well as low lying (one of my boundaries used to be a small stream, now filled in but still gets damp during wet weather and especially winter) This means the garden gets cooler and damp than in the open as well as no sun at all in mid winter.

I do however, take advantage of raised temperatures during the summer period for growing warm loving crops. Last year (my first year - and probably the warm July weather helped too) I was very successful with chillies see this link to my diary. This year the melon trial was a bust - mainly because pollinating was a problem (my fault really - I had hoped pollinating insects would be attracted inside with the door wide open as I just did not have the time or patience to do it myself. Chillies, peppers and tomatoes are easier because you just gently jiggle the flower heads as you water the plants) I have decided to try chillies again next year (I've got some new exciting seeds which I'm eager to grow)
Thomassio
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Re: Polytunnels

Post by Thomassio »

I used a home made tunnel of sorts this year for chillies and starting tomatoes. Had a lot of success with both. In fact too much! Makes a huge difference to temperature. But mid June, the tunnel was wide open 24/7.
What chillies are you planning for next year LL?!
bmpsands
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Re: Polytunnels

Post by bmpsands »

We start a lot of early crops in our polytunnel. Our melons were amazing except that they didn't ripen because as an experiment I just put some seed out of a melon that we'd finished eating into the raised bed. We didn't think anything would happen but between a few melon pips and a couple of cucumber plants we were over-run. Next spring I'll be planting at the proper time.

We considered planting some late stuff in the tunnel, but the above-mentioned melon issue made us decide to see if we could ripen a couple so we didn't have the space.

For now, the pt is over-wintering plants and storing all the trays etc that you need to put somewhere. We had bales of straw in it last winter and might do the same again this year.
Bea; 19 hens (most of whom I intended to get); 6 bantams (which I never intended to have); old Benji dog and young Toby dog (who I definitely wanted). Three years into country living and loving it.
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