What I Did Today (Undercover)

So, what I did today:

I weeded round the onions, cabbages and calabrese that are taking up 2 beds, and spread manure on about half of the beds.

Sowed tomatoes, broad beans, and hardy salad leaves.

Contemplated which bed to try an early sowing of carrots in; still haven't decided!

Me too Sarz - I hoed the green cap off the soil that had developed around my alliums (sounds so rude), watered a lot (I tend to soak once a week in this cold weather. Contemplating sowing a few parsnip seeds in there as I majorly fail on the lotty. I deleafed some celeriac, pulled some up for soup. Radish seedlings, sown direct, are through. Contemplating peas in gutter. Also strawberries in pots in there.
i have also sown early carrots in the coldframe in there but nothing showing as yet.

P'haps we need an undercover expert .......

Oh! I'm so glad this isn't just in my tunnel! I was quite worried about it, thought it was just my poor soil



I'd love that Paul Peacock, or Mark Gatter, or Andy McKee please

Naughty!

Great thread Sarz

It's maybe a sign that your soil is better than you think. . The problem you have is only caused by lack of movement of air which you will get with the tunnel closed up after the winter, by poor light levels and by lackof movement of the soil surface. All will be remedied as the season gets under way

Great idea for a thread!
I moved various modules and pots of things from the house up to the tunnel now that they've generminated. Beetroot, spring onions, salad leaves, mustard, rocket, large pots of early-type carrots. Prepared 15 large pots with horse manure for early chitted spuds, they'll be going in later in the week. Hoed around the onions and garlic. Watered the strawberry plants and purple sprouting. Moved up mangetout and main crop peas, all of them in root trainers with shoots showing about the compost now.
Emptied a dalek and brought the compost into the tunnel. Dug out a couple of trenches for the peas to go into and lined them with newspaper and then flooded the trecnhes a couple of times. Dumped in the compost and returned the soil. I'll hopefully plant the peas next week some time.
Busy busy again, it's great

Nope it's quite normal apparently - keep hoeing it away

In my exp deleafing is one of the most important jobs, even if you just move them to somewhere where they can be specific mulches. Less places for pests/fungi to grow but also keeps things aerated. Not letting weeds take hold
also a priority as anything that likes it outside seems to like it twicw a smuch in!

My raised beds are needing next to no water at the mo. The paths are often flooded though. Very small stuff gets a sprinkle or a spray. I was really bad at overwatering last year and lost too many seedlings so I'm trying to be Two Sheds this year.

My carrots are struggling to germinate and they are in a cold window (take your pick) in the house.

Strawberries are loving being inside.

I do turn my green soil over through the winter but only when the soil it's on is very dry. It's just another sort of green manure.

Not selling anything! But if you follow their book you can't go (easily) wrong.


I washed the tunnel inside as high as I can reach the other day. It's in it's second year. It has made a huge diffrence to the way it feels. I used just one bucket of warm water to keep moisture to a minimum. I am actually looking forward to washing the outside and doing the higher up bits inside at Easter. (need to be able to a) open the doors and b) wear minimum clothing to do the high inside.)

Growing in there now are mangetoute, carrots, lots of cabbage, calbrese, cauliflower, parsley, chard, chicory, strawberries, garlic, peppers, rocket, lettuce, lambs lettuce, stir fry greens,tomato seedlings, lots of herb seedlings. (All under fleece on cold days).

Yeterday I filled bags with compost ready to warm up a bit before putting new potatoes in in about a fortnight.

I think I've said it before but when it becomes an olympic sport I intend to bore for Wales on polytunnel gardening. (OH just read this over my shoulder and said, "Why wait?"!!

So far to my soil - which was bought in top soil (old army house ground, so lots of clinker, ash and rubbish put down), I have added seaweed out of my water butt - acts as a cleanser, also my chicken poop mixed own compost, Rockdust and mulches of nettles - a la TwoSheds. Oh and some leaf mold. It's a completely different soil now to the one I started with, which was bitty and gritty - no humus. All of this sits in the eighteen inch - two foot deep trenches atop rock hard clay. I just keep mulching on top now with as much as I can get hold of or make.

I do quite the opposite but when the tunnel is empty. Salts and electrolytes tend to build up in the soil in tunnels and greenhouses which reults in a reduction of the electrical conductivity. Help I hear you all say. What does that mean and what is the effect? Bottom line is it prevents plants being able to take up fertilisers from the soil so it is really important to give the soil a thorough wash through either by leaving a hose on, removing the glass/cover and letting the weather do the work overwinter or by physically removing the soil, taking it out into the weather and replacing after winter.

Here endeth the lesson

AP I am trying to keep mine growing through the year, hence o/w alliums, roots, etc. I soak the soil once a week in cold weather as I had read that was better than watering more regularly. I Citroxed the outside early in the winter but only scrubbed the Environmesh inside. I have been putting up the door vent on mine as I don't have anything particularly weather precious in there. Am I doing enough? I did have chooks in there one afternoon doing a bit of weeding/fertilizing.

Chooks great idea. Cleanliness is next to godliness undercover. Ventilation vital.

I have two plastic covered removable panels for each gable end (top and bottom of the door frames). Behind these I have debris netting. I left the top halfs open all winter to keep airflow going through. It did the plants I have in there no harm but more importantly I dont have some of the troubles I see around the allotments where people shut their tunnels/greenhouse up completely (algae, mould etc). I'd say airflow is more important than trying to keep temps up at this time of year.