Polytunnel - winter crops

[leicestershirelass]

Hi - our polytunnel is hopefully being delivered next week. Would appreciate guidance as to what crops to plant in it over the winter months + any general info that you think may be useful. Thanks

[Birdie Wife]

Ooh, you lucky beggar. I want one!! There's so much you can do. Many salad crops are hardy over winter with protection, try chicory, lettuce 'winter density' and leaf beet for starters. I'm not sure how the winter hardy peas and beans would do, many people start them now for an early crop in the spring but I don't know if a polytunnel might bring them on a bit too quickly - you need pollinating insects around when the flowers are out to get a crop. I'm sure there's lots of Grapes out there who've tried it?

[hawthorns]

how big is your poly tunnel

[leicestershirelass]

18' x 40' - it arrived on Friday, so just in the process of putting the kit together....

[bravo2zero]

Hi leisctershirelass,
an 18x40 is a fair whack of tunnel so here goes . have central path with 4 foot beds at 90 degrees to it split by 1 foot paths the central path at no less than 18 inch. my paths are of bark chips to a depth of 4 inch. have door frames of no less than 3 feet with two outward 18 inch doors to allow you to fine tune the ventilation. regarding the crops to plant/sow now experiment all you like. right now i am ready to sow some oriental greens ,carrots and planting wise i have ready to put in some calabrese (kabuki) and cabbage(hispi) these will come good early next year also some peas(feltham firsts) are waiting to plant in. i have saved some charlotte spuds from the first picking this year hopefully to get for christmas,these at the moment are looking well. you will not regret buying your tunnel for me it is the best buy i ever made for my lotties and has been the best bit of my plots this year whilst everything outside sulked with wet feet .

[leicestershirelass]

Thanks for the advice bravo2zero .......... good to hear you've used barkchips as given several bags recently and wondered if that's how I could make use of them.

The frames now up and OH is hoping to get the doors/frames made soon. When they're done the polythene will be going on.

Going to put that black polythene stuff on unplanted areas for the time being to stop weeds growing- is that what you do?

Have saved some spuds, so will have a go with them.

[JennieAtkinson]

Thats a big tunnel Lass! Mine is 14 x 20, but I just love it. I'm still harvesting french and runner beans, sweetcorn, leeks and carrots from summer sowings, so I've no room at the moment to plant much over winter. I'm waiting for a space to put my garlic and Japanese onions in. They do well in the tunnel and I get a harvest around May.

I've got bark chips on the floor and a mixture of dug out beds and raised beds. I find the dug out beds don't dry out as quickly. I put black plastic down to start off with and gradually just kept peeling back a little more and digging it over. It took me three seasons, but its been worth it. There are some pictures of my tunnel in this thread taken at the beginning of the year.

Bravo - are you able to post some pictures of your tunnel layout. It sounds very interesting.

[bravo2zero]

regarding weeds i cannot say as the ground that my tunnel was erected onto was already cultivated land so was pretty much weed free but the beauty of a tunnel is that it escapes to a certain degree the ingress of by wind borne weed seeds.during the summer i use the wheat straw used as a litter from my chicken run as a litter to mulch my tunnel beds hence i only need to water every other day or adopt a rolling regime . a point i didnt make in my last post was that will you get the best sweetcorn ever from your tunnel. i only grow it outdoors because the spares from tunnel plantings i cant bear to see on t he compost bin.

[leicestershirelass]

Hi Jennie and Bravo - thanks for more tips. I've grown sweetcorn for the first time this year outside and have had really good crops ... still harvesting it + runner beans and peas. No luck with carrots or spring onions though - what's the secret?

[bravo2zero]

Regarding spring onions i too have sporadic germination and some spots on my plot suffer from white rot so to avoid this i sow 5or6 seeds into small cells and transplant them when they are big enough to pull from the tray without snapping them. if you have patchy germination with carrots the likelyhood is that it is too hot or cold when sown or lack of moisture.the first cause is self explanatory the solution to the second is to sow after rain or sow in drills as normal but water the bottom of the drill prior to sowing and cover as normal.

[sewer rat]

My tunnel is currently home to my tomatoes (200), cucumbers (40) chilll and sweet peppers(110), with the last two being in pots on staging running down the length of one side - my tunnel is 24' x 60'. However, my toms are being removed next weekend, and possibly my cucumbers too. Waiting to go in I have PSB, Black Tuscan Kale and Calabrese. Today I sowed some winter lettuce and radicchio to grow over winter too.
I am not going to grow toms next year - will use tunnel for early peas, cabbage etc then runner and french beans.
Enjoy your tunnel, it's a godsend in cold weather !!

[nick the grief]

Hi Lass,

Get hold of Berard Salts book - Gardening under plastic, it's the bible for tunnel owners and will tell you what you can grow. Thats quite a size I was looking at 14 x 24 and I thought that was big

[leicestershirelass]

Hi All - thanks for advice.

Looking forward to when the cover goes on.

Off to take a look on Ebay and Amazon for Bernard Salt's book.

...... why is there such an enormous price range on Amazon? £7.50, then £38 right up to £99.44 for the same book???????? Tesco comes in at £10.49 + £2.74 delivery. None on Ebay ...

[JennieAtkinson]

Try Amazon Second Hand Books - my son just picked up a couple of painting books for 1p each. Postage was £2.50 for the two books, but seemed quite cheap overall.