Inside Polytunnell

[Cruden Bay vegger]

We live far north and our house is situated surrounded by fields so very open and blustery. Have an acre of a garden and complained to my husband that it was a sin to have so much land and not use it wisely and as having always liked gardens thought I could turn my hand to growing veg. Husband bought an old grey fergie (mechanical love than usefullness) unfortunately. Ploughed up a part of the garden and made a total mess. Alternatively (to stop my nagging) bought me last Xmas a polytunnel 14ft x 30ft. Supplier erected this end of Feb this year. Problem: Dug up down one side this year (work commitments) and with having started to cultivate ground that had so many dormant weed seeds having a constant weed battle. Before tackling the other side this winter would I be better digging deep, putting a weed suppressent membrane down then erecting a series of raised beds? Advise greatly appreciated. NB We have heavy clay soil so did incorporate a lot of home made compost and added some compost when cultivating the one prepared side.

[burnie]

I'd go for your idea and have raised beds,it depends on what you're planning to grow.You can also use grow bags and pots/tubs as well.

[sewer rat]

Definitely go for raised beds idea. I am changing my tunnel layout this winter to incorporate raised beds throughout, with the exception of a potting / work area - 4ft x 12ft.
I worked on a farm just outside the village - can't remember it's name right now - big white house, opposite the clay brick factory for a couple of years, drank in the Killie Arms - so I know just how difficult the clay ground is up there.

[amandaandherveg]

Hey CBV

Just wanted to say 'hi' as we're in the same neck of the woods. I'm South of Aberdeen but OH works in BOD.

[leicestershirelass]

hi - we've just had our first polytunnel summer, so still in the early stages of what works and what doesn't.

On one side we planted straight into the ground, leaving paths in between so that we could get at crops. Most of what we planted was successful. We also had a few grow bags on this side too, but found that some crops grew better in open ground than similar ones in grow bags.

On the other side we did raised beds, which proved to be quite expensive due to cost of wood. In the raised beds we varied our composting mixtures to suit what we were planting.

However, we've decided to put make more raised beds as it keeps areas tidier and more defined - this time we're going to use as much recycled wood as we can get our hands on and have already managed to acquire some through our local freecycle.

Despite trying to get all the weeds out we could see, we've still spent lots of time weeding between crops, so don't really know what the solution is.

This has been an experimental year for us, we now know some things that work and some that don't but expect that it will be several years before we've perfected planting/growing etc.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do and please pass on any tips to the rest of us.

[nick the grief]

Bernard Salts book "Growing under Plastic" is the bible for poly tunnels. ANd I guess SR's the expert here as he lives your way and has polytunnels so I wouldn't dream of trying to argue with him.

As to your problem with weeds, as it is dry under your poly tunnel why not spray with glyphosphate then build your raised beds and there will be an explosion of weed seeds germinating but you can hoe these off ( once or twice a week will be fine this time of year) then sow a green manure ( they will improve the soil and smother the weed seeds. Then later on you could put a layer of newspaper or cardboard down on the soil ( water the beds 1st if they are dry) and then cover with some more compost and then plant into this. The cardboard will suppress the existing weed seeds and then break down after a few weeks by which time your transplants will have got a hold and be growing away like good uns.

I'm sure with a bit of TLC you'll soon have it tamed

[burnie]

Nick,I like your weed supressing with paper/cardboard,bound to help with water retention too.

[sewer rat]

When I started with my tunnel, I sprayed it all off with glyphosate, dug it over ( I cheated and used a rotovator) and put a thick layer of 5 year old FYM on top of the freshly dug soil. I then covered this with black permeable membrane and then filled the tunnel with my seed trays and cell packs which I sat on pallets on top of the membrane.
When my seEdlings were ready to plant out, I removed the pallets and the membrane and most of the compost had been incorporated thanx to the worms.
I repeated this process this year (see photos in my album) and the weeds have all but disappeared - those that do make an appearance are just pulled by hand as and when time allows.
I do crop my tunnel intensively, so the weeds don't really get a look in.
I have started putting in raised beds as I said in an earlier post and there are plenty of fresh weeds coming up in them but they will soon be disposed of.
Whenever I sow seeds, I sieve my compost and whatever chuinks are left in the sivve are bagged and when needed, the contents of these bags are spread on top of the area being planted out - makes the planting easier and the peat sievings act as a nice clean mulch, as well as helping to supply nutrients to the soil - this system is ideal for shallow rooted crops like lettuces and salad leaves.

[Alison]

Bernard Salts book "Growing under Plastic" is the bible for poly tunnels.

This book is now out of print and although several web sites claim to have it in, if you order you find out that they can't get hold of it (including the Garden Organic site, I contacted them before I ordered and was promised it was in stock therefore ordered. Despite their site saying it was available, nothing turned up, I chased them and was told they were having problems and now they've told me that they can't get it as the publishers have said it's not being repriinted!). As everybody kept saying it was the God of books on the subject have been searching all over and yesterday managed to get hold of the last copy in Waterstones in Manchester. It is indeed excellent but you may have difficulities procuring.

[nick the grief]

Anyone want to buy my copy for £600 ( that should buy me the polytunnel )

[JennieAtkinson]

Hi Cruden Bay Vegger - I'm a little bit further north than you, but I'm in my fifth summer with the polytunnel. Same size as yours. My field was full of perennial weeds and I had the opportnity of someone to put the tunnel up so had to dig it out after the event too. It took me four summers to get it done - but don't dismay you can still grow to its full potential in the meantime.

The first summer I put down membrane and planted up loads of pots and grow bags (in fact anything I could lay my hands on that could take a plant) and had a reasonable harvest. During the next winter I pulled back part of the membrane down one side and dug that out, and put in a raised bed at the far end (I like a mixture of raised beds and soil, that way you have the choice of where to plant as the raised beds do dry out very quickly). Each winter I just pulled back a bit more of the membrane and dug it over. Of course by the second and third years the membrane had done its bit and the weeds were generally alot easier to get out.

Hope this helps. It also depends of course on how you want to set out your tunnel. I have beds either side and a wide path up the middle, which I still use for grow bags.

[Tam]

Bernard Salt's "Gardening under plastic" is available from Amazon.co.uk , but they only have three copies available.