Steve's Polytunnels

Just finished putting our tunnel up on our allotment. Its 20 x 10 x 6.5 foot and has a door at either end, vertical sides each with four roll up meshed vents on them.

The frame itself goes together fairly easily much the same as putting a tent up and takes around an hour to do on your own.





Its designed so that the cover is "dug-in" to stop it blowing away, I've gone a couple of steps further sacrificing some height to dig it in deeper. I also had some paving edgeing stones I had recycled and I have dug these in around 15 inches deep after having looped some thin rope around them first, these will tie to the frame further anchoring it down.



I covered these with around six inches of soil and stomped it down, then cut some footplates from pallet boards to go under the feet of the frame to stop them slipping into the soil when I tie the frame down later.





There are ten ropes on either side...20 in total !



Today myself and a couple of friends from the allotment got the cover on fairly easily and I started the back filling of the trenches. I'll finish that off tomorrow.







As ever, much still to be done.

Steve...

 

Looks good Steve - some ingenious engineering !

 

Blimey Steve,

You've done well there Is it big enough for a pumpkin?

 

I was wondering about that too as it looks look this will be ready at just about the right time for one. My plant will only have a windreak around it.



Have you got a max/min thermometer in there yet? I've only just put one in my smaller one (probably about half the volume of yours) and would be interested in how they compare. I need to leave the 'door' open during the day to keep the temperature down to reasonable levels.

 

Thank you Shiney !

Yup, waiting patiently to take their place in the tunnel.

Yup...and laminate flooring in the sheds, lino in the tunnel and parquet for pathways...

Thank you Dave!

Thank you, yes its big enough I guess, but I'll be growing that outside.

Thanks John, I hope it floats though.

Not as yet, but I have a spare one at home I can use for that.

Steve...

 

Excellent job Steve, I am 100% going to copy your anchoring idea...and probably tell everyone I thought of it, lol

 

Looks good Steve ,hopefully soon be filled up ..

Dave

 

When I was toying with the idea of a bigger poytunnel, I was thinking of burying some old Mini tyres (if you've dug a buried car tyre out the ground you'll know just how well the hold on) in the ground and using some steel cable (like is used for guying aerial masts - got some car booting and still looking for best use for it) with crimped connections to hold down the framework, and sitting the verticals on bricks.

But those edgings do the job of both.

 

Our local garden centre has recently renewed some of their plant display stands, their old ones turfed out to go to landfill have been recycled by me, brought back to our plot and turned into some staging and at 17 feet by 3 feet its a substantial size and should now ease the pressure on our 8 x 6 greenhouse at home.





Thats half of the tunnel in use now, now to dig the other half !!

Steve...

(More on our blog {The Nook}.)

 

Nice!

 

Nice one steve - plenty of inspiratioin there matey :D

 

I’ve finished rough digging/weeding the bed in the Polytunnel (4ft x 20ft) and finally got all our plants down there and onto the staging…even done some potting on and seed sowing.












I’ve also layed out some old carpet as a temporary weed suppresant/pathway.

The doorway you can see at the end that is closed, will remain so and I will be extending the bed across this end of the tunnel and removing one of the four stagings along that side to allow it to go full width. As I need more growing space and less stagings..so they too will be removd and more bed dug.

Steve...