New Polytunnel

We have taken the pllunge and ordered a cheapish polytunnel today from ebay. Its 20ft by 10ft and I'm over the moon. Cant wait to get it erected at our new alottment...here's a couple of photo's..







Steve...

 

It looks vast! Nice vertical sides too.

 

That looks super Steve, there's plenty of ventilation along the sides and you'll have stacks of growing space in one that size.
I hope you take some photos of it being errected and post them on here.

 

Looks good Steve ..What you hoping to plant in it ..
I have a mess shade tunnel and find it very useful
Let us know how it goes

Dave

 

Hiya,

That's exactly like the one we were looking to get! Please could you post what you thought of it as we are hopefully going to get one next month. My only concern is the wind blowing it away but hubby said it had quite good skirts on it and he would secure it down well. May even put raised beds inside.



Have fun



VJx

 

Thats a serious size Steve.
You now realise we shall all be expecting remarkable things from you..!

 

If you have a potential problem with being blown away then I think the one Chopper got looks good (an "advanced search" here for "Tunnel" in posts by "Chopper" should probably find the pictures)

 

Nice one.

On the mushroom farm, we used to secure the sheet with railway sleepers.

 

I only realised how cheap these were on ebay just before Christmas, but despite mentioning them to my wife, I've had to get one myself.

Only 4.5 x 2m, but I'm still worried it may take off in a stiff breeze, so I'm going to secure the verticals to stakes one side and staging the other side.

 

.


Nice one, many happy hours in it!

Ps, any spare room?

.

 

I put it up briefly the other day just to ensure all the bits where there and worked, Kristen is right..its Vast!...I'm fairly certian though that soon it wont be big enough. However I did not put the cover on as that needs an extra pair of hands and this time of the year no one else was down at the allotment.

To secure it down from blowing away there is a skirt, but I will dig that trench a little deeper and lay some posts horizontally at the bottom..having first looped round some lengths of nylon rope to then tie to the tunnel frame above. I think these horiontal buried posts will provide a better anchor than stakes alone.

I'd also like to make some crop bars to stop lateral movement too, but I've drawn a blank on how to achieve this so far, any ideas?

Steve...

 

Two suggestions Steve as shown below.
If you can get your paws on some alloy tube all you need to do is flatten and drill the ends and secure to the frame with car exhaust clamps.
In our tunnel (smaller than yours) I've run wire along the length of the tunnel fastened to the joints in the horizontal transverse supports and use it to fasten vertical supports to for my toms and climbing cucs.

BTW When I put up our tunnel I bedded the uprights into 'postcrete' after adding an exhaust clamp to each upright to stop it pulling up out of the 'postcrete'.

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That looks good Steve.

Just so you know, I made a request to the Adminsitrators to have a Polytunnel Forum. Marely Farley replied very quickly and has set up a STICKY in the Greenhouse Forum. If this is proved to be popular we may get a forum later on. Which I thought was damned decent of Marley.

20 X 10 feet is a big tunnel. At the moment you are thinking WOW!! Look at all this space I can grow stuff in. I did the same thing and with in only a few weeks I want even more space under cover. Tunnels are brilliant and I love mine.

Couple of things to be very wary of, that I have found out since putting mine together.

Be careful with your measurements when putting the tunnel together. Before you put it together, think about which way the sun rises and sets. Also consider any possible protective hedges/fences. They help protect the tunnel from the wind but also create shadows. Sunlight is very important for the tunnel.

Make sure your base is as level as possible and that there are no parts of the base that are prone to waterlogging.

Bear in mind that your tunnel is going to act as a huge kite. I have no idea how strong your frame is or what it is made from. Once the tunnel is put up, it will be an absolute nightmare to do anything to strengthen the supports. I went for the ground anchor option on mine. A bit more money but well worth the extra cost. In your case I would be thinking about nailing or screwing two lengths of baton either side of the skirt material and then burying them as deep as the frame will allow. All of my anchors are two feet deep under the soil.

You will need to make use of the ventilation and be careful as regards watering. Everything that you plant in the tunnel is totally reliant on you for everything the plants need to grow.

Good luck with your new tunnel and I hope you are as happy with it as I am with mine.

Chopper.