Spur of the moment purchase

All I wanted was a netting cage to keep the butterflies off my cabbages, and I bought this

Dome Polytunnel Greenhouse Poly Tunnel Green House Galvanized Frame 600x300x200

from 2011 homcom on a well know auction site, just for the frame. It was £66 including postage. I'm wondering know whether to actually put the cover on, but am worried it will blow away. It will be put up on a south facing hillside 600 feet high in the Pennines in West Yorkshire. It is fairly sheltered from the worst of the winds by some trees and hedging, but these do not seem as good as the ones recommended on here which have 25mm poles, these have 19mm. Anyone have any experience with this make? Should I just stick with my original idea and cover it with netting?

Thanks,

Jonathan

 

Welcome to Gardeners Corner

 

Thanks Zigs! I will introduce myself properly soon!

 

Well, finally got it put up - with the cover that came with it! Just noticed another thread about collecting rainwater, I've put a land drain pipe on the lower side of mine and I hope to collect the water from this. Should be quite clean so was thinking of using a submersible 12V caravan water pump to get it back into the polytunnel.

 

Good luck with it Jonathan. Welcome to GC by the way!

 

Well, bit of a late reply, but only a few weeks after I had got the tunnel up we had 60+ mph winds here and the cover ripped at one end and half blew off. I managed to remove it and for the summer I just covered the frame with butterfly netting. Plenty of broccoli, cauli and cabbage later I have just re-covered the frame with the original cover, having put some eyelets in where it had ripped and just tied it to the end hoop. I've made a frame for a new smaller door, I think the main reason it ripped was that the zips opened and the wind got in, so that should stop that. Hopefully we won't get any strong winds until the earth has consolidated where I have dug in the covers. At the moment I only have some courgettes and the last of the broccoli and cabbage in there, is there anything I could be planting at this time of year?

 

I know the problem of the door zips opening and wind ripping the seams apart, I rescued mine and after sewing it up change the orientation and put it back on.
The differences I made this time is turned 90 deg so side on to wind.
Sank the frame 6" and pulled the cover under the frame before burying it.
Used 15" anchors and nylon webbing to hold it all down.

Time will tell