Life in our new polytunnel is a revelation
Polytunnel gardening is whole new experience for me. It demands a lot more work. Not only do I have to create the soil, the beds, but also the water. Plants in the dry are thirsty. With the hot weather we have been having in May and early June watering was often needed 3-4x per day. To begin with I had to haul buckets from the rain water collection barrels near the hut. There is a watering system to connect later once we have our house watering system up and running, in the mean time I am using water collected from the shed roof to which Sebastian connected a pipe down to the garden and a hose atatched to that. It is all a bit cumbersome but, it beats carrying buckets. The vegees are coming on a pace. I now have asparagus, cabbages, 5 varieties of salads, tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers, carrots, parsnips, radishes, green beans, mangetout, and adding new things everyday. Herbs I've started also are: thyme, chervil, summer savoury, dill, parsley, rosemary, lavender, hyssop, mint, coriander, chamomile, basil, marjoram, valerian, lovage, angelica, comfrey, fennel, sage,calendula and more everyday. I have also sown some of the seed that I collected recently, of rare trees, flowers and herbs. Not everything grows well, but most of them do. Slugs are a menace; I do a twice daily slug patrol as I really do not see the benefit of using poisons. It took me quite a bit of deliberation to decide on a lay-out forthe polytunnel, and decided on individual beds placed evenly between the struts with 50cm between the beds and a meter path down the middle. So far I have utilised about 1/3 of the floor space so there is plenty to be getting with over the next few years.