The Plan

Since we have about five acres of land, we decided fairly early on that we wanted to do something with this land. Since we had both grown up with home-grown produce, this was where we would get started. It was clear that this was not going to be a short-term project.

The Tunnel

The first thing we did in the garden was to set up a polytunnel. We chose a fairly big unit at 17 x 5 metres to so as to make sure that we had enough space to be going on. In hindsight, it isn't really possible to have a tunnel that is to big as there is always something else to go in.

As our supplier didn't have a hinged door option and I didn't want the bother of roll-up doors, I had to construct wooden doors and frames for each end. This was simple enough, and with the help of both mine and Jo's dads, we got the tunnel up in a day. This work consisted of digging a trench around the perimeter to allow us to bury the polythene. Then we had to drive in posts for each frame pole, drop the frame in and bolt the whole lot together. The most difficult bit was dragging the cover over it as it was a relatively windy day. In hindsight, I would have been better off waiting for a calmer day but we got it up.

I hadn't cleared the ground the tunnel was on, so this was the next job. I tackled this with a cultivator by taking the top inch of sod off the ground and removing this. Next, I cultivated the ground under the sod and put in about half a ton of well-rotted manure.

The first year in the tunnel wasn't enormously successful as I hadn't really cleared the ground all that well. We had lot of problems with weeds. We did get quite a bit of lettuce, cabbage and broccoli out of it. We also got a few tomatoes and an excellent crop of courgettes. The main issue with the tomatoes was that we hadn't side-shooted them particularly well.

At the end of the first season, I revisited the situation. I spent a weekend clearing the entire place out and then rotovated the entire place - which wasn't to difficult. I then made a potting table for the top end and covered the ground with black polythene to force the weeds. After about two weeks (around the start of January), I pulled the polythene off a small area and sure enough, there were loads of dead weeds. I planted up a few early vegetables with little expectation of success.

We also had a huge amount of strawberry runners, so I put in quite a few of these in to get us some early strawberries. I made a rudimentary frame from and old window we had lying around and sowed some lettuce and greyhound cabbage around the start of February to get us started. Meanwhile, I had transferred some tomatoes, peppers and other exotics over to my parents' house as they have a glasshouse with heated frame.

Come the middle of March and I had plenty of lettuce and cabbage plants to get in along with some rather fancy Graffiti F1 purple cauliflowers. I basically had the entire place filled by end end of March.

We started harvesting lettuce around early May, had Greyhound Cabbage and Strawberries by the end of May and had Spinach, Rocket, Radish and Sorrel around the same time. We started eating the cauliflowers by the middle of June.

By July, lettuce in the tunnel is getting a bit pointless as most varieties are just blowing. This month, I have added in a few chilli pepper plants, some sweetcorn, an aubergine and a few bell pepper plans. We have started getting courgettes and there are a few very early tomatoes. We are doing Radish, Rocket, Spinach and Lamb's lettuce on a rolling successional sowing about every three weeks. These are going straight in, but we also doing mixed lettuce in seed trays on a successional basis as well. I am doing Greyhound Cabbage about monthly.

Outside

We came up with this grand design of a quarter circle arc of lawn, around which we would place six segments of beds. Needless to say, we got very little accomplished on this in the first year.

The main outside work the first year was to put up some ridges on the far side of the tunnel where we set up a large bed about 50 feet by 25 - basically the same length as the tunnel and about half again as wide. We had four ridges across this - three were put into potatoes and we made up the rest with onions, peas and a few other bits. In addition

The other bit we did was to clear the first segment of the arc. This was needed to temporarily plant some bare-root fruit bushes to bring them on. We filled up the rest of the space with some more peas, carrots, parsnips, beans, broccoli, cauliflower and some Brussels Sprouts.

We did get a great crop of potatoes - enough to last us through to March the next year and a lot of peas and carrots. The sprouts and broccoli were also highly successful during the winter and spring.

This year (our second), the plans were slightly more ambitious. I set out to clear the whole area of the arc in our garden plan. This is an area of about 70 feet by 90 with perhaps a third of the area removed for the lawn. I cleared all of this by hand using a spade and for to dig ridges. I did use the cultivator to loosed up soil from the alleyways for throwing up on top of the ridges.

In these ridges we have set up the mainstay of this year's crop production. We have five ridges of potatoes. I have planted no less than six varieties: Home Guard & Sharpe's Express for First Earlies, British Queens for Second Earlies and Roosters, Records, and Kerr Pinks for Maincrops. In addition to this, we have half a ridge each of Broad Beans and Mangetout Peas, a ridge of Peas, a ridge of Carrots and bits of Cabbage, Lettuce, Sprouts, Broccoli, Celery and Broccoli.

There are some other vegetables in last year's patch. Here we have a ridge of Onions, a ridge of Parsnips, most of a ridge of Leeks and more Lettuce, Beetroot, Seed Onions and Cauliflower.

I also put a ridge up at the top beside the shed to grow some flowers in. We have put in some Gladioli and some Lupins up there which should be quite nice.

So far this year, I have learned that tackling so much ground by hand is not very clever. Next year, I am going to see about getting someone in to do a bit of ploughing as that would at least make the ridge building. Our ground is to wet to grow vegetables and other way that in ridges without doing extensive drainage work. I shall try to get that started next year - it will need doing in the decorative areas anyway, unless we are going to grow flowers in ridges.

We started harvesting the Sharpe's Express potatoes in the first week in July. Not my favourite variety but home-grown new potatoes are far superior to anything you can buy. The Mangetout Peas also came in at the start of July along with Early Nantes carrots, the thinnings of the seed onions and some outdoor lettuce. We have got a couple of pickings of proper peas by the middle of July.

Picnic Areas

I hacked out a nice little area up the top field near the forest as a picnic area. This was all covered in brush, and as it would have taken half a day to go and hire a proper brush cutter, I was forced to attack it with the strimmer. It did get the job done reasonably well in the end, and after a few runs of the mower, we have quite a nice little area.

We managed to pick up a three nice picnic benches in B&Q so I have made these up and put one right beside the house, another down at the bottom of the tunnel and a third up in this new area.

Misty Morning

Raising the Tunnel

Happy Potatoes