so - poly tunnels

[red]

those of your with PT experience - good bad ? regrets? things to think about?

spect you need planning permission?

[Thurston Garden]

Go, go, go! Get a tunnel!

1. Get the biggest you possibly can. Despite it being the biggest, you will need a bigger one within a year.... (mine is 3,000sq ft and I need more space)
2. Get one with timber base rails. They are significantly better than trenching the polythene. Makes is to much easier to tighten the skin, which WILL come loose at some stage.
3. If you are making beds with a weed membrane around, take the membrane right outside the tunnel, under the timber rails (another reason to have them!) Stops the weeds from growing where it's difficult to get at them.
4. Seriously consider crop bars - the horizontal bars in the roof space: they are invaluable for tying plants like toms upto, or hanging baskets of toms from.
5. Site in an E/W orientation for maximum sun.
6. Some people recommend having one end higher than the other so the heat can escape out of one end. Personally I don't like this because when watering, all the water runs to the lower end!
7. Site near a water supply because you needs lots!
8. Buy a poly tunnel.
9. Buy a BIG poly tunnel.
10. Buy the BIGGEST polytunnel you possibly can!

Happy to answer any questions.

p.s. did I say to buy a tunnel??

[red]

heh - thanks for that. we would love to buy a PT

did phone and have a chat with planning people.. not such good news.. as we are in a national park - they are very difficult about these things...

basically..... we *might* get pp.... if it were *very* small....

but much more likely to consider a change to existing outbuildings... now wondering about converting our piggery (4 bay old fashioned sty arrangement.. ) into a gh/pt we still have the boar pen should we ever get into raising pork...er i mean pigs...

is all a thought. (really should spend some money on house though.. boo)

your enthusiasm makes me want a PT now!

have to keep telling ourselves that we would never have afforded the land if it did not come with restrictions.. in fact.. without the restrictions there would be a housing estate where our sheep live....

[Thurston Garden]

Ah, National Park...never thought of that. I did speak to the planners here before embarking on this venture. Asked about my PT and big henhouse - got confused look....go and ask colleague......colleague looks a plan & brochure of PT & HH.....more confused looks....."Write to us and include a site plan and brochure extracts so we can consider it"......

I did write, in October 2005, and again, and again. Never heard a peep, so I wrote and said I intended to put up both PT and HH unless they said not to.....still not heard a thing!

(Fingers crossed that there's not a letter in the morning!)

[greenorelse]

bump

We're considering a getting polytunnel. We can afford quite a big one, though its size will be limited simply by where we're going to put it, rather than money. We could afford a medium-size greenhouse (located in a different place) and then save up for a polytunnel as well. I know the advice is always, get the biggest you can, whatever you're buying and Thurston Garden's reply is really useful.

So the question is really, what are the greatest advantages/disadvantages between the two?

[Thurston Garden]

I would say the main advantage of a tunnel is the amount of growing space you can get for your buck. The downside I supposed is that a greenhouse is likely to last longer. That said, with care, the tunnel skin will do 5+ years and the frame will last for yonks. It could be argued that as a tunnel flexes in the wind, it might well stand up to gales better than a greenhouse.

Tunnel for me every time!

[paul123456]

hello there ,

of course the civil servants come in the picture , look at the posting of ss nightmare , bash their heads in with their pp,

regards ,

Paul

[greenorelse]

Thanks for your reply, TG. As I said, we could get a reasonable greenhouse for what we have put by and then go for a polytunnel as well in 2012. I'm trying to figure out if this is the best way round for us. Tough, innit? If there were massive advantages of one over the other, fair enough but I keep saying, "Aaah but..." and "There again...".

I'm actually quite decisive. I think.

[oldjerry]

for what its worth, I would have both.I would raise in the GH,and grow in the Tunnel.You don't need a large GH to raise a hell of a lot of plants,nb. although we have always grown food for ourselves,we also grow to create some extra income.I don't see the point of a greenhouse unless it's heated,though electric cablesin a frame inside a greenhouse works too.Properly used a heated GH can really turn a profit.

[red]

wow - spooky to read my thread from 2007!

we put up a second large gh in the end - with PP.

i sometimes have polytunnel envy - i meant the mahoosive PTs not the baby ones that are just a greenhouse really. but we grow more than we need without one..
and definitely glad not to have had one in all this snow - the heavy snow brought down the nets over our hen and duck runs - hate to think how the PT would have done... the greenhouses were fine.

[madabouthens]

Snow and Polytunnels; We had to remove 2ft (60cm) snow from ours. The frame is very strong, but the poly bit was being stretched. We live in a VERY windy area and pt stands up to weather ok.

[Millymollymandy]

- the heavy snow brought down the nets over our hen and duck runs

Ah you have ducks now - remember you wanting some. What have you got, muscovies?

[red]

- the heavy snow brought down the nets over our hen and duck runs

Ah you have ducks now - remember you wanting some. What have you got, muscovies?

well, technically we still have ducks .. but they are in the freezer...

We hatched some 'white otherwise dunno' variety last summer. want to get muscovies as a permenant feature, for eggs and meat, and continue to raise the white ducks for meat, but need to first off repair the run and secondly expand it.

[southeast-isher]

These 2 books might help you:



and

[greenorelse]

Thanks everyone for the replies (oldjerry especially, it's what I wanted to hear!)

The BH and I will discuss it further. We still have a couple of months before we're allowed to withdraw our savings without losing interest, so any more views on the merits of GH v PT would be very welcome - talk away!

We don't have snow round here - too near the Atlantic for much anyway - but we occasionally get spectacular gales. What do I ask for if I want heavy-duty polythene?