Moving closer to the Tunnel

My mini gabion basket has too many sharp edges to go into the garden

I have been hard at work at the bottom of the garden clearing and levelling a patch for the polytunnel this week. It’s large enough to put a tunnel measuring 12x20’ I just need to make sure that it’s all flat and there are a couple of large tree stumps I need to remove too. It’ll be hard work and will take a day or two more but I think it will be worth it as the trees are still active and new shoots grow up to about three feet a year so would get in the way of the polytunnel plastic. After this it’s just a question of getting the tunnel.  I have been getting prices from a few different places, the cost of a tunnel has gone up by at least 150% since I bought my last one in 2000, so after that initial shock I realise there wouldn’t be much change from 700 euro..Better get saving.

Gabion Baskets

Meanwhile....I have a few different levels in the garden.  We have steps and slopes, nothing too big that would leave you out of breath walking up it though.  The front of the garden to the soon to be polytunnel probably only has a difference in height of about three feet, and this gives us the opportunity to use design to make some interesting features.  

Coming out of the back door we have about six steps to get to the lawn and to the side of this there is a soil bank funning the length of the house.  Initially it was planted up with herbaceous perennials but the dogs have taken to sitting on the soil (and plants) as staring longingly into the kitchen window hoping for a walk or food or attention or all three.  I did put up a few small posts and wire mesh last year to allow the plants to grow and get established, but the dogs flattened that ,sat on it, then peered through the window again in defiance as they pushed the bare soil onto the path.  I couldn’t win so I thought a few gabion baskets would look good along the edge.

If you are not familiar with gabion baskets, you will probably have seen large industrial ones holding up embankments on motorways.  They are steel mesh cages of varying sizes then filled with stone and tied together to make an exceptionally strong and long lasting barrier.  The idea came from medieval times when wicker gabions filled with soil were made as fortification to stop enemy’s arrows. I’d use them as a defence against the dogs.  

Landscape design Gabions

The gabions need not be industrial looking; they can be filled with decorative stone and also planted up with rockery plants that don’t need too much soil and like good drainage.  There are some really attractive designs ready made from such companies as Red Hen in Poland. Their designs are worthy of any public place and most of them are useful (you can sit on them!) having smooth edges and lovely wooden seats. Planting can be done in the centre of the gabion to soften thing even more.  Cranford stone in Donegal also have some interesting designs for the garden.  

I like the galvanised welded mesh for the gabions in preference to the woven mesh; it seems a lot stronger and neater. I ordered a sample mini cage measuring 30x30cm from Devoran Metals in Cornwall to get me started.  It’s a bit small for anything but putting a plant in it but the design allows me to see how things would look if I used larger cages of up to half a metre high with the same size mesh of about 750mm (3”) The sides of the cage are secured with spiral pieces of wire and look very tidy once in place.   

There’s just something too sharp about the sample I have though.  The health and safety in me would look for pieces of wire pointing out and would always be aware that young children (and dogs) are always running about.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to wrap my garden up in cotton wool, goodness knows the potentially dangerous places where I played as a child. It’s just that once I have seen a safety issue I would feel irresponsible not to correct it. (Once you see it you can’t unsee it!)  The only option for putting gabions in the garden would be to either buy some very expensive (but well made) landscape feature gabions, painstakingly make my own ensuring there were no sharp edges, or put up with the dogs sitting on the soil and staring at me through the window.  They do look cute when they look at me with their sad eyes so I think a decision has been made for now. 

Re-using Old Tyres

A great use of old tyres. Sitting on them should be all right but would you grow veggies in them?

It wasn’t too long ago most car tyres ended up on bonfires in autumn.  Now though there are tighter controls and a bit more understanding about just how polluting they can be.  Finding new and interesting things to do with them can be entertaining and more and more people are being really inventive when it comes to reusing them.  There are lots of play parks around that have soft surfaces made from the ground up rubber after the steel wire has been taken out and we probably sit on them as the new park benches have old tyres mixed in with old plastic carried bags.

Other uses are:

·         Roof tiles

·         Road surfaces (the quiet type)

·         Children’s swings (cut to look like swans)

·         Earth ship houses with rammed earth inside them as walls.

·         Growing flowers

·         Keeping down the silage sheets

·         Rolling down hills

·         Making sandals and furniture

The biggest discussion though is whether it’s a good idea to use them for growing vegetables.  The dark colour absorbs heat, the drainage is good and they are ideal to stack up for when you want to grow spuds, strawberries or tomatoes. They can also be used effectively on steep banks to stop soil erosion.

Under the EU Landfill Directive introduced a few years ago, tyres have been classified as hazardous waste, with a ban on whole tyres being sent to landfill.  So do tyres leach out toxins which are taken up by the plant to end up on our plates or is it just bureaucracy gone mad?

A few tyre-ing facts

Tyres are extremely durable. During manufacture, natural rubber is combined with synthetic rubber and treated with a cocktail of chemicals, some toxic or known carcinogens, others more innocuous, to make the tyre withstand all the forces that will act upon it on the road. 

The forces that tyres have to resist on the road are: sunlight, water, acidity, abrasion and friction with the road surface. Each of these forces works in a different way on the tyre, but over time all break it back down into its constituent parts.

During this process, the various chemicals and compounds are slowly released through ‘off-gassing’, particulate matter or 'tyre dust', or as chemicals, leaching out into water. Every tyre loses about 20% of its weight during its lifetime on the road, getting slowly ground down and blowing away in the wind.

Tyres and toxins

Most off-gassing occurs within the first year, for example, that 'new carpet smell', and given that tyres typically are 3 to 5 years old before being discarded, this would not really seem to be an issue.

What should be of greater concern to vegetable growers, is the gradual erosion through water and sunlight, and any leeching of chemicals and toxins that may occur to contaminate the surrounding soil, water and anything grown in it.

What happens when tyres degrade

The disintegration of tyres is well demonstrated when they are used to weigh down covering sheets in silage areas. The tyres usually degrade to point where the steel belt starts coming out of the tyres after ten years.

Yet the effects aren't completely understood. A report by the Environment Agency states that "little is known about the long-term leaching of organic chemicals from tyres in landfill sites.”

Like many types of rubbish we produce today, we don't really know what the individual effects of the leaching chemicals are. However, there are strict controls in place for the proper disposal and handling of used tyres, and it is illegal to dump them, with large fines for fly–tipping - showing that problems with tyre disposal are appreciated.

Risky Business?

Mischa Hewitt is the author of Earthships in Europe and runs Self Building an Earthship training courses in Brighton found a long list of toxic chemicals in the tyres and wonders if it’s worth growing edibles in them. “When it comes to growing food in tyres, why take the risk? Whilst the quantity of toxic chemicals maybe small, we don't know the exact amount used in tyres because of commercial secrecy.

People generally grow food organically for themselves to avoid exposure to synthetic chemicals. It seems ironic that a 'Permaculture way' of reusing tyres could be unintentionally reintroducing potentially harmful chemicals back into the equation.” 

Even lining the tyres with polythene before the soil is put in doesn’t seem to attractive now.

Tunnel or Not

Is it possible to make a polytunnel from our old trampoline?

Tunnel Vision

I’ve turned into an embarrassment again with the young ‘uns.  My mobile phone is apparently really outdated; the last time I was this out of touch was when my phone had a three inch aerial sticking out of the top and was shaped like a brick.

Now I am faced with getting a smart phone, something that can take up more time in my day.  I have a limited vocabulary when it comes to texting on a numeric keypad on my old phone and usually just end up saying “OK” as a reply to almost everything as I can’t be bothered to press the little digits more than a few times before I get bored.  The new smart phones would do away with all of that as they have proper keypads so I could write “That’s OK instead”, before falling into a bored stupor.  

I have to weigh the facts though.  Do I NEED new phone?  Or do I WANT a new phone?  I started looking at the cheapest contract ones and they work out cheaper than the pay tariff as you go I am on now.  Alas though, these phones are out of date (by tekky standards) and the newer-faster-smarter phones are twice the cost, but they have all sorts of gizmos to play with.  I am really confused about it, mainly because I would happily live without a phone if I could.  

I have other dilemmas when it comes to buying and getting value for money too.  I have cleared a spot in the garden (got rid of the trampoline) and have enough room for a polythene tunnel.  It wouldn’t be a big one by any standards, I have an area of 12 feet by 20 feet to fill (4mx6m) but there are so many different types that I am as confused about tunnels as I am by phones. I initially spent a happy hour trying to make a polytunnel frame from the trampoline poles... I’m sure that I could do it but my lads insist they will be using it again in the summer.

Comparisons

My last tunnel was 30 feet long and heavy duty so could withstand the strongest winds coming off the Swilly.  I could get a smaller version of that, which would cost me about 600 euro which seems a bit steep.  The area where the tunnel is going is in a really sheltered space too surrounded by (but not in the shade of) trees, hedges and a wall, so I was thinking of something a bit more lightweight.  I pondered over a greenhouse but a new glass type that size would cost over 1000 euro and if you buy one second hand it’s usually “buyer to dismantle and collect” Now I don’t know if you have ever dismantled a greenhouse but generally you are left with a pile of aluminium strips that you don’t have a clue how to put back together again and a few bags of broken panes of glass... So I have discounted that line of buying. 

 Choices

There are other cheaper types of polytunnels on the market and an ever growing amount of companies bending galvanised tubing into hoops.  The coverings seem different too and range from thick clear plastic to hazy plastic and covers which sandwich green mesh in between layers which is supposed to give both strength and shade. They all have 5 year or more guarantees so chances are any will do the job effectively.  The design I am looking for in the hoops if for them to have straight sides.  The tunnel will be small enough without me being unable to get into the edges with benches or vegetable beds, so every inch of space is needed.  This thankfully cuts down the choices of companies as not all of them produce this type of design.

Cheaper models don’t seem to have wooden door frames either and rely on zip flaps similar to a tent, which will let you push a wheelbarrow through but I am wondering if it’s heavy duty enough.

It’s going to take me a bit of time to come up with the ideal tunnel for my needs; I will have to weigh up all of the options before buying. I’ll have to be realistic about the price too, I know it will cost me a few hundred euro to get a good one but it will be worth the extra money. I have to take into consideration any extras such as black plastic for the flooring or the cost of putting in raised beds... and buying plants and seeds for that matter.  It all adds up.  

If anyone has an old tunnel lying unwanted...give me a shout!