I've Ordered a Polytunnel

My latest toy. It doesn’t take much to entertain me, just a bit of plastic with holes in it.

I took the plunge and ordered my new polytunnel this week.  Choosing which company to go with wasn’t an easy task. I wanted a very specific size to fit a very specific space at the top of the garden.  The dimensions needed to be 12 feet by 20 feet. Another foot either side of the prepared area and the tunnel wouldn’t fit. This eliminated a couple of local companies, who only supply 10’ or 14’ widths. I had one suggestion from a very keen salesperson about squeezing a 14’ frame into the 12’ space. I didn’t pursue that one; I don’t want to have to make do at the prices being charged for tunnels.

Because of the tight space I also wanted the frame to have straight sides up to about three feet, as this will increase the working area. My old tunnel started to curve from the ground and you were on your stomach sliding along to get to the edges, this again eliminated another local company who don’t do the straight edges but the “Gothic Arch” types like my old one. I also eliminated another company because they didn’t supply the doors and another one because the galvanised frames were too narrow. I did try to find something close to home but I had a specific, detailed checklist and didn’t want to compromise on anything.  Eventually after all of my market research I bought from a company in Lancashire called Premier Tunnels, who offered me everything I was looking for at a price that is very competitive, even taking the delivery charge into consideration. The tunnel is coming in 8 separate packages by courier... The joy will just keep on coming! 

 

Crop Bars

One optional extra for the tunnel are crop bars, these bars are about four feet long and run diagonally across the three central hoops making an ideal place to hang baskets or stash bamboo poles above your head.  The problem with this is that they reduce the head height by just enough for my lad to walk into (he is 6’5”) so I have opted for bars that run the length of the tunnel below the central pole.  I thought these were a better option, I can keep the head height and I can use the poles (which also strengthen the tunnel) to tie string to then grow tomatoes up them, or hang the washing on, whoever gets there first. I think they were far more practical than the crop bars and were the same price. 

Repayments

I have calculated that the cost of the tunnel will take 20 years to pay back with the amount I will save buying vegetables from the supermarkets, but it’s not all about the money.  If you think of double glazing for example, this can take the same amount of time to pay back with saved heating costs, but look at those years you are not sitting in a cold draft in winter.  The same sort of logic can be applied to the tunnel.  It’s the quality and of vegetables over that time, and also the health benefits for us to be working outside for longer periods throughout the year.  

I’ve also checked and I can get Wi-Fi in the spot where it is to be built, so I can have the space as my outside office, TV viewing area and peaceful hideaway from the house. My own shed at the bottom of the garden sort of thing. I can’t hide away totally though as the plastic is transparent so I’ll wave into the kitchen window occasionally and mop my brow as I feign working.  I haven’t mentioned this to the family though; they would all be down there.

Best tool ever (this week)

€7has bought me the best tool ever and I am as happy as a pig in clover. I have LOADS of soil to sieve in the new beds around the tunnel area and bought a round plastic sieve measuring about 15 inches in diameter. I chose plastic over the more expensive metal types as everything made from metal I put in the garage rusts in a season. The only enemy for the plastic are the dogs, who love to chew.  It’s taking the best part of a week painstakingly putting every spadeful of soil through the small squares but like most things in life, it’s all in the detail. The ground is full of ground elder roots, the small sharp glass remains of an old greenhouse, stones and tree and ivy roots.  The resulting sieved soil is beautiful and in this dry weather looks like fine flour. The preparation work we are doing now will hopefully save us hours and weeks of weeding in the summer. I can dream!

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.