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Cheap-ish polytunnel recommendation?

C

Chris152

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It'd be for growing tomatoes, chilis, more delicate herbs and that kind of thing.Hoping to get it in very soon.

Up to about £150, 3m x 2m.

Green or clear?

I've looked around the net a bit and can't tell the good from the bad. I'll be moving in a couple of years, so it's either one that just has to last til then or (hopefully) something I can pack up and take with me.

Thanks for any thoughts.
C
 
have you tried the local gumtree or facebook marketplace for free greenhouse. its how we got two of ours. if its free you can always leave it when you move
 
Thanks both.
Lurker - nice price but it does look a bit flimsy, I searched reviews and saw a smaller version of the same, it didn't look like it'd hold out against much wind. That said, I saw another (Homebase, I think) that looked good til I read ' Not suitable for heavy weather'. Can you imagine? Looks like another storm's coming kids, time to pack the polytunnel away again...
Flyinghaggis - unfortunately, it'll be close to the flight line of stray basket balls - we were offered a glass one last summer but I turned it down for that reason. It shouldn't take any direct hits but is likely to get some traffic from a rolling ball. Could get messy.
 
Chris, have you looked at building your own?

When we moved here the farmer who built the house made a polytunnel with angle iron uprights, about 4 feet below ground and 4 feet above. With cable ties he strapped mains water pipe to the uprights to form the hooped arches. Opaque plastic sheet was then stretched over the hops and weighted down with railway sleepers.
The only image I have is during its dismantling but you see how the framework was made.

CB756273-00C1-4649-B07B-DFF12E1CBDC6.jpeg

I guess it must have been 15 years old before the sheet wore out and i replaced with a glass green house.
 
Thanks Andy - I'm pretty sure that wasn't going to blow away easily, 4' below ground! I did consider making something but tbh, not having the right bits and pieces here, it'd probably cost more than buying one that'd be fine for a couple of years - I went to see a neighbour's this evening, it was a couple of years old, withstood the storms recently and only cost £100. I'm tempted to get the same, and it would mean we can get planting as soon as this weekend (I see the garden centres have plenty of small plants ready to go at the moment).
 
Not going to be an overly helpful reply as it was a few years ago. However my mum bought a polytunnel from amazon the covering was a translucent green material with “string” reinforcing. I put it up and all was well for 2 years but the second summer the plastic just rotted and fell to the floor leaving just the “string net” over the frame.
It was aobviously not UV resistant, complained but the response was it had lasted the 12 month guarantee.
So it was recovered with a heavy polythene type material from one of the bigger specialist suppliers. Thats lasted 6 years and is still as good as the day it went on. We were advised to use “hot tape” between frame and covering.
 
Yes, there certainly seem to be some dodgy ones out there. Til Lurker's post, I'd been planning to get one delivered, Amazon or whatever, but mention of Home Bargains got me looking at local stores. The more I compared, the more I saw the high rate of complaints about products and service from online companies and realised returning anything/ getting the missing part was potentially a real issue. I've now found one at Homebase, in stock on the shelf locally, and if something's wrong with it I can take it back. That said, I'm sure faults resulting from UV won't surface til it's too late without a lot of arguing.
Hot tape - just searched, thanks for pointing that out!
 
That'll do us - endless spring and summer fun!
IMG_20220426_155443.jpg
It's mostly well pegged in (I made 15" wooden pegs to use instead of the silly thin wire ones supplied), shelves and a table to sort. I was planning on building them ourselves but looked at the price of CLS and decided I'll just buy some shelves to assemble and use an old table that's been awaiting the next bonfire.
Thanks for the replies all.
 
Have fun with the polytunnel.
Tip. We get organic lettuce plugs from local garden centre, a dozen at a time. We plant them in the greenhouse beds in between the toms and cues. This keeps them clean (no mud spatter from rain water) and bug and slug free. We dont use slug pellets anywhere but easy enough to keep slugs at bay.
 
Lurker":2n7rnnph said:
Is that a vent to a nuclear fallout shelter in the middle of the lawn?
Click to expand...

Ssshhhh :eusa-hand: It's the entrance to his underground cannabis farm.
 
I made my own when I had allotments. it was huge, made from yellow 6"pipe from a friend who did utility works. The covering is the important bit.
A friend of mine has a garden centre and was putting up a new tunnel recently. he said the sheet was £500 but will last 8 years
 
Lurker - the incinerator is elsewhere in the garden, but I did wonder if the tunnel would double as an Anderson shelter if ever needed?

Andy - today's plan's to cover the floor with weed barrier and to use grow bags for tomatoes on one side, shelves on the other for herbs and lettuce etc, and a table at the far end, so not really any room for 'in-between' things as I understand it. If all goes well this year, I could dig into the ground next year, we'll see.

Tbh, the first thing I did after setting it up was come into the house and google 'how to use a polytunnel' - I realised I haven't really got a clue. Dad had a greenhouse when we were kids and produce used to appear from it, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. It seems the biggest thing is keeping it cool on sunny days - so far I've got close it up at night (usually) and open it by day when/ if it gets too warm. I'm looking to get a thermometer today.
During lockdown we grew tomatoes in the dining room (which I converted into something like a greenhouse) and I've grown basil and coriander in grow bags in a conservatory that we used to have, so I'm guessing I do pretty much the same in the tunnel.
In the little veg patch outside I've sewn perpetual spinach and onions, and I plan to dig up last year's potatoes that I failed to dig before and are growing through now, and plant leeks and carrots.
Oh - and on seeing what we were up to yesterday, our neighbour leant over the fence to hand us a courgette plant to get us going.

Time will tell how it pans out!
 
Coriander will grow well out doors. It self seeds very easily and is treated like a weed in our potager sometimes.
Where in the UK are you Chris?

Dr Hessayon’s Expert series of gardening books gives excellent advice. I have his greenhouse book and reference it frequently.


Good luck and report back often.
 
Thanks Andy - I found the book on Internet Archive and have started looking at the relevant sections, really helpful. We're in Wales, so damp and mild. And lots of slugs.

Some high-end cabinet making done today - I couldn't bring myself to spend money on the nasty shelf units at the DIY sheds so bit the bullet and bought some CLS and gravel boards, and with the help of some scraps for cross pieces built something sturdier. I hope. Next I'll do one for the end, the table I thought to use is dreadful. Buying small plants isn't cheap, next year we'll start earlier with seeds on the window sills indoors. Strawberries, chilis, tomatoes and lettuce (Webbs Wonder, my dad used to love them). And some mint for a pot outside.

I can see how all this can easily become an obsession!
IMG_20220427_173726.jpg
 
Looks like you can roll up both ends of that structure? If so that is excellent for creating a through draft in warm weather.
For some reason when shelves are put in a greenhouse they are called staging :) dunno why. Yours look great and fit for purpose.

Good luck with it. Nothing beats harvesting your own food. From garden to table in minutes.
 
Forgot to mention. Slugs.
The most successful biological method I’ve used are beer traps. Any old container sunk in the ground with a raised lid to prevent rainwater getting in. Any old beer will do. Back in the day Watneys Red Barrel was not fit for much else :)
 
Andyp":1ecco050 said:
Forgot to mention. Slugs.
The most successful biological method I’ve used are beer traps. Any old container sunk in the ground with a raised lid to prevent rainwater getting in. Any old beer will do. Back in the day Watneys Red Barrel was not fit for much else :)
Click to expand...

Or ducks!

541C0282-BE4C-4058-AFF9-8711F58E3725.jpeg
 
Happy with the way it's been going - lots of tomatoes, a few cucumbers, lots of chilis, lettuce is good, all the strawberries (there weren't many) scoffed.
IMG_20220814_094301.jpg
Quick question - some of the upper trusses are still just flowers - should we cut them off now so lower tomatoes develop in time to ripen?

ps the stepladder's in front of the door to stop a greedy dog, who's decided he likes to eat tomatoes straight from the plants. As i took the pic, he was pulling raspberries off a bush behind me.
 
In the vain hope that this might be a good time to buy one being the end of the season, do you know what brand it was Chris?

Regarding trusses, I reckon you might have another eight weeks ripening season so it’s a trade off between ripening what you have vs potential future quantities.
I think ( purely based on observations) that feeding aids fruit growth and ripening , I use wilko own Tom feed as it’s cheaper and chemically near identical to the big brands.

By the way, I get my seed here
https://www.realseeds.co.uk/
All their seeds are ok to save for the next year
 
I have harvested cherry toms as late as December. Much depends on the weather obviously.

I’d leave those trusses for now and see how they develop. If they are a decent size you can pick green tomatoes and place them next to a banana to speed up ripening,
 
When you plant toms in the growbags turn the bags so they are on their sides, it gives the roots more depth.
 
Thanks all. They'll stay as they are for now, they seem to be developing and ripening ok still.

Lurker - I got the tunnel at Homebase, about £120. I spent a while reading reviews online and it seems QC is generally pretty poor on them, so decided if I get one from a store I can just take it straight back and swap it if necessary. Seems to be fine for the moment.
 
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