The Polytunnel Handbook - Softcover

McKee, Andy; Gatter, Mark

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900322455 ISBN 13: 9781900322454

Verlag: Green Books, 2008

Inhaltsangabe

A polytunnel can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, from crispy salads and fresh vegetables in the dead of winter to juicy melons and mouth-watering grapes in high summer. But once you’ve decided to invest in a polytunnel, there are many questions to be answered, including:

• Do you need planning permission?

• What are the different sizes and types you can buy?

• Where should you put it, and how do you put it up?

• What can you use it for, how do you look after it, and what are the likely problems?

The Polytunnel Handbook looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards, and includes a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are put up and maintained. There are chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. For the DIY enthusiast there is a full set of instructions for building a polytunnel from scratch, and the authors explain how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Andy McKee grew up in Belfast, and first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five. After an early career in pharmacy, he pursued his interest in gardening and vegetable growing, and has grown in situations ranging from a seventeenth storey window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas tree plantation. Andy has lived in Birmingham, Belfast and the Isle of Man, and now lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset. The family is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables. Andy has also helped to set up the Transition Town initiative for Dorchester, which is scheduled to `go live’ in Spring 2009. Andy has contributed regularly to the blog section of the Ecologist Online, and his personal blog can be found at www.hedgewizardsdiary.blogspot.com.

Mark and Andy have written two boths together for Green Books: The Polytunnel Handbook and How To Grow Food in Your Polytunnel.

Mark Gatter grew up in suburban London, but always wanted to live somewhere rural. He eventually got his wish when he swapped houses with a friedn from the Lake District, both agreeing to deal with the landlords later. After living there for five yers, and co-running a printing partnership, Mark went on a two week holiday to California, and ending upliving there for eighteen years after meeting his wife. Whilst in California, his love of gardening grew, with a special focus on growing food. Mark currently lives in Carmarthenshire with his wife, and spends a full week in every month in his two-acre smallholding with his rescue sheep, chickens and dogs, a 10 x 20ft polytunnel and an area of raised beds. They grow as much organic food as they possibly can, and enjoy giving it away at least as much as eating it themselves.

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The Polytunnel Handbook

By Andy McKee, Mark Gatter

Green Books Ltd

Copyright © 2010 Andy McKee and Mark Gatter
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-900322-45-4

Contents

Introduction, 
Chapter 1: Planning your Purchase, 
Chapter 2: The Big Day, 
Chapter 3: Self-build Tunnels, 
Chapter 4: The Tunnel Environment, 
Chapter 5: Planting Through the Year, 
Chapter 6: Preventing Pests, 
Chapter 7: Thinking Outside the Tunnel, 
Afterword, 
Appendix 1: Further Information and Suppliers, 
Appendix 2: Further Reading, 
Appendix 3: Glossary, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Planning your Purchase

A step-by-step guide from first thoughts to ordering

Having made the decision that polytunnel ownership is for you, the temptation is to rush off and order one straight away. Catering for customers who do exactly that, there are some friendly-looking sellers around who keep everything looking very simple and offer you a choice of only a few different kits. Don't be fooled; this simplicity is for their benefit, not for yours. At best you will miss out on some of the choices that make polytunnels such a flexible asset: at worst you will end up with a completely unsuitable product.

On the other hand, approaching a polytunnel manufacturer directly can leave you bewildered by the range of products and accessories on offer: different films, different ventilation strategies and a choice of door options, to name but a few. In reality these things are only confusing if you are not clear about exactly what you need from your polytunnel, and that's why there are a few things to consider before you're completely ready to go ahead.

Planning permission

The very first thing you need to think about is whether anything is likely to prevent you from putting a tunnel where you would like to put it. You should contact your local council's planning department to find out if you need planning permission. Despite controversy over larger commercial applications, at the time of writing single-span tunnels for domestic use don't need permission in most areas, but the position varies depending on where you live; in Andy's stamping ground in West Dorset, for example, you don't need permission unless the structure is concreted into place or connected to mains services. We would advise anyone who is told that they need permission to ask for a copy of the relevant guidance that the planning officers follow, since there is often confusion between the rules for domestic use and those for commercial growers.

There is also a layer of more local bureaucracy to consider before you go any further. If the polytunnel is on your own property, this just means checking to see whether there are any restrictions written into your deeds. This is unlikely to be a hindrance, but if you are considering erecting the tunnel on an allotment, then there will probably be specific rules that you will have to follow. While you need to be aware of what these rules say, don't speak to the allotments manager until you have a better idea of just what you would like to do. Nothing is more likely to produce a negative reaction than vagueness on your part.

Decisions on use

Now it's time to ask yourself a very simple question, but one that often goes unasked; what exactly do you want to use your tunnel for? This question will strike at the very heart of your installation. All subsequent questions – where the tunnel will be sited, what size it should be, whether water will be needed – hinge on what you intend your polytunnel to do. For example, if you intend to use it to bring on hangin

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Green Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1900322455
• ISBN 13: 9781900322454
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 128
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: eucomply OÜ; hello@eucompliancepartner.com; ; Pärnu mnt 139b-14; Tallinn; 11317; Estland