How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel: All Year Round - Softcover

Gatter, Mark; McKee, Andy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900322722 ISBN 13: 9781900322720

Verlag: Green Books, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

An easy-to-follow, practical guide to growing crops year-round in your polytunnel.

Are you using your polytunnel, also known as high tunnel or hoop house, to its full potential? If so you'll be harvesting fresh crops all year round – sweet potatoes and late celery in November; winter radish, baby carrots and celeriac in early February; salad leaves right through the winter. Even in the 'hungry gap' you'll have a choice of new potatoes, pak choi, peas, tender cabbages, beetroot and more.

How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel has all the information you need to make the most of this precious covered space, including a detailed crop-by-crop guide to the growing year, dedicated chapters on growing for each season, including the 'hungry gap', and a handy sowing and harvesting calendar to help with planning.

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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 contributed to the Transition Town initiative for Dorchester, which went 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 Gatter grew up in suburban London, but always wanted to live somewhere rural. 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.

Andy McKee first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five, and since then he has grown food in situations ranging from a seventeenth-story window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas-tree plantation. McKee had his eyes opened to the potential of polytunnels during a visit to one featuring a hot tub warmed by a clay oven. He lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset, England, and is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables.

Mark Gatter began growing vegetables while homesteading in north California in the early eighties and has been a keen gardener ever since. He is a firm advocate of an organic, raised-bed approach and relies on a polytunnel to keep fresh food on the table right through the winter. He and his wife share their smallholding in Wales with 11 sheep, several chickens and two dogs.

Mark and Andy are also the authors of The Polytunnel Handbook (2009).

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.

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 books together for Green Books: The Polytunnel Handbook and How To Grow Food in Your Polytunnel.

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How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel

All Year Round

By Mark Gatter, Andy McKee

Green Books Ltd

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

ISBN: 978-1-900322-72-0

Contents

Introduction, 
1 Through the seasons, 
2 The tunnel's first year, 
3 Winter, 
4 Spring, 
5 The hungry gap, 
6 Summer, 
7 Autumn, 
8 Plants for the polytunnel, 
9 Seed saving, 
10 Dealing with pests and diseases, 
11 Looking after the soil, 
Resources, 
Index, 

CHAPTER 1

Through the seasons

The traditional idea of a greenhouse is that it should be chock-full of hot-weather plants, particularly tomatoes, to 'put on a really good show' in the summer. Towards autumn this generates a glut that is largely given away to friends and neighbours, either as ripe fruit or as chutney. Finally, at the end of the season, the plants are stripped out and the whole structure scrubbed down for winter, when it is used as a storage area for gardening equipment, children's toys and perhaps a few overwintering containers from the patio.

This routine is typical, simply because it fits within the constraints of a small green house. Thankfully, the increased possibilities of a larger growing space mean that we can – and should – throw this approach out of the window. Poly tunnels are far more useful, and with just a few basic changes you can produce harvests to be proud of right through the year. This means taking a more balanced approach, rather than growing for a single season: being prepared to take some crops out earlier than you otherwise might, and to start some plants in containers that you might ordinarily sow straight into the soil.

There is a certain rhythm to this kind of gardening, which the month-by-month photographs in the second colour section will help you to appreciate.

Spring (mid-February to early April)

Polytunnel spring begins long before any activity can be detected outdoors. The salad crops, which have been standing fresh but inactive through the depths of winter, tend to be the first to take advantage of the light by slowly accelerating into growth. If you can make space, plant a few first early seed potatoes (always use certified stock in the polytunnel to avoid the risk of blight), which will be ready well before the outdoor harvest.

As light levels increase, some plants will bolt (run to flower) almost immediately. This is the cue to begin new sowings of crisp salad leaves and staples such as baby carrots, radishes and kohlrabi, all of which grow very rapidly once established. It's also time to start eating up most of the remaining standing crops such as turnips and fully grown carrots, as they too will bolt soon and become woody.

The most critical parameter in the tunnel in the early spring is not heat but light. Polythene film transmits slightly less light than glass even when it is new, and the transmission falls off a little each year as the film becomes more porous. While this is insignificant at other times of year, in early spring a cold frame or small greenhouse is very valuable. Even if heat is provided, without adequate light seedlings will quickly become leggy and feeble, so if you are unable to provide a bright environment elsewhere it is usually better to wait for a few weeks until the light level improves.

As spring continues the potting benches in the tunnel gradually fill up, both with hot-weather seedlings for the polytunnel and with early starts for the outdoor plot. A capillary bed (see Chapter 6, page 49) will prove invaluable because it provides water from the roots upward, saving time on watering and reducing losses from damping off (a fungal infection, common in warm, crowded and wet conditions, that wipes out whole trays of seedlings with astonishing speed). As seedlings become ready to plant in the outdoor garden, plant a few of them in the tunnel as space permits, to stretch the harvesting season. Broad beans, for example, will be ready three weeks earlier in the tunnel than the same seedlings planted outside, and will be a very welcome addition to your diet during the hungry gap.

Summer (mid-April to late September)

Hot-weather crops grow fast once the weather is warm and will need training. This year's harvests will begin very quickly, starting with salads and 'first early' potatoes and followed by broad beans, kohlrabi and strawberries. Even after chillies and tomatoes have been planted out and potted on, the potting bench will remain crowded with seedlings for outdoor use, safe from predators and late frosts. Cucumbers should finally make it into the tunnel beds some time in June and will grow strongly after a couple of weeks' settling in. Once they get going they will need almost daily attention to keep them from sprawling away from the supports.

By July things will be in full swing and the harvests of tomatoes, chillies, cucumbers and peppers should have begun, even in indifferent summers, and flowers will appear on the melons. The tunnel should feature some visible flowers to help attract pollinating insects such as hoverflies (which are likely to snack on aphids while visiting), and with luck they will be followed by a toad or two to help keep slug numbers under control.

In August the first melons will be ready (although in colder years these may be a little delayed), but it is now, at the peak of the gardening year, that some plants should be taken out. This is to make room for the next phase of planting in preparation for winter and the hungry gap.

As the outdoor summer comes to a close, the tunnel will be a great place to dry and cure onions. A suspended bench or shelf is ideal, as it is dry and genuinely mouse-free. Melons will be ripening and when cut (by the end of September) are likely to be the envy of neighbouring growers. The beds will now begin to empty in earnest, leaving space free for plantings for the hungry gap and quick-maturing catch crops for autumn and winter.

Autumn (October to November)

As the growing season winds down and the remaining hot-weather crops are stripped out, the tunnel will suddenly look much more spacious and calm, and this is a golden opportunity for a general tidy-up. Any remaining tender plants, such as celery and fennel, that were grown outdoors may be heeled into the tunnel beds to prolong their usefulness, and will keep fresh that way for a couple of months.

Autumn can be an anxious time for tunnel gardeners, as variable weather will decide whether those vital hungry-gap plantings have been timed just right – established, but not too far along. Too warm, and the harvest may start while there is still plenty of stored produce; too cold, and you may be tempted to eat them young – and while this means they won't be available later, they will be so delicious that it's unlikely to be too much of a disappointment.

Winter (December to early February)

As the days become shorter, activity in the polytunnel slows down for the winter and practically stops in the depths of the season. Some of the beds will be empty in preparation for sowing early in spring, some will have relatively hardy crops ready for harvest, and others will be full of established young plants that will grow away as the days lengthen, providing a great start to the gardening year.

In winter the polytunnel will have a dual role, as a 'holding area' for hungry-gap plantings established, but not yet fully grown, and as a walk-in larder for fresh produce through...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Green Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2010
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1900322722
• ISBN 13: 9781900322720
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 192
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Buchpark GmbH; gpsr@buchpark.de; ; Krügerweg 1; Trebbin; Brandenburg; 14959; Deutschland