Plastic Bottle Cloche

[Urban Ayisha]

I know you can use large bottles as cloches for little planties but what about the sort of frosted type of plastic bottles that 5litre ecover and other stuff comes in? i suppose its the same amount of light coming through?

Also... , i was planning on doing loads of peppers this year, has anyone got a link for building cloches inexpensively and simply (only need to last one season). i have blue plumbers pipe (lots of) and plastic sheeting left from other projects so anything including that would be fab!

Thanx!

[Urban Ayisha]

do i mean a polytunnel?

[theabsinthefairy]

Building a poly tunnel from plastic tubing and poly sheet is really easy, we have about 3 or 4 of these every year to start seedlings off in.

You need the above ground pipe to be the same width as the sheeting, and then at least another 30 cms to extend into the ground, put a nail through the pipe at ground level, each side, stretch the sheeting over the hoops, obviously to whatever length poly you can construct from the sheeting, then tie string around a nail on one side, pull over the tunnel securing the poly sheeting and tie down to the nail on the other side. At each end sink a length of stick or a good thick tent peg into the ground, and draw together the polysheeting and tie down to the tent peg as an anchor.

Hope that makes sense.

Monika

[Annpan]

As for your plastic bottle cloches... yes you can use frosted plastic and you can use bottles of any size you are still helping the light it and the wind (and some slugs) out - the benefit of soda bottles is that because they are round they are easier to rotate into the ground.

However.... your big ecover bottles can be refilled by the same places that do the smaller refills

[Urban Ayisha]

thanx very much for your help!
and yes, in a former life as not-a-mother i used to travel a 16 mile round trip by bike, then by train just to go to the only shop near to get the 5l bottles refilled and bring them home in my huge back basket (rather unsteadily!) as we dont have a car - now thats dedication, if i may say so myself! but nowadays its just not feesable so ive been buying the smaller sizes but you'd be glad to know all plastic bottles get put to good use on the allotment!!

[Annpan]

Wow! 16 miles in London... that is shocking. My local healthfood store is about the same distance, but we are in the middle of nowhere in comparison.

I didn't mean to put you on the spot, sorry Just that I hadn't realised at first that the 5l bottles could be re-filled too, I was sharing the knowledge

[Urban Ayisha]

lol dont apologise i was just reminiscing really some of the crazy things i used to do in the name of eco friendliness! we dont live in a posh enough bit of london for a nice 'green' shop to be in demand. and that was a 16 mile round trip, mind, im not entirely bonkers!!! this shop was in ealing and they obviously werent used to refilling the larger bottled because i remember the sales assistant saying "errr, ermmmm, ahhh let me just check if we do the big ones?" DOH as if it makes any difference to them?! they did charge me for 5 x 1l refills rather than a further discounted bulk refill price though.

i think the website ecotopia.co.uk will refill your 5l if you return the empties in the post but that seems like a bit of a palavar too!

[Shirley]

shame you don't live up here or you could get them refilled at our food co-op :-)