Make your own polytunnel cheap!
Posted: Sun Aug 16, 2009 2:24 pm
We made our own polytunnel this spring after mulling it over for a year and it has been brilliant. It cost £75 to make (the price of the plastic) but for that we have a tunnel 12ft by 8ft which is solid and producing lots of food.
I started last year by aquiring some lengths of the blue alkathene water pipe. I have already played about with shorter lengths of this to make a netting barrier over my strawberries.
You need to get hold of broomhandles or the equivalent and put these in good and deep into the soil then the water pipe slides straight on. We have heavy clay soil and put them in about 2ft, I don't know how well that would work with very sandy soil but ours are very stable, especially once the whole thing is completed.
Obviously you need to plan a bit and decide a good spot and size as it isn't very movable. Ours is shaded by trees but at least it doesn't get too hot that way and is on a north-south axis to get what sun it can (we are in Scotland, have to try our best!).
We had an existing bed in this spot so I put some old (free!) slabs down one side for a path.
I spent a morning measuring out the site and cutting the broomhandles to length. These got knocked in with a large rubber mallet then I put the blue pipes over to form hoops and made sure they were all at the same height.
For the two ends of the tunnel we wanted something a bit more stable than the water pipe as we get a lot of heavy winds. Hubbie got a scaffolding bar that he bent for the far end. Not easy to get hold of but I am sure other things would work fine, you could always use some lengths of wood to help support the alkathene.
The north facing end we made from wood and put a door in it, the whole thing is attached to a couple of concreted in posts. This worked well as the wood and the slabs tend to hold the heat and so help keep the temperature more stable.
The next day my labourer, sorry, husband dug trenches around the two sides and the bottom for the plastic to go into.
The only thing left was to put the plastic on!! This went on a lot easier than I had thought, I had visions of comedy routines happening.
We arranged it on and then cut it to size, leaving on about 4ft of plastic extra which was then wrapped around metal poles before putting them in the trenches and then putting the soil back in. This pulled the plastic nice and tight. The bottom end the plastic was folded neatly before the soil went in and it looks fine. Around the door we folded it back inside the tunnel and I used the repair tape to stick it to itself. I don't think this will last forever but it is good so far, six months later. For the rest of the door end we used lengths of wood to hold the plastic down over the outside and screwed them down. Polytunnel finished!!!
It may not be as smart as a bought one but it looks fine and saved us how many hundreds?
I have used some of the left over water pipes to make framework for my cucumbers, I pushed them into the soil them tied them at the top. We have already had some heavy winds and the tunnel coped without a problem. The tomatoes have gone crazy and the courgette plant is a monster!
some more photos at .....http://permaforestbioorggarden.blogspot.com/
I started last year by aquiring some lengths of the blue alkathene water pipe. I have already played about with shorter lengths of this to make a netting barrier over my strawberries.
You need to get hold of broomhandles or the equivalent and put these in good and deep into the soil then the water pipe slides straight on. We have heavy clay soil and put them in about 2ft, I don't know how well that would work with very sandy soil but ours are very stable, especially once the whole thing is completed.
Obviously you need to plan a bit and decide a good spot and size as it isn't very movable. Ours is shaded by trees but at least it doesn't get too hot that way and is on a north-south axis to get what sun it can (we are in Scotland, have to try our best!).
We had an existing bed in this spot so I put some old (free!) slabs down one side for a path.
I spent a morning measuring out the site and cutting the broomhandles to length. These got knocked in with a large rubber mallet then I put the blue pipes over to form hoops and made sure they were all at the same height.
For the two ends of the tunnel we wanted something a bit more stable than the water pipe as we get a lot of heavy winds. Hubbie got a scaffolding bar that he bent for the far end. Not easy to get hold of but I am sure other things would work fine, you could always use some lengths of wood to help support the alkathene.
The north facing end we made from wood and put a door in it, the whole thing is attached to a couple of concreted in posts. This worked well as the wood and the slabs tend to hold the heat and so help keep the temperature more stable.
The next day my labourer, sorry, husband dug trenches around the two sides and the bottom for the plastic to go into.
The only thing left was to put the plastic on!! This went on a lot easier than I had thought, I had visions of comedy routines happening.
We arranged it on and then cut it to size, leaving on about 4ft of plastic extra which was then wrapped around metal poles before putting them in the trenches and then putting the soil back in. This pulled the plastic nice and tight. The bottom end the plastic was folded neatly before the soil went in and it looks fine. Around the door we folded it back inside the tunnel and I used the repair tape to stick it to itself. I don't think this will last forever but it is good so far, six months later. For the rest of the door end we used lengths of wood to hold the plastic down over the outside and screwed them down. Polytunnel finished!!!
It may not be as smart as a bought one but it looks fine and saved us how many hundreds?
I have used some of the left over water pipes to make framework for my cucumbers, I pushed them into the soil them tied them at the top. We have already had some heavy winds and the tunnel coped without a problem. The tomatoes have gone crazy and the courgette plant is a monster!
some more photos at .....http://permaforestbioorggarden.blogspot.com/