best veg for polytunnel

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Hi

This year has been our first with a polytunnel (30ft x 15ft). we have experimented with quite a variety of veg including planting seedlings inside and outside the tunnel to monitor progress.

i think we have been quite successful although some plants like squash and courgette have dominated! The comparison of inside and out has been amazing with broccoli and cauliflower growing very quickly in the tunnel.

i would like to increase the efficiency of the polytunnel for extending the season for early and late crops.

any advice on plants and varieities to make the most of the tunnel would be very useful.

Thanks

[Green Aura]

Snap - ours is much smaller and still full of tomatoes but we need advice re making best use of it over the winter.

[Odsox]

I have had my polytunnel for 2 complete seasons now and I am still experimenting with what I can and can't grow in there.
At the moment I have several winter lettuce doing very nicely as are the winter hardy spring onions, also have some broad beans (aquadulce) and peas (meteor) just coming up, which will produce at least a month earlier than outdoor ones. I have 3 or 4 garlic cloves shooting nicely and a row of (6) cauliflower all year round that will be ready to cut in about 2 weeks time, plus a row of climbing French beans and celery that are still doing well.

The things that I can recommend and that I've found pays dividends are ....
Carrots ... sow in the middle of the tunnel and they will almost certainly miss the root fly.
Mange Tout peas, I always have a row "on the go" from January to November, replaced about 3 times in the year.
Cauliflower AYR does very well and there are always some in my tunnel in succession.
Calabrese are also a very quick crop that does very well
Celery does so much better, even bigger than the shop ones and tastier of course.
Courgette I grew this year was Parthenon, no pollination needed and a fairly well behaved bush variety
Butternut squash does go a bit mad, but I found Harrier not quite so rampant.
Climbing French beans just go on and on, nice fresh and haricots when you eventually get fed up with them.
Onions would you believe ! If you have room, seed onions in succession grow summer and winter alike and are good for green onions.
Potatoes in buckets/bags for out of season new potatoes.
Herbs in containers overwinter nicely and have early growth, mint in a bucket for early potatoes.

Things that didn't go so well ...
Runner beans for succession after the outdoor ones finished worked reasonably well last year but not this year. The beans tend to rot in the humid atmosphere of the tunnel.
I tried Rapini but they grew far too quickly, not ready one day and too far gone the next.
Strawberries, I grew a dozen plants in the border last year and although they produced masses of very early (April) fruit, they were eaten by just about every pest you can think of. This year I bought a strawberry barrel to stand just inside the tunnel but found it impossible to water properly.

Now that I have had a tunnel I can't understand how I managed before !!

[Green Aura]

That's brilliant. It never occurred to me to grow half those things. We've just grown greenhouse staples - toms, cucumber, squash and a bit of lettuce in the bottom. I shall definitely expand our range - probably next year though. I think I'm probably too late up here now - maybe a bag of spuds would go in though.
Thanks Odsox.

[Odsox]

It never occurred to me to grow half those things. We've just grown greenhouse staples

That's exactly the trap I fell into .... I always thought that polytunnels were "poor man's" greenhouses, but they're not.
If I had understood that before I would have had a polytunnel years ago.

If you understand that a polytunnel is just a huge garden cloche that you can walk in, then you begin to get some idea what you can grow in there. At least that's what I think, others may differ, but I grow anything that I would normally grow outside that I think would benefit from a bit of protection from the elements.

That's why I have both greenhouses and a polytunnel, they are vastly different and compliment each other.

[JulieSherris]

This is interesting, because I pulled 12 polytunnel steel hoops out of the woods the other day.

Seems that they have been in the woods for a number of years & are a bit rusty, but still solid, so a tin of hammerite might be needed..... I'm planning on getting some scaffold pipes for the sides, a new cover & voila!!

I think I can get the tunnel to about 24 foot & if we site it behind the hayshed, it will have the sun from about 11am thru to the evening - I'm looking forward to experimenting!

Julie.

[hedgewizard]

Sounds fab - but make sure you get all the rough bits well covered, and use anti-hotspot tape or your cover won't last. And do try to get that morning sun if you possibly can - it's quite important in the winter!

[Alexandra]

I would have to agree that courgettes grow well in the polytunnel. This was also the first year for my polytunnel and I think I got a littel carried away and planted too much! But never mind, it was also experimentation - that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. The brocolli is still growing - from a posting I read on here a while ago now, we only cut the heads off and left the plants, so still picking the smaller shoots. My favourite though was the sweetcorn - it won't grow outside here, so being able to pick the sweetcorn and eat it was great - nothing from the shops tastes like this. Similarly we can't grow french beans outside and they did really well in the polytunnel. Think the idea about all year round cauliflower is great - going to try that next. Here's to next year!!

Mary.

http://sheepandchickens.googlepages.com/home

[MuddyWitch]

The other use for a polytunnel in Winter is for drying your washing...well stopping it getting rained on & smelling better than damp & piled up waiting it's turn on the rad!

This only works if your crops are quite low growing though.

MW

[Chicken6]

I started growing in my fab PT last May so missed the spring. I really need loads of advice on what I can start off now in the PT. I'm not sure what i can get away with as I guess the night time temp falls too low. Looking at the weather reports it's slowly getting warmer at about 6/7 degree's.

All I've started are some metor peas and beetroot. I have my tomato, pepper and chilli seedlings on the windowsil's at home.

Would it be too warm to sow some spinach seeds?


Thankyou in advance

[Odsox]

You don't say where you are, so can only give general advice.

Broad beans would do well as would mange tout peas.
Lettuce, spring onions and your beetroot will be OK.
Calabrese, cauliflower, summer cabbage, carrots would be OK too.

If you have a daytime temperature of 6-7 degrees then it's too early to plant out your tomatoes, peppers and chillies, they need a night time temperature of at least 10 degrees, but by the end of this month you should be able to plant/sow just about anything.

[Chicken6]

You don't say where you are, so can only give general advice.

Sorry I didn't realise - Ive updated my profile

Broad beans would do well as would mange tout peas.
Lettuce, spring onions and your beetroot will be OK.
Calabrese, cauliflower, summer cabbage, carrots would be OK too.

If you have a daytime temperature of 6-7 degrees then it's too early to plant out your tomatoes, peppers and chillies, they need a night time temperature of at least 10 degrees, but by the end of this month you should be able to plant/sow just about anything.

Thanks Odsox that's very good news.

I've just checked the met office website and the day temps are now actually around 10+ degrees in this area with the night temps being 6+degrees

I'll sow the spring onions today and some carrots. I have some quick heading calabrese from realseeds that only takes 60days to head up (slightly smaller than normal) but wasn't too sure if the plants were too big to be in a PT

Thanks so much for the advice.