Greetings from the Shetland Islands...

[veggieman]

Greetings, everybody !
I took early retirement, from commuting daily into London, in February 2008 and moved here with my wife and our cat from leafy St Albans just 2 months later. Down south, I grew lots of fruit and we were also virtually self-sufficient in veggies from my 2 allotments and the back garden veggie patch.
Up here, it is a different story as we live on a hill and are very exposed to high winds. The soil was very poor, nothing having ever grown there before, so I brought in loads of cow manure, horse manure, Shetland pony manure, seaweed and I also dug peat from the local hills. I have spent a fortune having lots of good fencing put up; not only to help keep the wind out but also to keep the local hordes of hungry bunnies at bay.
I have also spent another fortune on having a greenhouse put up and also a solid polytunnel. The greenhouse has survived two winters so far but the polytunnel, built on an exposed hill but with fencing at key points by it, only went up this early summer so I will have all my fingers and toes crossed for this winter to see how it lasts.
I will try and grow most things and the polytunnel will allow me to grow things under cover that I took for granted before I came here.
I hope to be a regular contributor to the forum and would love to make contact with anyone else who happens to be in Shetland; if there are any, that is.

[MuddyWitch]

Welcome to ISH

With reguards to your poly, our friends live on Skye (also very windy) & have thrown a few anchoring ropes over theirs, like the old thatch roofers used to do! Good Luck!

I'd love to see pics of your beautiful home. The nearest I've been to the Shetland Isles is to have owned a Sheltie!

MW

[Green Aura]

Hi veggieman and welcome to Ish

We're not as far north as you but with similar growing conditions - our polytunnel has been great but this year we'll need a new skin. But we knew it would need renewing more often than less extreme climates

Good luck with the garden. The biggest obstacle to overcome is the short growing season - I'm learning to choose some veg by the shortness of their growing time rather than other considerations.

[Milims]

Hi there and welcome

[Millymollymandy]

Hello and welcome!

[veggieman]

[img]Many thanks for the greetings.

Green Aura - yes, the growing season is very short here and is some 6 weeks or so later at the beginning and about a month earlier at the end. Not great and it takes some getting used to. Our local agricultural show, the biggest here in Shetland, is always around the middle of August and that is far too early for entering one's veggies. Moreover, you have to put your entries into the various veggie classes about 3 or 4 weeks before the show so have absolutely no idea as to what anything will look like or what will even be available on the day.

Hopefully, my sturdy polytunnel will enable me to extend the growing season to overcome being so far north to an extent. The attached picture, taken from our house, shows the polytunnel in the latter stages of completion around April this year.

[Green Aura]

That polytunnel looks very interesting, veggieman. Have you made it all yourself? We got a kit from First Tunnels with all the upgrades but yours looks veeeerrrrry sturdy. I'm particularly interested in the corrugated skin. Did you manage to bend it, or is it in short sections between battens? I presume you've put it facing the wind, hence the windbreak front and back - that's what we've done (with only a small windbreak at the front). But the wind has played havoc with the skin at the front, just pulled it out from round the door so we've had to re-pin it with extra battens.

Hmm some food for thought there. That construction at the front might be just what we need!

It certainly doesn't look like it'll be going anywhere in a hurry!

[veggieman]

Green Aura - I am not a DIY-er at all and had to get someone in to build the polytunnel for me. The polytunnel is built to a fairly tried and tested method around these parts and is built using recycled salmon feed pipes that are available here. They were bent over and cemented into the ground with round posts in the bottom. Where you can see the wood, there are also round post sections inserted into the pipes and the wood is then bolted on to the pipes and the posts within them. The polycarbonate sheets do bend and are about 10ft in length each (I can't be certain on the size unless I clamber on it to measure one). I know that the sheets were quite expensive each but I asked the guy building it to use the strongest sheets he could get. There is an element of overlapping of the sheets to give extra strength and a huge amount of bolts used.
Within the tunnel, although you can't see it, there is a lot of timber and that is for strength and bracing purposes. The fences at each end are to protect against the winds from both north and south and they are now attached to the tunnel at each end for even more strength. I will attempt to post some more pictures of the tunnel to this thread later today but will probably have to make crop the pictures first.

Susiegee - watch this space for more!

[oldjerry]

Welcome to ish. It'll be interesting to see you develop your holding,I'm sure you'll do well.

[spider8]

Howdy neighbour A warm welcome from Orkney!

[cafe_tom]

Hullo veggieman, great building going on there. I look forward to seeing more pics.

[veggieman]

Howdy neighbour A warm welcome from Orkney!

Hello there.

I was just digging the tatties up and the snow made me come in.
It is heading your way !

[ina]

Hi veggieman

Shetland is where I'd want to live if I could chose... (Lack of money/job is the problem.) But from what I hear, gardening is quite possible - according to Rosa Steppanova, in her book "The impossible garden", cats are a more useful rabbit deterrent than fences, though! Next time I'm up there (if I can ever afford it again) I'll have to make the effort and visit a few gardens...

[spider8]

Hi veggieman and yes, it is by the looks of it. Sky has gone that weird grey/blue colour and there's been a hard nasty nip to the wind. That reminds me.........must order some more oil!
Your polytunnel looks grand, very envious .
I've got her book too ina, The Impossible Garden, and love it as it has some really good advice in it.
Good luck for the winter veggieman.

[veggieman]

Hello Ina.
My wife and I have joined two gardening groups since we arrived here and that has been very useful to us. One of the best aspects of belonging to them are the annual garden visits where we go round to see other residents' gardens in various parts of the Shetland mainland (where we live) and that gives us ideas and inspiration as well as seeing what the locals do to combat the wind and rabbits here.
I have met and spoken to Rosa Steppanova on a couple of occasions and have her book as well. I haven't yet been to her gardens, although I have driven past them several times, but hope to do so next year.
With regards to the rabbits, our aged 14 year-old moggy only goes for the baby ones, eats their heads and leves me to clear up the rest. Some of that larger rabbits are at least as big as he is.