(birds chirping)
- This polytunnel has been here for six years,
prior to that, I had it in my previous garden.
I bought it in 2002, so that's 17 years ago
and it would go on a long time,
they're almost, indestructible the hoops
the main frame of the tunnel,
the polythene needs replacing every so often
because it doesn't last forever.
And in fact six years in quite a windy spot here
it goes quite a buffeting.
It's ready to be replaced.
There's quite a few big gushes.
And I took the opportunity
of having a look round at that point
and thought might be a good idea to get a straight side
of the tunnel because
these older tunnels
the hoops are code all the way, right from ground level.
So you can see how they they're quite quickly
on your head when you're anywhere near the side.
And when we're picking salad
for example, it's Oh, it's really hard to get
into that last row or two near the side
and for tomatoes or any tall plant in the summer
I've got this wire here, which we put a string to.
It's not ideal though
because they very quickly reach the top
and then the leaves are brushing up
the polythene and they get condensation
and that encourages blight late blight.
So the new one
from First Tunnels is going to have straight sides
and be over the top and similar width slightly longer.
So we're making some new beds up the far end.
It's gonna go up in two weeks, all being well.
So this is the middle of May and it's changed over time.
So generally speaking, you think it turns a winter crops
in summer crops, but there are certainly a lot
of margins you can play with around the framework
but the crops I'm doing in the winter is mostly salad
'cause that's part of my business selling salad leaves.
And during the last ten days only
we've been really busy clearing up
all the plants that were in here all winter since October.
So we've had a really good run
and I'll show you in a minute, some lettuce that are more
than eight months old, that we're still picking in fact.
And now having cleared, I do the annual compost spreading.
So that's around six centimeters
of new compost of whatever type of compost it might be.
What have you used?
Nice mat for the surface on that.
I find that's enough food
in the compost and through the biological activity
which it encourages to make nutrients available
in the soil that were already there
with this no dig method
you get much stronger longer-term growth.
So I'm not putting anything more
in this all for a whole year now,
one application of compost in May
I find serves to grow things that are in the ground.
Now we're just planting like French beans here.
Then were gonna have cucumbers, either side.
These are cucumber plants ready to plant
today or tomorrow with a string in the hole.
And then there there's tomatoes that
were planted just four days ago.
The garlic between is about to finish.
That'll be in about a month's time that we'll harvest.
That's been there all winter
just co-existing with the lettuce.
There's one less plant there, which I left.
We stopped picking it in March.
That's going to go to seed, I'll collect the seed.
And let's just have a look at the lettuce up here
which in fact, we probably shouldn't pick again for harvest
because I now have so many
lettuce outside, but it's a very nice example
of how lettuce can live for a very long time.
So these granola red, my favorite winter variety
I'm just taking off the outer leaves.
This is all what we've been doing all winter long
since late November.
And there's still a lovely texture.
we did a tasting of them actually on a course recently.
And the general view was that it still tastes really good.
You know, they haven't gone better.
The plant is not still not thinking of flowering.
I mean, it's really quite remarkable.
So I'm lucky to always get this stem fairly tidy
and I'll stop there.
So that's before and after harvest
eight months old lettuce, fantastic.
So I'll do a later video, and we'll see what this looks like
in early summer, mid summer.
And you'll see the new polytunnel
with the beds at the end,
where we've been simply putting compost
on the weedy pasture.
And we'll also have a comparison
between growing in the old established beds
six-year-old no dig beds with new ones on weedy ground.
So nine days after we filmed
on the 13th of May a van arrived
and that was First Tunnels
with a kit for the new polytunnel.
And there she got here a day early.
We had no time to take down the old one.
So in those nine days we'd been planting
like cucumbers went in and some tomatoes.
And so all the summer plants were not all, but quite a few.
And suddenly, when these lovely guys arrived, they said
very well, we'll let you take down the tunnel
and within two hours we we've done it.
It's like it's quicker to take down than put up.
And suddenly all the plants that
were in here were kind of open to the air
and were lucky that it was gorgeous weather
it was like 20 centigrade 70 Fahrenheit
of an afternoon and no wind.
It's just perfect weather for doing this kind of job, and
after they took down the tunnel
there was a bit of head scratching
as to exactly how we're gonna manage it,
because it turns out this ground here
has a bit of a rise in the middle
and because the new polytunnel has base rails
rather than a polythene buried in the trench.
You need a level space to span them out
you can't bend the base rail.
And so the polytunnel was kind of sitting up
a bit above ground at either end
and the base rails a little bit buried
in the middle of the polytunnel.
But anyway we got around that and, and they dig holes
to put in the foundation tubes with ankle plates,
no concrete, it's the ankle plate holding it
in the holes with soil on top.
And then the polytunnel chews themselves
fit in there really lovely thick tubes here
stronger than the previous polytunnel.
But the biggest difference is the straight sides.
So you can see as that went up,
how the frame just slots into the tubes
and you've got this lovely open structure, first of all,
and then they did all that within the first day.
And then the following morning,
it was still nice weather
and they just slipped the polythene over the top
two of them, one on either end and then anchor it
to the base rail, which is a two-person job
and that enables you to get it really tight
'cause one person can push down on the rail
while the other one's screws it into place.
And the polythene is quite thick.
it's actually Thermic Polythene, which is another option.
I wouldn't have minded just a normal
but they, they offered that one.
So I thought, well, let's try
and see, apparently it lasts a bit longer,
it could be up to 15 years of life
from this polythene sheet.
So that's kind of nice that less work to replace it.
And here we are now on the 3rd of June.
Thank you to First Tunnels for, doing all that.
And as soon as they left, we had to do a lot of work
just to get all the soil that had been moved back in here.
To get the rails in,
they had to actually dig away quite a bit
of the sides of my side beds
and at the far ends, I had some garlic
which we actually had to harvest 'cause it was in the way.
So it was a very early garlic harvest.
It was still a cash
It was just not huge profs.
And we put all that soil back and then crumbles on top
so finishing a lot at the sides
and then the strings that had to come down
when the tunnel wasn't here.
And then I put wires in the top,
always using the irrigation water as well.
And so we, then we put the strings up
and filled in the gaps, replanted the basil,
I mean, this lemon basil here
I actually spent the best part of a week in a bucket.
I had to dig it out and pull it out and put it in a bucket
and then replant it.
Only just a week ago.
So this is looking good.
I've already picked a bit of it.
So it, how versatile plants can be.
And now we got summer planting
so things like cucumbers,
which the string is buried
in the hole in the roots of the cucumber,
anchor the string and place the strings,
not tied to anything at the bottom.
I did make a video on that one
and then gently twist the stem
of the cucumber round as it grows up.
So far, I've been pruning off the little baby cucumbers,
'cause I want the plants to be about this tall
before I allow the first cucumber to develop,
otherwise that puts too much strain on
the still very young plant.
It's very fast-growing though, at this time of year.
And in the previous film, you would have seen small plants
of these French beans and Marigolds in the middle,
and you will see they now starting to grow.
French beans for example,
they're very warmth dependent.
They, if it's too cool
when you plant your French greens, they just sit there
and even go a bit yellow because in cool weather
they can't get hold of enough nitrogen to grow.
They just don't metabolize, not like a lettuce or something.
So that's why there's no rush over to plant them
in the summer and well they do actually in our climate,
they do well in the polythene.
Interestingly, I found that they do amazingly well
even under the shade, a bit of the cucumbers.
So that we'll have cucumbers here, a few French beans
it wouldn't be heavy 'cause of the shade.
And the marigolds is nice to just to look nice
and really more lengthy
but also there's probably a little bit of companion effect
in terms of discouraging, what flying that kind of thing.
You can get aphids this time of year
on the tomatoes up there.
There's a few, not too many though.
Generally I find that if you keep the roots, well watered
and nice atmosphere, ventilate correctly and everything
and aphids won't get too dominant
and then they'll lady birds and things will arrive
or have arrived already keep them in check.
So it shouldn't be that if he's over are a big problem
but it should also, it's good to accept a few aphids.
You know, it's always good to have a few pests
cause then you can have a few predators.
You just don't want too many
you know, come back always to the no dig
and having healthy soil, because that means healthy plant
particularly aphids actually more,
almost more than anything they home-in on wheat plants.
So if you can keep your plants strong and healthy
and growing strongly, you just tend
to get less aphid damage.
And then the basil on the side, I got rather a lot
as you can see, and that's because I'm putting it
in salad bags that we sell.
There's actually two types of basil here.
And this one with a slightly paler green leaves
is lemon basil.
And the way I'm harvesting the basil is
to pinch out the top.
So I'll take that as the harvest
and then you get side shoots developing, rather
like they have here.
I pinched that one out on Friday
and you can just keep picking shoots.
And that's amazing fragrance of lemon on that one.
So you can get intriguing flavors
by choosing different varieties of basil compared
to the more normal sweet Genovese at the back.
In that corner.
There's a little melon plant
Only just gone in that's from Seattle
I've lost you actually Minnesota Midget.
And I'm gonna grow that one up a string.
And so yeah, you can see everything's well underway.
The tomatoes went in after lettuce
and they're just starting to grow now.
Thing is that from this time of year,
now it's gonna be rapid.
So you just got to get everything in place in early summer
so that you can keep on top of it as it races away.
This end is where we made new beds.
So there's 10 feet, about three and a bit meters
of new ground, this tunnel's longer,
and it's not spanning what was,
these beds we made only in four weeks ago, at least
So it was like grass and weeds with compost on top
cardboard on one side that shouldn't
on the other just to see, and it's looking good so far.
So we've planted into the compost
and you could also see how these doors
were the sliding doors,
they shut into a little tube in the ground there and
nice access, the spaciousness inside is interesting
because the width of this structure
is the same as the previous one
because the sides go straight up.
It just feels so much more roomy in here.
Amazing sense of space for plants to grow
and so the side beds are more useful
'cause I can grow tomatoes
and tall plants on the sides,
as well as in the middle beds
and the way the base rails work
you can see perhaps a bit more clearly here now and that's
'cause you can actually see it.
It's some aluminium rail that polythene is clipped into
and then pushed down to get it tight,
and you can have a skirt, or polythene on the bottom
which all along the sides, haven't finished this one yet.
I want to bury it basically
so that like rabbits can't walk in or whatever it might be.
So you can still have a little bit of polythene buried
but it's not like a trench, which is holding the polythene
in place and stopping it, blowing away.
The, the anchoring of this polytunnel is done
by foundation tubes with the plates on.
And yeah, there you have it.
18 feet wide, 42 feet long.
Nice polytunnel.
(birds chirping)