While I’ve only just started the process of sowing and transplanting vegetable plants
in to the outside gardens, the plants in the protected microclimate of the Polytunnel Garden
well established, and some of them are already highly productive.
In the maritime climate of Ireland, I think a polytunnel is particularly valuable, as
it offers the possibility of growing heat loving crops like tomatoes, cucumbers and
peppers, which would otherwise be quite difficult to grow in this climate, as well as creating
ideal growing conditions in the spring and in the autumn for many other crops.
As one of the 7 family scale gardens in this RED Gardens Project, I'm managing this Polytunnel
Garden as if a family only had a polytunnel to grow in, and therefore I’m trying to
ensure that there is a reasonably steady supply of a diverse range of fresh vegetables throughout
the year.
This objective is different than how I would prefer to manage a polytunnel, which involves
growing fewer of the heat loving crops, which I’d prefer to grow a lot of, in order to
make space for a lot of other crops.
And I am also growing a range of different types of vegetables that would normally not
be grown in a polytunnel here in Ireland.
At the moment, in the middle of April, there about 20 different crops growing in this 100m2
polytunnel.
They can be divided into 5 different groups, based on when they were sown, when they can
be harvested, and to a certain extent on their interruptibility, or whether I can remove
the crop to make way for another crop, but still get a reasonable yield.
The first group of plants was sown last summer or autumn, and became well established before
the winter.
The parsley plants were transplanted into this garden last summer, and I’ve been harvesting
steadily from them since the autumn, but they have become really productive in the past
month or so.
Unfortunately these are biennial plants are now starting to go to seed due to the significant
increase in warmth in this polytunnel, and I'll probably dig them out shortly.
The chard plants were sown last autumn, and grew slowly all through the winter, but since
the beginning of February, they have have been hugely productive.
Similar to the parsley, these biennial plants have been triggered by the heat into going
to seed or bolting, but the different varieties that I planted are responding at different times.
The perpetual spinach was the first shift into seed production mode, about a month ago,
and the ruby chard has done the same over the last few weeks.
The Swiss chard on the other hand is only just beginning to show signs of bolting, and
I've also found it to be the most productive variety, so definitely something that I will
plant more of next season.
It is a shame that these biennial plants couldn’t continue to produce for another month or so,
but they've been very useful, providing lots to eat when there was very little else available
in the early spring.
And it would be good to pull them out fairly quickly in order to be able to plant in another
fast growing crop before the summer.
The second set of crops in this garden where planted in late autumn or early winter last
year, and include potatoes, onions, garlic, and broad beans or fava beans.
I’m growing early potatoes, or actually I planted six different varieties of early
potatoes, which could be ready to harvest in May, but they will produce a lot more if
I leave them to grow until June or even through to July.
The garlic is an unusual plant to grow in the polytunnel, as they grow so well in our
climate outside, even over winter, but it really is a useful crop and significantly
more productive, and earlier when grown under plastic.
It's also fairly unusual to devote such a large bed of the polytunnel to onions, but
I found that these onions grown from overwintering sets provide a really useful crop at the beginning
of the summer, well before any onions are available from outside.
And it's also more reliable to dry them off, and to cure the bulbs in the controlled environment
of the polytunnel.
The broad beans or fava beans are also quite a strange crop to grow in the polytunnel,
but they do grow so quickly in the springtime in the shelter, and are already flowering
and starting to set pods.
These 4 crops will all produce higher yields in the polytunnel than they can outside, and
much earlier in the season, but they do take up a sizeable part of this garden, and won’t
be ready in time to allow the highly productive warm season crops to replace them.
Instead these plants will be followed by cooler season crops for autumn and early winter harvest,
and this is part of the trade off of shifting the focus away from the higher value, heat
loving crops.
The third set of crops were all sown in late winter or early spring this year, and include
carrots, beetroot, kohlrabi, turnip and even some broccoli and cauliflower.
The protection of the polytunnel offers ideal conditions for these plants to become established
and to grow quite strongly much earlier in the season than their counterparts in the
outside gardens.
The turnip have grown remarkably quickly with the first batch already being harvested, and
I’ve even tried sowing a second batch in the space that I recently cleared of chard plants.
I hope they'll be ready to harvest before the pepper plants will need to go into this
bed of the garden.
The beetroot plants are growing very strongly and I'll likely be able to start the harvest
small roots within a month.
The kohlrabi plants are coming along quite well, and the might also be ready for harvesting
within a month The carrots on the other hand are definitely
the slower growing plant in the set.
I could harvest them quite small and early, and free up the bed for another crop, but
I would prefer to wait as long as possible, to let these plants continue to grow, so that
I can get a much higher yield.
But that means the bed won’t be ready for another crap until well into the summer.
The broccoli and cauliflower are a bit in-between the two, and it’s a bit of a risk trying
to grow these plants before the eggplants or aubergine plants will need to be transplanted
into this garden bed.
Unlike most of the other crops currently growing in this polytunnel, these plants aren’t
really interruptible, and until these brassica finally produce a reasonable sized head for
harvesting, this garden bed won't be available for the summer crops, which could be a problem,
as I’m not so sure about the timing.
The fourth set of vegetables are all salad greens that I sowed in late winter.
These include a bed each of kale, rocket and a mix of spicy salad greens, that I’m growing
as a cut-and-come-again crop, which is perhaps the easiest, and fastest way to grow these
vegetables.
A large bed of spinach is perhaps my favourite crop at this time of year, and I manage it
by harvesting individual leaves, and while this may be a lot of work, it’s the way
that I prefer to do it, and it ends up being a highly productive crop.
The large area of lettuce was sown in drills, and I've been progressively harvesting by
thinning out individual immature plants, until each of the remaining plants has enough space
to continue to grow.
I'll likely start to harvest the outer leaves from the larger plants, rather than let them
produce a mature head of lettuce, as this will likely produce the most from this bed
in the available amount of time.
Even though they are managed in different ways, all of these crops are grown and harvested
in a way that is interruptible, as they can be removed at any time when the bed is needed,
and I've already harvested quite a bit from each of them.
A lot will depend on the weather over the next few weeks or month.
If the weather stays cool, then these salad will continue to produce a lot of tender leaves,
but if the weather gets warmer, then they will become stressed with the extra heat in
polytunnel, and it would be better to pull them out earlier and get the warm season crops
into the soil instead.
The final type of crop that I’m growing in this polytunnel this spring are microgreens,
which are also the fastest crop that I could grow, and a crop that I’m only beginning
to experiment with I did try growing these microgreens in flats
or trays over the winter, but a few months ago I started to grow them in the soil in
the polytunnel bed, and have been quite successful at producing peashoots, radish and sunflower
microgreens.
The entire crop of microgreens are harvested very early, when the plants are still very
young, and I've been sowing a new batch once a week, and harvesting 2 or 3 weeks later.
This rapid growth and harvesting means that the soil can be turned over and prepared for
another sowing fairly quickly.
I’m still experimenting with the possibilities of microgreens, but I find them to be a fairly
productive, and useful crop, especially for filling in gaps of availability of other vegetables,
or for producing a crop when a garden bed is going to be empty for a few weeks.
Over next few months I will be removing a lot of these crops to make space for the heat
loving crops, and in some cases there may be an issue with timing.
I’m planning to plant cucumbers and climbing beans into the bed of this garden that is
currently occupied by microgreens and the beetroot, which should be fine.
The tomato plants will eventually replace the lettuce and spinach, and it will be a
bit of a judgement call as to when this will happen, and it depends a bit on the weather
and how much longer I think I can can keep the tomatoes plants in pots.
I might remove some of the lettuce and spinach plants to make space down the centre of bed
for the tomato plants, and intercrop for a while where I can continue to harvest some
salad leaves, while allowing the tomato plants to become properly established.
A few squash will be transplanted into the bed that's currently occupied by the kohlrabi,
which should be fine, and courgette or zucchini plants will replace the beds of rocket, kale
and spicy greens.
If the weather doesn’t heat up too much, I could clear a space in the salad greens
that’s just big enough for the courgette or zucchini transplants, and continue to harvest
the greens for a few weeks more by intercropping the two crops.
I’m planning to put in pepper plants after the turnip and chard, and it looks like most
of the space will be available shortly, although I might need to abandon the more recently
sown batch of turnip, as there may not be enough time for them to produce their roots.
But the trickiest issue could be with the aubergine or eggplants which will have to
wait until the cauliflower and broccoli plants have produced harvestable heads.
And this will likely mean that I'll need to continue to pot up these plants, into larger
and larger pots so that they can continue to grow while they wait for their bed to become
available, and hopefully this strategy will be successful.
All of these beds that are designated for heat loving crops only make up half of the
growing space in this Polytunnel Garden.
The other half of the garden beds will be replaced with other types of veg in the summer,
for autumn and even winter harvesting.
This makes sense that about half of the space of this Polytunnel Garden will be growing
plants for harvesting in the summer and early autumn, and the other half will growing plants
for harvesting later in the season.
This is the challenge for this garden, to ensure that there is always sizeable portion
of the garden producing at any one time.
Right now I am delighted with how things are going, and it is has been quite successful
and currently really productive, with a lot more to come.
But it seems that it's easier for me to manage the plantings in the spring in this Polytunnel
Garden, as I haven’t been so good at keeping up with the succession of planting later in
the season for the autumn and winter, and that’s my big challenge for this year.
But, this is my favourite time of year in my favourite garden, where everything looks
so beautiful, and there's so much to harvest and eat now, and there’s other crops that
I am eagerly anticipating, but I'm really looking forward to the heat and the fruits
of the summer.
I'm currently growing in 2 polytunnels, this one and a slightly larger one in the Black
Plot, and it’s really interesting to see how different they look at this moment, reflecting
the different approaches that I’m taking with them.
In the other polytunnel I'm prioritising the tomatoes, cucumbers and other heat loving
crops, and up until 2 weeks ago, it was covered in an overwintering green manure, which was
really interesting.
I’m planning to make another video about this later in the season, when I get a better
sense of what the impact of this green manure was, and if you’re interested in this, and
all the other explorations that I’m doing in this RED Garden Project, be sure to subscribe
to this YouTube channel.
And if you'd like to support my project even more, to ensure that I can continue to afford
to make these videos, please check out the options in the description below.
But most importantly, thank you for watching.