Hello I'm Liz Zorab and this is Byther Farm and today we're going to show you
how to build a polytunnel. These structures are also called hoop houses
and low tunnels high, tunnels and they've got lots of different names, but they're
all same thing, a fabulous space for growing in!
Our super exciting news is
that we have a poly tunnel so Direct Plants sent us a poly tunnel to review
and this video shows you how we constructed it.
Ground posts go in so there's only about four to six inches sticking out of the ground.
With this polytunnel kit the bolts are actually already in the fixings,
so you just use the allen key provided to do them up. Which I hadn't
realized and I spent a goodly time and looking for the bolts until the penny
dropped that they were already in the fixings. So it was really easy to tighten
and loosen those and make adjustments as we went along.
We had more than a little help from our friend Tony, who very kindly leapt up and
down the ladder and because he's put together a polytonnel before, he knew what
he was doing. But the instructions were pretty clear, I read them through three
times before we started so I would kind of know what we were doing.
You need to get all the fixings on the right poles as you're building it.
We decided to add crop bars after we put in the mainframe, which meant we had
to take some of it apart again, and we'll show you that a bit later on. So if you
want crop bars, it's a really good idea to put the fittings on before you screw it all together.
There are four corner braces that need to go on and they go so that the
support is the higher point at the end of the tunnel and not the other way
around, which is the way I did them when I wasn't thinking about it.
But before the cover goes on it is very easy to adjust everything.
As you may know our soil is particularly awful so making a hole for the doorposts
to go into was hard going.
This particular kit came with the timber for a door at each end. We decided that we'd
do a double door at one end and a single at the other, so we use most of
the timber to create the double doors. I popped out and bought some more timber
to do a single door.
Once the frame was up and we could really see what it was going to be like
I was so excited. I'm really pleased to have this extra enclosed growing space.
But then the hardwood really began and we needed to dig a trench about three
inches away.
So I used boards up against the frame to give me a straight edge.
And the ducks were pretty good at coming and helping out and inspecting that we
were doing everything correctly.
The trench needed to be about to spit deep, that's about spade's depth all the way around.
I may have started it off but certainly Mr. J finish doing that. That was hard
work in this ground!
But once it was done it meant Tony could come back and help us to get the over it.
I also chose to put weed suppressing membrane all around the outside.
Mr. J and I held the cover each end and pulled to create attention and we pulled
outwards and downwards, so that Tony could backfill the trench and secure the
cover on one side.
And then we went to the other side and again pulled really hard and down and
out to keep that tension of the cover going, so we can get those sides buried.
Then we created that tension across the top of the doorframe at one end and
Tony battened the cover into place.
And then we pleated the cover around each
side of the doorway and battened that into place.
That was worth us spending a bit of
time doing, so that we could make sure all the folds went downwards so they wouldn't
collect rain in them.
And then it was time to cut out a doorway,.
Put the cover down into the trenches and backfilled at each end.
And then all I needed to do was fold the weed suppressing membrane around
the outside into place and pin that down and get some wood chips on it.
And today I've been sorting the doors, covering the doors at that end and building the
frame around the base and I'm just starting to make the door for that end.
I'm probably a bit silhouetted, but you'll get the idea. The top of the door
has got green mesh on it, the underneath has got poly and then I'm
going to build a frame that sits inside this top part with the polythene on it,
which I can fix in in the winter, take it out for the spring and summer and let
there be some really good airflow coming through. I'm so excited!
You know what? I've even put door handles on! My woodworking skills are not great and
there's a little bit of me that wishes I just could kind of visualize stuff
without having to do the trial and error thing. Butt I've done a trial and error
step across the bottom of these doors, which I don't have a choice about
because I should have leveled the ground out and I didn't. So there is a dip here
which I'm now filling with wood chips so that's a bit of a step to go over.
Once I've got all the wood chips here and just there it won't be a problem at all.
And here we go, one completed polytunnel and I am so excited about it!
It was a lot of work, would I do it again? Yes! So in a couple of weeks or so I'll
do a review and we'll have a look how much I like it
and Mr. J and I will also do video talking about some of the lessons that we
learned while putting up a poly tunnel.