A new addition to the family,,,

I'm lucky enough to have a new addition to my 'growing for showing' armoury this year in the form of a new tunnel 26ft x 11ft x 8ft. Its a DIY tunnel but very sturdy and im sure it will earn its keep when filled with my onions and leeks. Obviously, for those of you who know me will know I'm unable to do very much due to my big op I had back in February so I was unable to grow any of my one leeks or onions. However, a good friend of mine kindly gave me some of his good stuff the other week consisting of 3x pot leeks, 3x Pendle Imp and 3x heavy onions.

These will be going in the tunnel borders. Each will have a pinch of myccorhizal fungi in its planting hole.

The tunnel itself. The posts on the west side are to train three espalier apple trees.

This was taken earlier last month when the Hative Di Niort were planted out. Du to the circumstances the bed is covered with weed fabric but next year when i'm back to 100% health and showing big time the bed will be covered with black/white polythene with soaker hoses underneath. At one end of the tunnel I am going to raise two water butts to a height to enable me to operate the soaker hoses from them, gravity-fed.

Peter Glazebrook's heavies planted in the middle bed with a pinch of myccorhizal fungi and being watered with my compost tea.



Im currently in the process of cutting vents into the sides as it get too hot in there somedays. I roll them up and temporarily fix them up with all weather tape. However I have a more permanent plan involving double sided tape and Velcro!
The door is also meshed to allow plenty of ventilation. Also looking into solar fans! By the way- the grey drainpipe pieces house slug pellets which keep them dry during heavy rain so they last longer plus, the slugs and snails tend to congregate in them and then meet their maker!

 

The tunnel houses a 4ft wide centre bed which has been filled with garden compost, topsoil and plenty of mushroom compost. There are also full-length beds down both sides which will take a row of blanch leeks and a row of pot leeks. However this year I only have a few so i'm growing several unusual varieties of tomatoes in there aswell along with melons and grafted aubergines.
All that's left to do in there is to set up the watering system and then erect something to support the flags of the leeks for next year but more on that another day...