I have been vegan for 10 years and part of that is for health reasons, so I need to eat and therefore also grow the most nutritiously dense and healthy food I can. Since my home is currently in England and the weather here is not the best for growing food, I have needed to adapt and so built a polytunnel in our front garden. Here I will give you an overview of what was involved and what I've been growing - I trust it might inspire some to have a go too.
I bought the frame for the tunnel from Ebay, secondhand from someone nearby who had moved into a house and didn't want the one that the previous owner had left behind. I then bought the plastic covering, sponge tape (used to protect the plastic from hot metal in the summer) and the wood, hinges and door handles needed to construct the doors. After a couple of weeks of preparing and building, it was finished. The process could be sped up by using a more modern kit version of a polytunnel, but my one is an older design and I needed to dig a trench around the outside of it to use to bury and weight down the plastic covering with soil. In total it probably cost about £600 - including the irrigation system that i added in later, which is on a timer to ensure the plants get watered regularly.
In the first year i successfully grew a lot of crops in there, including melons, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, beans, beetroots, peppers, kale, chard and some herbs. I generally source heirloom seeds that are rare and from family lineages to avoid genetic modification.
Various heirloom cucumber varieties
Some beetroot and rainbow chard
eirloom purple carrots
Tomato plants
Early on - some lettuce and other seedlings just getting going
The only melon that grew well that year (I didn't realise I needed to allow insects to pollinate the melon plants)
There's a lot to say and learn about growing organic, high quality food - I will explain more of what I have learned from some of the world's best researchers in the topic in future posts here. In short though, the idea is to use zero synthetic fertilisers and that can be done by a combination of rockdust and compost tea - the two secret weapons that most still know nothing about near me here.
Have you got any tips or questions? Let me know in the comments below.
Follow, Upvote, Resteem - @ura-soul
Excellent post, I do dream of having a polytunnel and growing a load of organic veggies but every morning I wake up.
I've been a veggie forever and recently turned into a vegan. I am so lucky to have a farmers market just a 15-minute walk from my house. Looking forward to more of your posts and learning more about growing as I really do have an interest.
thanks - great, ok - one option is to form a community garden if you don't have the time/resources to do it all yourself; you might be surprised who you meet!
This post received a 24% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @ura-soul! For more information, click here!
@ura-soul What an amazing post. I love the pictures and can't wait to see more!! I was just trying to work out what type of greenhouse I wanted as I have enough space for it and I am struggling growing organically out in the open!! I lost all my pumpkin, cucumber, zucchini and goji berry crops about 3 weeks ago and I am devastated. :'(
This gives me hope though, And I may just get my act together and build myself a tunnel! <3 thank you for the inspiration <3 Upvoted and resteemed <3
aww - that's unfortunate - it can be more complicated growing outside, yes. i suggest a polytunnel instead of a greenhouse - the plastic actually allows through more of the beneficial UV light than glass does. this is also relevant for humans too because we need that light and if we are in a house most of the time we won't be getting it.
I have a petite homestead too (just posted about it right now haha) and this looks like a very good way to grow other vegetables that for whatever reason don't do well in my zone. Thank you for sharing!
you are welcome - glad to meet you; 'old souls' gotta stick together ;)
followed.
Haha Thank you so much! Been following :)
Great garden! Your harvests are looking good! :)
thanks!
Home grown food looks so fresh ... I wish I could have an place wher I can grow little tomotos :)
Upvoted !
SteemOn ! - @Utfull
where there's a will, there's a way! maybe look into community gardens near you - that's a start.
That looks lovely! I'm also growing veggies, strawberries and flowers for the first time this summer, and can say that it's a loooot of work and lots to learn :) My space is limited though, compared to all that you have there. Keep up the good work, and have fun growing!
Thanks! I'm glad you are benefiting from connecting your roots to the earth :)
I just looked at your profile here - I saw the lipstick and thought you were selling your own brand - plus doing C++ in your spare time :)
I realise now you are combining marketing with coding/design. I actually do pretty much the same from time to time as I am a professional software engineer with degree etc. - but I mostly now focus on running a social network I have made and helping me and others to heal, balance and evolve.
i will check out your posts, they look intermeresting :)
I actually wasn't at all interested in plants, until this year :-D Oh and they reward you with so much if you just give them a bit of water and sun (here's a recent picture; it's a small limited garden, but at least there is one) :-)
Neah, I'm not necesarily selling, but I'd mostly like to get to be known, maybe find out what people like best :) Art, design and coding are my main focuses right now, but don't have a specific style to any of them. Software engineer sounds good! What's the social network called?
Thanks for checking out my posts, I hope you can find something useful in there :) Keep in touch!
Your space there looks quite pretty to me - a good start!
The social network i run is called Ureka: Earth Heart Community.. It's at https://www.ureka.org.
It's fairly quiet at the moment - not least because of sites like steemit sucking up the web's traffic! I will be moving to advertise it more at some point soon - so far it has mostly attracted visitors through word of mouth only.
Thank you :)
Hm, looks like a good start with the Ureka! Keep up the good work :)
thanks - i'm getting 'there' :)
I would absolutely love on of those. I think i just found a new homesteading project ;)
very good! you can sauna in there too if you are daring enough :)
Impressive. I've been wanting a polytunnel for ages. The kit was finally delivered on Friday. Looking forward to putting it up this week. A bit late in the season but should still be able to get some good crops from it.
excellent! you can always put some greens in there and carrots etc. to test out the benefits of the tunnel this year.
i forgot to mention that it's best to put the tunnels up when the weather is warm as it allows the plastic to stretch further. if you do it in cold weather the result will be saggy and need to tightened further later. putting a heater inside the tunnel while you constuct it is one way around the lack of warmth though.
Thanks for the advice @ura-soul. It's been unusually hot here the last few days, so it should be good for putting the polytunnel up this week if the weather holds.
yes, hot here too!
meep
Nice gardening! I like the flowers, too, very beautiful!
Thanks for the kind words and appreciating our nature :)
You're welcome! I am a nature lover! ;)
I dreamt of having this garden soon. Thanks for sharing!
you are welcome - i'm sure the earth can spare space for your dreams :)
Beautiful garden. I want to have my own, maybe someday.
Follow me @Yehey
hmm.. i see you run a social network and post about yoga and travel.. we're on a similar wavelength then :) followed.
Compost tea, is that the regular compost mixed in a big bucket full of water with worm casts? Stir regularly every half an hour to introduce oxygen to get the bacteria to work it's magic?
It's a bit more complicated than that - you ideally need to use a very high quality compost (made or bought specially) and then combine that with a bucket of water and an air pump for 24 hours. you can add wormcastings and numerous other foods and additives too.
Also, I made a post about compost tea here recently, it has a lot of info: https://steemit.com/life/@ura-soul/want-to-grow-big-nutritious-vegetables-fruits-at-home-this-world-class-compost-tea-recipe-will-make-a-big-difference
Much appreciated. I watched a guy on YouTube months ago make some compost tea and what I posted was all I could remember lol. Thanks again, Rob.
hehe - there's a great book made by the 'food soil web' group about compost tea - it explains exactly how the soil works on the micro level and why compost tea helps etc. worth reading, for sure.
Thank you :)