I’m building a Polytunnel.

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Hook
I'm so jealous of your setup, We have a community polytunnel on our allotment but that serves about 30 of us so space is limited.

My Wife and I are currently looking for our 'Forever Home' with enough space to have a good sized tunnel and a fruit/veg area too. Would love to do something like this on our own land.
 
Caporegime
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I'm so jealous of your setup, We have a community polytunnel on our allotment but that serves about 30 of us so space is limited.

My Wife and I are currently looking for our 'Forever Home' with enough space to have a good sized tunnel and a fruit/veg area too. Would love to do something like this on our own land.

Good Luck!
 
Joined
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Wilds of suffolk
Comfrey, I just either dig mine into the ground at the end of the season, or compost it with everything else
Putting it in water, shudder from the memories of the smell

Any reason you put a roof on your composter? Most now recommend not to as it easy for it to dry out. I tend to agree, we inherited one years ago on our allotment and after a year it had hardly done anything as it had dried out from its own heat and the cover stopped any rain water getting in. Ours are now open and rot down well. This time of year if it goes a week without rain I put a watering can of water through them as you can tell they are getting dried out.

I havent tried it yet, but one of the guys at our allotments is using rhubarb leaves for keeping pests off. Hes putting the leaves in water and letting them rot, but Ive seen people say just to boil them for 20 minutes and its as good.
They say not to put them on food crops, but like anything a small amount I am sure is fine.
The other year I did put the leaves directly on the ground around some plants and the amount of bugs on them was low, but not zero.
 
Caporegime
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Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,065
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Autonomy
Comfrey, I just either dig mine into the ground at the end of the season, or compost it with everything else
Putting it in water, shudder from the memories of the smell

Any reason you put a roof on your composter? Most now recommend not to as it easy for it to dry out. I tend to agree, we inherited one years ago on our allotment and after a year it had hardly done anything as it had dried out from its own heat and the cover stopped any rain water getting in. Ours are now open and rot down well. This time of year if it goes a week without rain I put a watering can of water through them as you can tell they are getting dried out.

I havent tried it yet, but one of the guys at our allotments is using rhubarb leaves for keeping pests off. Hes putting the leaves in water and letting them rot, but Ive seen people say just to boil them for 20 minutes and its as good.
They say not to put them on food crops, but like anything a small amount I am sure is fine.
The other year I did put the leaves directly on the ground around some plants and the amount of bugs on them was low, but not zero.

The Roof is to collect rainwater…I can always water the compost if I think it’s getting too dry…

With the comfrey I’m trying the Dry leaves with bricks method.
 
Soldato
Joined
16 Aug 2009
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7,728
Hmmmm.....

I have planted directly into the soil...The bed floors are open and the roots can go as deep as they want.

You do know the grass that I covered with recycled brown paper will die leaving the rich soil underneath?

Also as the grass dies it will also release nutrients into the soil.

Exactly the same concept as my raised beds with bricks outside. Although only three bricks high the roots of any plant can go as deep as they need to.

My potatoes are loving the raised beds outside.

In fact everything is doing just fine at the moment.

Yeah its fresh soil so you'd expect that the nutrients will decline in time and the soil is compacted underneath (turf is always compacted so you don't sink in it when you walk on it) it so they aren't going to make much headway into that it's also prone to drying out for the same reason as the two layers of soil aren't really connected.
 
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