A review of 2015

Blogging is a funny old thing. You don’t know what to say or you save it all up until you think you have enough, or you have so much to say, you desperately trying to not make it sound like the rantings of a crazy cat lady. Having said that, I originally wrote this blog in November and stashed it away in my drafts folder for a future posting .... two months later!! But it does mean that I can add a bit more to it.

Having gone through a new year, this blog has to be a review last year. The polytunnel has been a HUGE success. It is a steep learning curve but built upon what we already knew from our meagre vegetable plot in Tillingham.  We have had a few failures and certainly there will be things we will do differently this year.

Polytunnel in early construction.
In February, if it's sunny - it's cold too.

 The Tunnel
When we purchased our tunnel from First Tunnels around this time last year, we got the smallest commercial tunnel available to get the heavy duty ribs so that it would better take the rigours of the extreme weather we have here. Whilst we haven’t had that much in the way of extreme weather yet, I feel it in my bones that it is only a matter of time. We have had high winds of around 50 mph and that was definitely a worry for the tunnel’s expose location, but it has held up well. I have confessed to having pierced the covering plastic with the edge of a seed tray but it was quickly repaired with the tape supplied and it hasn’t given us any problems.

One of my favourite scenes in the polytunnel.
The overhead watering system in action.

We also purchased the watering system with a supply coming from the outside tap at the house. This has been a god-send as it quickly waters whichever area of the tunnel you select. Owing to the low water pressure, we can only water one quarter of the tunnel at a time but with the use of a timer, we are able to regulate which areas are watered and for how long.

The vegetables We have grown everything we like: chillies, carrots, onions, brussel sprouts, purple sprouting broccoli, tomatoes, peppers, spinach, chard, squash, cucumbers, beans, courgettes, herbs, aubergines, lettuce and included new residents such as figs, lemons, peaches and olives. We have also had complete failures in the form of garlic. I don’t know what happened. All the garlic – inside and out failed – a bad batch? 

The cucumbers suffered  from the vast swings in temperature, so probably this year I would be looking at some outside varieties or leaving them completely to someone else here who can grow them better than me. The brassicas probably would be better outside as they take up a huge amount of space and then get eaten by caterpillars. They have recovered now that the caterpillars have gone but probably better outside.

The pests In addition to the caterpillars, we have been visited by rabbits, rats and the occasional bird. We were able to shoo away the rabbits but the rats are far more cunning. The very last straw was when my favoured aubergine plant looked a little peaky. I decided to dig it up and put it into a pot, only to find that it had no roots! I invested in some rat bait boxes and have been quietly winning the battle ever since. We have also had a collection of birds visiting the tunnel and I have no objection to them other than making sure that they weren’t shut in overnight. They were attracted to the tunnel by the feast of bugs that have pollinated the various crops and all have been welcome (except the caterpillars). I did wonder if the chickens would like some caterpillars and set about collecting about 50 in a very short amount of time. Upon being presented with the little green monsters, the chickens didn’t think they were very appertising – it was probably the green ‘blood’ oozing out of them. It was a shame as I had a plentiful supply.

Fabulous fresh vegetables picked from our polytunnel.

This year We should be able to get started sooner as the beds will be already in place. I have managed to clear one the bed of crops and we have set about improving the soil. This was the first bed that we constructed and it was filled with basically garden mud, hence it is called the mud bed. Whatever we can put into that soil will make it better. Beds number 2 and 3 (in the order they were constructed) were filled with some very expensive bought in compost. They have performed quite well and will probably get a different dressing each once they are clear. The rest have Maurice’s Marvellous Muck, the plentiful mountain of compost that was brought in by a friend. This was used in just about all of the rest of the growing areas, including outside. It has fared well and will just need a little bit of attention when the beds are emptier. Last year I hastily constructed a cold frame within the polytunnel to bring on the plants until the beds were ready. This might be an idea again if the weather is too cold to plant up.

Hopefully we should be able to continue to grow ‘something’ all through the winter but it really all depends how severe the winter is. The watering system will be disconnected soon as we are down to watering once or twice a week. As the beds are cleared, I could probably manage with a watering can but I am concerned about the hose getting frost damage.

Sheep We have increased our flock with the addition of another female lamb, roughly the same age as our existing flock. The plan is to fatten up the boys and have them processed while the girls get more mature, possibly get in two more orphaned lambs (definitely boys this time) to fatten through the summer. Then in the autumn get the girls pregnant for the following spring.

The range of coloured eggs from our flock.

Chickens We currently have 15.5 chickens, with the half being a bantum cockerel called Nugget. He is a lonely boy who needs a flock of his own so we might get him some suitable girls  and set up his love shack in our spare house and run. We are currently averaging six eggs a day with the possibility of 12/13 eggs a day in the spring!!