Polytunnel Progress

It's looking more and more productive in the polytunnel.

Sally Scarecrow is still there, only because I forget to look for the ties that will fix her to the post on the hill over and over again.  When I'm in there I think 'I must find those ties' ... when I go out I forget.

I think she's just wanting to live in the warmth of the tunnel all the time and has me hypnotised!!

The pea plants are on the edge of the water trough because my first job of the day is to put them outside and my last is to bring them in.  They are being hardened off ready for planting in the tyres outside the door of the tunnel.

To the right are all the seedlings, a lot of them now are a second, successive planting.

Below the bench at the far end is the Radish bed, now with a second flurry of Radishes appearing through the soil, we are eating our way through the first crop.  Lovely tasting and mildly peppery, they are adding something special to every salad and sandwich.  Next to them in the centre bed are the Leeks, standing firm and short and finally giving us hope that now they have been rescued from the hillside where they were so unhappy, they will grow tall enough to feed us.

On the left hand side, nearest the door are three potato plants, they were over from the ones I planted on the hillside,  I thought I would experiment and watch the difference in growing time to the ones outside the tunnel.  

The plastic upturned bottles you see in the bed next to two of the plants are for watering.  By pouring water into the bottles it goes straight below the surface of the soil and therefore is less likely to evaporate.  Again a bit of an experiment in not giving the middle plant one of it's own, but I think enough will seep from either side for that not to matter too much.

At the other end of the bed is a Sweet Potato plant in a bottomless plant pot, I do this a lot to give added depth to my plantings.  Simply slice the bottom off an old plant pot and sit it on top of the soil, half fill with compost and then plant in it.

Nearer to us in the picture, now in larger plant pots are my spare Courgette and Pumpkin plants.  As usual I planted far too many.  A couple of the ones I planted outside were slightly frost nibbled so two or three of these might be needed to replace them, but the others are to be a cash crop and will be sold when I do a car boot sale.  Even charging 50p a pot they will give me back enough money to more than cover the price of the seeds I have actually purchased this year.  Every year I try and choose at least one crop that will do this, it means we eat for free .... I don't charge for my labour I enjoy it too much :-)

I have updated the Live Below the Line page at the top of the Blog if you are interested in seeing a round up of the meals I ate last week, and my final musings.  It is HERE too ... for those lazy oinks amongst you who don't want to scroll back up  ;-)

You know where I'll be if you need me ..... in the polytunnel of course!!

Sue xx