What a Scorcher
I reckon this is going to end up being a picture post, I’m far too shattered to string words together. The day was glorious but after about 6 hours on the plot my skin is tightly shriveling with the sunburn and I need to spend the next month in a vat of E45 cream.
My seedlings have been going crazy in Shakti’s front room nursery, the beans are threatening to smother everything in sight and the tomatoes need staking. None of these things go well with toddler sized birthday parties so they need to go. Not wanting to shock them into submission with an immediate relocation to the outside world, I’ve been hunting down one of those mini greenhouse affairs to act as a coldframe. I spotted something even better from Wilkinsons though, a full on walk-in greenhouse complete with staging for £40.
Considerable rearranging was required to squeeze it onto the plot. The compost bins were pushed to the corner shaded by the hideous ivy which seems like the best spot for them considering nothing else will grow there except for slugs. More problematic was the wigwam I planted up last weekend with some 7 year old experimental peas. It’s quite a palaver trying to retrieve ungerminated green orbs from a patch of soggy soil.
Given my unchallenged bodging tendencies, I’m quite surprised but pleased to say, the greenhouse went up relatively well. It only has one little tear in the polythene and I’m sure that existed before I took it out of the box. I’ve piled the edges up with soil, staked, pegged, clipped and tied down anything threatening to flap and if it’s still there tomorrow morning I may well do a little jig.
I’m going to plant the tomatoes in grow bags around the base – anything to try and keep the structure anchored, and I think the chilli peppers and aubergines will be overjoyed.
Before the construction started we (I had Shakti’s help today) transplanted the greyhound cabbages from the seed bed and sowed a row of yellow french beans. We also managed to acquire a load of broken paving slabs from the site skip and have a veritable highway laid out between beds. Unfortunately the new compost bin and greenhouse layout, blocks all access to the bottom of the plot. I haven’t a cat in hells chance of accessing the peas if they decide to crop.
We left with a sack of multi-coloured delights for tea – Ruby Chard, Broad Bean tips and some of the overwintered onions.
Your greenhouse — what a find! That would be the perfect sort for myself. Your tomatoes will love it in there.
Make sure you tie that greenhouse well down. I had something similar covering a grow bag and the wind ripped it apart.
This year I’m planning some additional rope and heavy bricks arrangement.
I had a green house very similar (rectangular though) from Wilkos last year. it *won’t* make it through the winter, so take it down in about october time (before the high winds/storms hit). Mine lasted till January when the fence next to it slammed into it one cold morning. you find out the hard way! From the picture it looks like there are no guy lines of any kind. If there aren’t, then I’d echo what easygardener said, make some.
i’d also think about putting some string up between the roof struts – i found that water tended to puddle between the struts and water can be dreadfully heavy – last summer i was always running out to the greenhouse to push the water up out of the puddle between the struts, until i came up with the string idea (then it sorted it).
your two main dangers with this greenhouse is wind ripping away the polythene, and wind making something fly into it (a sharp stick will go through very easily in high winds). Not much you can do about the latter, but the former: i actually dug a trench and sited mine inside the trench, and put wood around the edges, so that the wind didn’t have as much opportunity to sweep under the edges. I’ve already said about the guy lines – if you can use anything heavy to weigh down the metal struts (I used a pallet) then so much the better.
Oh, and it can get very very hot in there. I was recording temps, even in last summer’s miserable washout of close to 40*C with the door closed if i didn’t get out there first thing to open the door. One weekend i had to go away and leave the whole thing zipped up, and it was the hottest weekend of the year. Got back and just about everything was dead. Buy a thermometer if you don’t have one, and make sure you can get there every day to open it..
good luck with it!
keth
xx
p.s. i’m all jealous about what you’re taking home.. I’m not taking anything yet!! it looks gorgeous..