Polytunnel

Hi, I have a new polytunnel and am trying to plan for the growing season. Would any of you care to share what you’re growing in your permaculture polytunnel? I’m in Ireland. Thanks

Hi Colm. Welcome to Permies! Congratulations on your first post.

Welcome to Permies!

I wish I had a poly tunnel. I'd take advantage of the early jumpstart on greens and perhaps radishes. Nothing like fresh spring greens.

Hope to see you in some future threads.

Hi, Welcome to Permies.  We have a polytunnel at the community garden (we're in Derbyshire, UK) and we're looking for a monthly garden plan specifically for the polytunnel, as it was sorely underused last year and almost became a dumping storage unit! One of our members has been tasked with doing the research.  I'll let you know if they find anything useful. Of note, the auto-pot rep (https://autopot.co.uk) is one of our members and he will be setting up the polytunnel with a complete watering system. The main problem last year was the fact that we were not at the garden often enough to water the polytunnel plants in the summer and they died. Hopefully, this year will be better. Bess

Thanks Angela, Timothy, Bess. I did a PDC last year and I’ve started a forest garden but this will be my first year with a polytunnel and I’d love to “permatise” it. I’d love to have a mix of pollinators, annuals and perennials but haven’t seen any pics/videos of others doing this. It might be best to go slow in the first year.

I'm also in ireland,south kerry.
the perennials I grow in my polytunnel and greenhouses are grapes
lemons
kaffir lime
Figs
Avocado
chillis
marigolds
My annuals are
tomatoes
chilli's
ginger
basil.
Outside the tunnel I have
grape
kiwi
mulberry
apples
pears
plums
cherry's
figs
honey berries
blueberry
red white and black currants
Jerusalem artichoke
Allium trifolium
Strawberry
Wine berry
And various herbs as perenials

Just to add my polytunnel is only 13ft by 10ft and greenhouses x2 are maybe 7ft by 3ft,happy growing man

Cian Deasy wrote:Just to add my polytunnel is only 13ft by 10ft and greenhouses x2 are maybe 7ft by 3ft,happy growing man

Wow Cian that sounds great! Thanks man, lots of ideas there

I'm in France.In the polytunnel, I grow winterlettuce, claytonia, onions, red beets, rocket salad, corianders, leeks ,spinach, winter radishes and brassicae of sorts in winter. Everything is okidoki even after -12 degrees Celcius..
In summer tomatos, peppers, cucumbers, basil, groundcherry, aubergines, lettuce, spinach, climbing beans, and kales.
Furtheron it serves as a plant start up. There's less snails so on a table is a good place for that.
In the beds i just throw seeds that are a bit bigger like chardoon, for replacing into their outdoor place. It's a bit warmer, like one or two month earlier i can start plants from seed. If i have enough seeds saved i'll push it. Come frost, bummer for the ones dying. As i diversify and get seeds from people up north through Goingtoseed it's lookin like i can make even more good use of it in the future.
Pro tip, do not close your hoop house completely. I got a simple wooden frame build on both ends, but not all the way up. The round biggest surface flaps over it, but with big winds it just takes off most of the pressure and it ventilates just enough so that humidity is less of an issue. This year is the first year i've lost lettuces to mold, but it's been hellish and grey for month on end.

Hi Colm - Welcome to Permies.
I had the same idea as you and planted lots of perennials in my polytunnel. I used it for trying out lots of pushing the climate zone stuff that I wasn't sure would cope with our wet windy weather. Unfortunately my tunnel is still without it's cover having torn badly a couple of years ago. Putting a new cover on is not a job I'm looking forwards to. The good news is most of my perennials have been, if not happy, then surviving without the cover, so the grape vines, Apricot, Akebia, salt bush, Pineapple guava, Tulips, Globe artichoke and asparagus are still fine. I  think I may have lost my Japanese yam, which had done fairly well, although I do have one growing outside that I don't remember planting! I'm thinking of evicting the Apricot (already had to dig out a kiwi that just wasn't worth the space) since it just grows too quickly and is really too big for the tunnel. I did say I'd give it one more chance once the cover is on, so it has a stay of execution at the moment.

Lush growth in tunnel

I wrote a bit about my tunnel plans on My 'blog a few years ago.
I had the tunnel set up so that I could do a four year rotation: tomatoes, curcubits, Yacon and legumes, which was working quite well. The idea was that as the yacon moved round the tunnel I would dig up the other perennial root crops that may appreciate more than one season to become harvest-worthy. I have a very messy style of gardening and practiced chop and drop as mulch in the tunnel. It takes a while for the tunnel to get a good balance, and the watering was definitely part of that for me. Initially I had problems with spidermite, but they seemed to just disappear after a few years and the bees and butterflies loved it in there. Unfortunately they can't find their way out quite so easily...
I would reiterate what Bess alluded to and say it really is worth thinking about watering. We get so used to nature doing it for us in the UK that it doesn't come naturally to realise that this doesn't happen. I struggled for the first few years until I got a home made soaker hose system set up and working well. I also rather love the set up that Dave has in Wales (thread link here with a wicking system over a pond. Much more effort to set up, but lots of potential.

There's nothing permaculture about it, but Irish polytunnel made me think immediately of RED Gardens:

Edible Acres has a lot of permie style polytunnel content, hers a play list;

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLihFHKqj6JeqFfSnu90neOyq9eS7oSYLS&si=wHwt74HfGgVJnr2r

He is in a wet part of New York state, and he tales care to irrigate inside his tunnels, usually by diverting surface water into the tunnel.

well so far we have leeks onions beetroot cabbage tomato cauliflower and this lot is going to be planted outside just getting the land
ready after all the rain and snow we've had..   and we're in the far north of Scotland

Christopher Weeks wrote:There's nothing permaculture about it, but Irish polytunnel made me think immediately of RED Gardens

There are companies that recycle plastic by heating the chopped up plastic and forming into planks to be used like lumber.
Somewhere on YouTube I saw some DIY plastic plank/bricks made. They cut/chopped up plastic into small managable size
pieces and melted it in a toaster oven outside (I think) in old pie or casserole tins to make plastic paver stones. Mostly it was
melted enough to make it all stick together well enough but not necessarily to the point of becoming completely liquid since
one wouldn't want it to get hot enough to catch fire.

Seems like it might be a bit of work, but would probably only need to be done occasionaly. It certainly would reduce the size
of one's plastics accumulation and put it into practical use as something that won't rot when used on the ground to help keep
other things from touching the ground.
Just a thought.