Pumpkins Galore!

Just picked my first ever pumpkin and weighed it! Was over 6kgs (1 stone)!!!! The pineapple is just to give a sense of scale.

So my lovely wife then proceeded to make gallons of pumpkin soup!

Todays harvest of Carrots and Beetroot

Loads of carrots today and some beet. Anyone got any carrot soup recipies?

Pumkins and Tomatoes

The pumpkins are continuing to grow in size every day. Quite a few small tomoatoes and mangetout are over 6ft tall!!

A few weeks ago

Not updated the photos for a while so below are some photos from 2 weeks ago showing the peas and potatoes!

Courgettes galore!

Got 3 massive courgettes off my plants today, a record for 1 day! Still more developing on the plants and getting 1 a day on average. They taste great grilled on the BBQ.

Update on growing

Loads of growth since last update. Pumpkins spreading very quickly. Peas about 5 foot tall. Brocolli stalks well developed with heads developing well. Tomatoes in grow bags. Only problem is the weeds! Too many of them!

Our new baby!

Our first baby courgette!!! Tasted great on the BBQ, quite a few more on the way.

The growing starts

Lots of green in the tunnel with fast growth in the last few weeks.

The planting starts..........

Finally started planting. Got my paths down and layout planned. Mostly root vegetables on left of photo, carrots, radish, turnips, parsnips. On the right pumpkin, squash, corgette, brocolli, peas and mangetout!

Now the hard work starts

The doors are on and the tunnel has survived a few strong winds. Spent most of weekend digging in compost and muck into the soil. Hopefully planting soon.

Plastic is on!!

The big day arrived yesterday, when the steel frame structure turned into a polytunnel: we got the plastic on! Even though there were a few gusts of wind we (me and my Dad) managed to get the cover on.

Braced for a storm

As the tunnel is sitting on quite an exposed site, I ordered additional storm bracing. These consist of steel tubes that sit over the main frame joints to prevent them from opening. Hopefully these should give the overall structure the ability to withstand a battering in the next gales!

Could it be any more windy!

Today we added the doors and woodwork, which meant a lot of hammering and nails! Today was very changable weather, as 1 minute it was hail, and the next sunshine, then horizontal rain. But overall it was very windy. Now waiting for a CALM day to put the cover on.

Unfortunately back to work tomorrow, so further progress will have to wait until weekends.

Nuts and bolts

We had a fantastic day of sunshine, perfect for working outside. Its hard to believe looking at the blue sky in the above picture that this was taken in Scotland! There are several hundred bolts and brackets to be put together so the work's not over yet!

Putting up the frame

We assembled the frame sections together and then lifted them into the foundation tubes. Finally we could see the finished size of the tunnel.

It does look very tall!

The hole digging starts

I wish we had hired a digger!

Dad and I spent almost a whole day digging holes to put the anchor plates in. Each hole had to be over a foot in width and 2 foot depth. Not much fun especially when the soil has so much heavy clay!

After digging our the holes and levelling the anchor plates, we put concrete in the holes then back filled all the soil. I hope we never have to take them out!

First shoots after only 3 days

Got home today (Thursday) and found that we've our first shoots. These seedlings were only planted on Monday evening! The photo shows one of our Courgette seedlings. The seedlings are sitting in a cosy warm propagator at around 20-25 degrees, totally tropical!!

Polytunnel take one!

I've ordered a polytunnel!!

Spent ALL weekend lifting turf from the area that the tunnel will sit. Rotavator arrived yesterday, so been working the soil in the evenings after work.

The rotavator is great, completely transforing the soil and is also one big gadget!