Feb

Building Polytunnel Frame

After along wait because of frozen ground and bad back, work really started on the last week end in January.

I should make it clear that due to continuing issues with my back, I can only work for 30 minutes or so and then need to take a break. So whilst building my poly tunnel will take a few weekends ( need to be finished by end of February), the actual build time will not be that great.

Quick summery, the poly tunnel will be orientated North South and replaced qty 4 raised beds (4 ft by 8ft). This orientation gets the maximum winter sun and in the summer gets plenty of morning and evening sun light (assuming there is any). The Northern side with have a wide door which leads to the lawn and the south side will have a standard door leading to 3 sheds.

My helpers are my son James 10 and Robert 8 and my wife Rachel for the heavy bits.

30/31 January 2010

Working with Robert we measure out the 10ft by 20ft space for the polytunnel base and hammered in the corner posts.

It was a bit fiddly by after a little while managed to get the layout square.

Being on a roll we dug out the first hole and insterted the anchor plate with its two clips and levelled of the pole to the top of the soil. The ground is slightly sloping (front to rear) and this appeared to be the the highest of the four corners.

6/7 February 2010

6 Feb – Slow day and 3 ground poles (holes dug and inserted) completed, also cleaning my hydroponic greenhouse and looking for strawberry plants that the chickens and ducks had dug up and scattered around the raised beds and planting them in my auto pot (Easy 2 Grow) greenhouse.

7 Feb – remaining ground poles completed and the diagonals were still within 1/2″ and a height variation of just 1/4″ betwene first and last poles.

Due to back, I was only digging out the exact size of the hole and tacking out small shovels of earth. At hole seven, I was looking in my garden shed for something and noticed my lawn edging tool. By using this tool, I was able to quickly mark out and after digging down the first 12″/30cm use the edging tool to cut and break up the soil quickly to get to an approx depth of 45-50 cm.

After a break and only an hours day light left, I wanted to get some of the frames up, to get a better feel of the actual size (Volume) of the poly tunnel.

I tried screwing the frame together and then installing it. Due to the round being uneven, I couldn’t get the frame square. So after one screw, I put up the frame (South side).

I had problems trying to insert some of the tubes together, so had to enlist the help of my wife. The next three frames went up very quickly with the second pair of hands.

Now, the last frame (Southern end) and the first pole I dug. The frame didn’t fit on the last ground pole. So decide to lift frame from the first pole dug and the whole ground pole lifted 4-6″ which wasn’t good. I needed to secure this ground pole especially as it is an end pole and in the direction of the prevailing wind. But it was getting late and the damp clay soil was freezing.

As the light was fading, I quickly looked along the frames and they didn’t line up. I will have to check this out next weekend.

Jobs to do next.

1. Fixed insecure ground pole , by digging out, securing clips, back filling and ensuring that it is the correct height.

2. Build and secure last frame.

3. Check alignment of all frames, my give First Tunnels a quick call.

4. Add end bracing bars and top support bar.

5. According to the manual the next step is to add the doors. I’m going to look at leveling the ground inside the poly tunnel and add the aluminum base rails and ground sheet.

6. Once I have the inside floor sorted, I want to have a look at the layout and move things inside, whilst I have open ends on the tunnel, plus need to look more at the wooden door frames as carpentry isn’t my thing. I use manual and power saws to cut wood to go into wood burner.

Time for a nice hot Radox bath.

8 Feb 2010

Strolled down to my polytunnel to see my handy work in the daylight. I checked that the sides were straight and had a closer look at the hoop that was offset.

Even though the ground pegs were straight when I installed them, the spring tension in the hoops had moved a few slightly.

The offset hoop was wrong so I gave First tunnels a quick call and good chatted to a techie about the issue and he gave me some work useful information to consider. The hoop consists of four sections ( 2 sides and 2 tops), the two tops are slightly different one has male/female connections and the other female/female, for the hoops to align all the female/female sections should be on the same side for each of the hoops.

So, managed to lift the hoop from the ground poles and turn it round. Now the hoops line up better.

The weather is getting colder and we had some snow midday so there may be issue doing more work this weekend coming.

13/14th February

Saturday was busy with the boys doing their karate gradings, and James after reading all the Percy Jackson books in 3 months wanted to see the the New Percy Jackson film on the cinema. That left just a few hours in the after noon to work on the polytunnel.

1. Dug out the “loose” ground peg, moved securing clamp to correct position tighten it and back filled hole. The clay was slightly frozen which actual made it easy to dig out cleanly and not lose the “bottom” where the base plate sat. The end result was the round pole was at the the correct height.

2. One of the lower hoop sections was damaged ( dent) which ment it did not fit over the lug in the ground pole. The dent was filled out (had to purchase a round file for the job) and it fitted nicely.

Sunday.

1. Fixed the top bar.

2. Fixed the 4 side support bars and square off the front and back (verticals).

3. Add the bottom aluminum base rail to the right hand side, to use as guide to leveling of the internal ground of the poly tunnel.

4. Made the first door frame ( wide door ) which is the front door. Building the door wasn’t the easiest of tasks. but looks out. May be the gap around the edges is slightly to big. If it is still to big after installing it I will add a battern to the out side edge of the door frame to hid the gap.

March 6/7

A lot has happeaned, last weekend, the storm bars, crop bars, side vent were added and doors added.

Saturday

This week end was the covering event. The polythene was brought indoors over night to warm up and the two alumium side rails lifted up 7cm to aid tightening the cover. The brother-in-law assisted with the Covering.

I wanted the 350ltr water butt to be located in the polytunnel so it was placed inside before the polytunnel was covered.

The hardest part was pletting the sides, but after a couple of hours the polytunnel was covered. It was getting late and cold, trying to strech the covering and lowing the aluminum rails was difficult, so it was decided to wait until the morning when it would be warmer.

Using the last of the day light a quickly covered the door panels.

Sunday.

The inside of the polytunnel was cleared and the ground sheet laid out and secured. Being black it helped warm up the polytunnel, ready for the final streching of the covering.

The brother in law didn’t arrive until mid afternoon, but we managed to get the right base rail down to ground level, the left hand side (vent rail) wasn’t so easy and we only managed 3 cms, so the end rails slope a bit. The side vent was secured and there was time to install a link-a-bord rased bed and part of a 8ft by 4ft wooden raised bed.

Poly tunnel now built and ready for fitting out and growing vegetables