Synopses & Reviews
A polytunnel can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, and this manual looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards. It includes a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are constructed and maintained. There are chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. For the DIY enthusiast, there is a full set of instructions for building a polytunnel from scratch, and the authors explain how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season.
Review
“Polytunnels have a key role to play in the grow-your-own revolution, and a comprehensive guide such as this is long overdue.” —Simon McEwan, Country Smallholding magazine
Synopsis
A polytunnel can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, from crispy salads and fresh vegetables in the dead of winter to juicy melons and mouth-watering grapes in high summer. But once you've decided to invest in a polytunnel, there are many questions to be answered, including:
- Do you need planning permission?
- What are the different sizes and types you can buy?
- Where should you put it, and how do you put it up?
- What can you use it for, how do you look after it, and what are the likely problems?
The Polytunnel Handbook looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards, and includes a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are put up and maintained. There are chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. For the DIY enthusiast there is a full set of instructions for building a polytunnel from scratch, and the authors explain how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season.
Synopsis
A comprehensive guide to all aspects of polytunnel usage, from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards.
A polytunnel, high tunnel or hoop house, can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, from crispy salads and fresh vegetables in the dead of winter to juicy melons and mouth-watering grapes in high summer. But once you've decided to invest in a polytunnel, there are many questions to be answered...
Do you need planning permission? What are the different sizes and types you can buy? Where should you put it, and how do you put it up? What can you use it for, how do you look after it, and what are the likely problems?
The Polytunnel Handbook looks at all aspects of using a polytunnel, from planning to harvesting. The book features a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are put up and maintained, and also detailed instructions on building a polytunnel from scratch for DIY enthusiasts. There are also chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer.
Learn how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season with this brilliant guide
About the Author
Andy McKee first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five, and since then he has grown food in situations ranging from a seventeenth-story window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas-tree plantation. McKee had his eyes opened to the potential of polytunnels during a visit to one featuring a hot tub warmed by a clay oven. He lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset, England, and is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables.
Mark Gatter began growing vegetables while homesteading in northern California in the early eighties and has been an avid gardener ever since. He's a firm advocate of an organic, raised-bed approach and relies on a polytunnel to keep fresh food on the table right through the winter. He and his wife share their smallholding in Wales with eleven sheep, several chickens, and two dogs.