Setting up for self-sufficiency from scratch

Broadforking a large new vegetable bed

Chatting with a friend who's just about to start working a croft has focused my mind on how I would set up our veg garden from scratch if I had to start over again and what I'd consider essential in a veg garden. We've worked these things out over several years and have implemented the suggestions below, but we could set up even quicker, with what we know now.

First of all, I'd identify the sunniest, best drained land by walking the land at diffent times in different conditions, like after heavy rain (be aware that light levels might quite different in winter, but spring to autumn levels are really the most important since that's mainly when you're growing). If it's sheltered as well - super. Otherwise hedge planting has to be top priority - put in a temporary windbreak fabric fence until the hedge is established (about three years). If it's reasonably level ground - even better, but you can work with terracing. It should also have easy access to water for watering (not so crucial in Scotland, but elsewhere it could be). If it's downhill from the house you can easily collect rainwater from your roof to water your veg.

Vegetables and herbs

Last year's squash bed

Raised beds

Part of the large herb garden

This area will eventually be totally
given over to perennial veg

Then I'd make a plan for four large vegetable beds (about 4m x 20m, scaled appropriately if you have less space) for the large crops: potatoes; onions, garlic, leeks and carrots; brassica; and a three sisters bed - courgettes and winter squashes with beans and sweetcorn (if you're lucky enough to live somewhere warm enough where these will grow outdoors - for us it's just squash). This makes it very easy to keep track of crop rotation, which can be a challenge otherwise. To minimise work I'd put down black plastic for a minimum of six months where these beds are going to go. This kills all the grass and weeds underneath and makes preparing the ground a lot easier.

If you think your ground is suitable consider no dig, in which case you can use cardboard as your base layer and top it with compost and organic matter. This uses a lot of compost, however, so think about cost implications. I'd advise trying to dig in several spots first, to see just how stony the ground is and what drainage is like. Much of our ground was very stony and drainage needed to be improved so no dig will have to wait. On the other hand, if your ground is too stony to do anything with, possibly the best way is up: making huegelkultur beds on top. That is, if it's not too windy to go upwards! We ended up making an underground huegel in a particularly wet part of ground.

In addition to the four large beds, I'd have a dozen raised beds for lettuces, salad leaves, beetroot, chard and crops that do better in raised beds such as celeriac. These beds don't have to have permanent structures; they can just be created by mounding up the soil. In this area there also needs to be space for an easy to move pea fence or trellis.

Somewhere near the house, I'd set up a herb garden with lots of perennial herbs and some annuals. This would also incorporate edible flowers, wild flowers and medicinal herbs (often the same plants!).

Next on the agenda would be an area dedicated to perennial vegetables, with some luxury crops such as globe artichokes and asparagus, some great staples such as Daubenton's kale, Good King Henry and a few varieties of perennial onions and some of those tubers that keep on coming like Jerusalem artichokes and oca.

The last of the winter crops and
the first of the spring crops

Then on to a polytunnel for extending the season. In this case, it is critical what the winter light levels are like since you'll be overwintering a lot of crops in it. Choose a very sunny levelish site with easy access to water. Our polytunnel is 20ft by 8ft, which is a great size for the home grower who doesn't want to grow vast quantities for sale but rather wants to keep growing salads and greens throughout the winter and have a wider option of veg to grow in the summer. Of course, it would be no problem to fill a larger tunnel, but it would also mean a lot more watering! A lot of things are better grown outside, such as onions, for example. And you don't have to worry about pests such as aphids as much. A 'cloudy' polytunnel cover is better than a fully transparent one since it lets plenty of light through but doesn't scorch plants in the heat. A south-facing conservatory or potting shed is very useful for pre-growing seedlings in the spring.

Fruit and nuts

When it comes to soft fruit, I'd get all my cuttings from other gardeners if possible, since they are so easy to grow from cuttings, especially currants and gooseberries. The same goes for vigorous rhubarb - a split of a plant that does well in your area is the way to go - and strawberry runners (which will need to replaced every three years to maintain vigour, easily done by taking runners from your plants in the summer after the harvest is done).

The orchard four years on

We have a dedicated soft fruit area, which could be netted over in a fruit cage arrangement (this makes harvesting easier since you can walk in and stand up). However, this hasn't been necessary so far, but it is a consideration in areas with flocks of pigeons especially. I've also made little hedges of berry bushes for most of the large veg beds and along the side of the main vegetable garden. I'd go for a huge variety of fruit, with some more unusual berries such as Siberian honeyberry (blue honeysuckle), Saskatoon berry and Chilean guava thrown into the mix to extend the fruit season. I'd rather err on the side of too many plants; that way, the birds can have some and there should still be enough left for you.

When it comes to fruit trees, I'd again err on the side of too many. We've ended up with eleven apple trees, two pears, two plums, two mirabelles, two mulberries, three cherries and one quince. It's crucial to get the pollination groups right, especially if you're in a remote area with no other fruit trees around! The one thing I would change next time is to make sure to have a couple of apple trees with apples that store really well; usually these are the late-fruiting varieties. We only went by flavour in our selection so none of our apples store particularly well without processing them.

Edible hedging around the veg garden

Other than planting an orchard, I'd also recommend incorporating edible plants into your hedging schemes. For example: crab apples, wild pear, wild plum, rosa rugosa (for rose hips), elder (for berries and blossom), hazel nuts, hawthorn (for berries), blackthorn (for sloes), sea buckthorn (for berries - this is quite a vigorous plant though, which can be invasive in some areas), guelder rose (for bark, anti-cramp medicine), willow (for wands and bark - natural aspirin - and as one of the best wildlife plants in the UK), tilia/linden (for leaves and flowers) and beech (for young leaves).

If I lived in a climate where they'd crop, I'd also plant lots of nut trees such as walnut, cobnuts and sweet chestnut. Now this is a really long-term proposition! Sadly, although they grow well enough here they only rarely produce a usable crop, with the one exception of hazelnuts - but we've yet to harvest a single nut from our 10+-year-old trees. In the meantime, we're going have a go at growing tiger nuts instead.

Following a programme like this will give a high degree of food self-sufficiency in just a few years, without needing to sacrifice interest and variety in the diet.

Sowing and growing peas

Plastic rain gutter + compost + peas

Real spring weather has yet to settle in here, but seed sowing and general preparation carry on all the same, in anticipation of the season finally turning.

Keep the compost moist
as they sprout.

Yesterday it was the peas' turn to start their journey of another year. Last year we tried the excellent rain guttering method of sowing and pregrowing the peas. It worked very well, so we're sticking with it.

All you need is a few sections of plastic guttering, filled up with compost. Quite a bit of compost is needed, so definitely use homemade stuff if you can. Don't use super long sections - they have to be easy to transport around. End caps can be helpful in keeping the compost in; they can be removed at the sliding stage.

Slide them in! A knock against
a post can help if they're stuck.

Sow the peas as you normally would. We use a pencil to make a hole, drop the pea in and cover over. Keep the compost moist as the peas sprout and start to grow.

When it's time to plant them out, the real beauty of this method becomes apparent. Dig a shallow trench alongside your pea fence (or whatever arrangement you have in place for the peas to climb up). Then just slide the whole lot out from the guttering into the trench. This means minimal disturbance to the seedling roots and greatly reduced transplant shock.

Tender shoots are a terrible
temptation to birds.

Firm them in with the soil excavated from the trench, water, net them over, to protect from marauding blackbirds, and you're done. The netting can be removed once the pea plants have reached 'critical mass', i.e. when it would be hard for a blackbird to pull one out.

We usually plant peas for podding on one side and mangetout on the other side of the fence to avoid confusion at what stage to pick the pods! Once the peas are ripe and plentiful we collect as much seed as possible. Some of it can be sown again straight away, for pea shoots if winter comes early or for a second crop if not.

Overwintering peas

Can't wait to see them
looking like this again.

We're really big pea fans and, to get some of that fresh flavour we crave as early as possible in the season, we also grow some Douce Provence peas (the best variety for overwintering) over winter in the greenhouse. These we do exclusively with our own saved seed, since the casualty rate can be high, depending on the severity of the winter. We sow them around the end of October or early November, in the same pots and using the same climbing strings that will subsequently belong to the tomatoes.

Last year that yielded us our first peas on the 20th of April, a real treat to start the season. It might be a little later than that this time around, but they're flowering already.

Overwintering in the greenhouse: early peas.

Coping with a courgette glut

The courgette-marrow spectrum

Layering veg for a crustless quiche

Half an hour later

Spot the yellow flecks of courgette

Young courgettes, ideal for the BBQ

And then there's the flowers to eat as well

First piece of advice: pick 'em small. I like to pick ours at roughly half the typical supermarket size (as at the far end of the courgette spectrum on the right). At that stage, the courgettes are so tender and tasty that they can be chopped raw into salads. It's a lot easier to deal with 20 small courgettes than with 20 marrows. This typically means daily picking, so if you're only visiting your courgette patch on the weekends, it's marrows for you! If you grow yellow varieties the fruit are a lot easier to spot and you won't get as many hiding and making it to marrow size.

If you do end up with marrows, my favourite recipe is spicy fried marrow rings:

Cut the marrow into 1cm-thick discs and press out the seeds with your fingers, making rings. Mix 3tbsp of flour with 1tsp coriander, 1tsp chilli powder and 1/2tsp salt. Dip the marrow rings into the flour mixture on both sides and fry in vegetable oil until the flesh is soft and the outside crispy on both sides. Serve with yoghurt or creme fraiche.

Other marrow options include stuffing with mince, making marrow jam (surprisingly tasty though not quite a substitute for a good berry jam) or using it as part of a piccallili pickle mix.

However, I do prefer courgettes before they get to marrow stage. Then my currently preferred recipe is to turn them into a crustless quiche, which is a simple and super tasty way of using up whatever you've happen to have in the garden:

Butter a pie dish and layer with vegetables. Start with a layer of onion slices, followed by sliced courgettes (peas, broad beans, chard and broocoli are also very good in this) and some chives. Mix 250ml cream with 4 eggs, season with salt and pepper. Pour over the layered vegetables and top with grated cheese. Bake for 30 minutes at 170°C. Serve hot or cold.

Courgette cake is a fun way to use courgettes, though not necessarily a good glut coping strategy, since you only need one or two per cake. Here's an easy courgette bran loaf, which is our standard elevenses bite. It's not very sweet and best served with butter and homemade jam. If you make it often enough (we get through one every two days) you'll eliminate a fair number of courgettes.

Mix together 1 cup wheat bran, 1 cup sultanas, 1/4 cup brown sugar and 1 cup milk. Leave to stand for an hour. Then add 1 cup wholemeal flour, 1tsp bicarbonate of soda, 1/2 cup grated courgette and 1 egg. Mix and spoon into a greased loaf tin. Bake for 45 minutes at 150°C. This is a very flexible cake. You can use grated carrot or beetroot instead of courgette or 1 cup of berries such as currants, blueberries or raspberries.

Another good way of eating young courgettes is as the original vegetarian sausage. Rub with vegetable oil, salt, pepper and herbs, wrap in foil and toss on the barbecue. Or dip in beer batter (100g flour, 1tsp ground fennel seeds, 1tsp chilli powder, 1/2tsp salt and enough ale to make up to double cream consistency) and pop into the deep-fat fryer.

Then, of course, there are all the usual Mediterranean recipes that you can throw courgettes into: risotto, lasagne, ratatouille, bolognese sauce, carbonara sauce etc. And you can even make a tasty sandwich spread from courgettes.

Possibly the best way to use up a lot of courgettes in one go is to make relish. This is very useful stuff and keeps well, too.

Whatever you do, don't freeze your courgettes, raw or blanched (though cooked, in a dish such as ratatouille is fine). The texture goes all rubbery. Some people dry their courgettes in thin slices - I tried this once but didn't find the result particularly appetising or useful. However, I'm willing to try again if someone suggests a good way of using the dried courgette slices.

If you still have any courgettes left over, give them to friends, family and passers by. People are usually delighted to receive them - unless they have a glut of their own to deal with!

June round-up

Dunluce earlies, eagerly awaited

Strawberries 'Symphony'

June is when the new season harvest starts properly, with outdoor broad beans, mangetout, beetroot, shallots and the first of the new pototoes. The latter were especially eagerly awaited, since we ran out of main crop potatoes in March, due to a smaller than normal harvest last autumn because of blight. This year, we're growing extra potatoes to compensate for any outbreak of potato blight, and three types of blight-resistant maincrop spuds (Blue Danube, Sarpo Axona and Setanta).

Fruit wise, the strawberries got going very early this year, in mid June when we often don't have any until July. We've been having them daily in our morning porridge, made delicious strawberry ice cream and sorbet and possibly our favourite jam, strawberry conserve. 

To make conserve, layer the whole hulled strawberries in their weight in sugar in a non-reactive pan, cover with a towel and leave for 24 hours. Then boil for 5 minutes, cover and leave for another 24 hours. On the third day, add the juice of a lemon per kg of strawberries (or 1/2 tsp citric acid) and make jam as normal. Worth the wait - this jam is basically spreadable whole strawberries, an intense flavour.

The 2.5-year-old hedge

We've planted more hedge every winter so far, about 1000 plants to date. And this year the 3.5- and 2.5-year-old hedges were ready for their first trim! It's wonderful to start getting real shelter from them and birds and pollinators love them too. On our outer perimeter we've chosen spiky hedge plants such as hawthorn, blackthorn, sea buckthorn and rosa rugosa, to deter browsing by cattle and, eventually, deer. But for our internal hedges we've opted for variety, edibility and wildlife-friendliness, with hazel, crab apple, wild pear, elder, alder, poplar, willow, guelder rose, field maple, purple and green beech, forsythia, cotoneaster and dog rose, plus a few of the thorny types as well (after all, they all have edible fruit).

Wind protection for the squashes

The first Tigerellas of the season

Fuzz and the gang

Broad bean hummus on sourdough rye

Unlike our southern neighbours in England, we have not had a heat wave in June - unless four days above 22°C counts. Instead, we've been having a wet and windy old time, with the Rayburn back on for quite a few days. The wind has wreaked havoc with our squashes: 11 survivors out of 36 and only because Jim had the bright idea to shield the remaining plants with old car tyres. Next year, all squash seedlings will get a tyre - I'm sure our local garage will be only too happy to offload some for free.

At least, the cucumbers, chillies and tomatoes inside had no idea what nonsense went on outside and have been ripening away. As usual, Gusto Purple and Hungarian Yellow Wax were the earliest chillies. The Femspot cucumbers have been amazingly early, with the first one ready in the second week of June - definitely will be growing these again! The tomatoes too have been early and we had ripe tomatoes in June for the first time ever. The first three varieties were Matina, Tigerella and Harzfeuer, all now slotted to become regulars.

The chicks are two months old now and have free range of the chicken area. They don't mix with the older chickens but wander everywhere in their tight-knit group of five. They enjoy the foraging immensely and sometimes it's a chore to get them into their hut for the night. Unlike the senior chickens, they don't seem to realise that dusk is bed time! One of the two young cockerels looks as if he has fur instead of feathers - I just want to stroke him, but he's rather shy. With his unusual plumage, we might just have to keep young Fuzz for breeding (bad news for his dad, Feathers).

Apart from jam and ice cream, we've also tried making some new healthy snacks, including sourdough crisp breads and broad bean hummus, which is a great combination. The broad bean hummus is wonderful and so easy to make: Boil the broad beans for 5 minutes, drain, add some cold-pressed oil, garlic, lemon basil, salt and pepper and blend into a paste. Who needs avocados?

Favourite self-seeders

Camomile, a prolific self-seeder

The next best thing after perennial plants, in our opinion, is self-seeding annuals. For busy gardeners it's effective, convenient, effortless and very economical to let herbs and flowers seed themselves - you can always move them later or remove them if they threaten to take over. And if you want to be 100% sure of preserving the plants, collect some of the seeds (many of them are good for culinary use anyway) and sow them in late May in the rare event that no new seedlings have popped up. Here are some of our favourite plants that can be left to do their own thing:

Camomile

We seem to get plants a lot earlier than if we sowed them ourselves. The self-sown camomile really gets going rather early in spring and it doesn't mind being transplanted.

Borage flower

Borage

A very vigorous self-seeder, borage is an all-round winner in the garden. Beloved by pollinators, with pretty, edible flowers, this nitrogen-fixer can be made into a fertiliser tea just like comfrey and, according to Bob Flowerdew, also makes an excellent green manure.

Dill

We let this go to seed anyway, to harvest dill seeds for use in pickles and bread, and it usually comes up the next year.

Parsley

Much easier to let it self-seed in its second year than to start the seeds indoors in early spring.

Wild rocket, a welcome 'weed'

Salad leaves

Wild rocket is our favourite weed in the veg patch! We always let rocket flower in early spring when there's not much else around for the pollinators and as a bonus comes the vigorous self-seeding that follows. Land cress is a tasty salad crop that self-seeds everywhere but its tendencies do have to be curbed a little.

Coriander

Coriander is probably the most annoying annual herb to grow. At least under our conditions, it goes to seed so quickly. No sooner are the first leaves out that you need to harvest and freeze away the excess before the plants go all feathery, then flower and go to seed. You might as well exploit that and let the plants seed more rather than having to sow a new batch every few weeks. We also collect some seeds for culinary use and these could be used to sow the following spring.

You only need to sow them once

Nasturtiums

Our favourite companion plant, nasturtiums are everywhere in the garden. We eat the young leaves and the flowers in salads and pickle the seeds for use on pizzas (and anywhere that capers would be used). Nasturtiums are also brilliant weed suppressing ground cover - we have them around the Jerusalem artichokes, under the bean poles, underneath hedges etc. and actively encourage them to spread into weedy areas across the fence.

Self-seeded calendula in the wildflower border

Calendula

Another great all-round companion plant, calendula pops up early in the year when left to its own devices. We mainly use it to make herbal oil, which is then a key ingredient in lip balm, ointments and lotions. And hopefully soon in our own soap! It's also nice as part of a herbal tea mixture.

Pretty purple poppy

Wildflowers

We have several kinds of poppies in the garden, including ones with edible seeds for baking. We always collect some seeds to spread them around further, but they do an admirable job of sowing themselves in their wildflower border where they are joined by campion, another lovely self-seeding wildflower.

Parsnips

Parsnip seed doesn't store long and is fickle to germinate. We leave a couple of plants in the soil over winter and let them go to seed in spring. We have been collecting the seed for planting the following spring, but the self-seeded plants have been so much earlier and more vigorous than our own efforts that we will simply let the parsnips seed themselves next year.

It's always a nice surprise to see the distinctive seedlings pop up in the spring. You can't mistake a little borage or nasturtium for anything else. Happy lazy gardening, everyone!

Growing in the polytunnel through the seasons

Polytunnel in early June

We have now had our 20ft x 8ft polytunnel for 14 months and have done a lot of experimenting with different crops. Since space is at a premium we don't bother growing anything in the tunnel that will happily grow outside such as onions, potatoes and brassicas (and lettuce in summer) or that won't be significantly faster inside than out, such as carrots. Here's what works for us to keep the polytunnel productive all year round:

Permanent residents

Grapevine

The grapevine freshly planted

Because grapes in Scotland is too amazing not to! The roots are planted outside the tunnel and the vine is inside. This makes watering easy (i.e. not generally necessary) and will hopefully give us sweeter grapes.

Lemon verbena

This delicious tea herb (which is also great in gin & tonic) doesn't really work outside here but loves it in the polytunnel. It dies back over winter but sprouts again the following spring.

Summer crops

In the summer, about half the polytunnel is given over to tomatoes since we are in an area prone to potato blight and thus have to grow our tomatoes in containers inside.

Polytunnel in May

Tomatoes

The first summer I squeezed 30 of them in, but this year we've scaled back to 17 plants since it is nice to have a variety of things. Some are very early tomatoes (Matina) to start the season as early as possible and then it's a mix of cherry tomatoes, beef tomatoes and normal size heirloom tomatoes in different colours (though black definitely seems tastiest).

Herbs that like it hot

Several varieties of basil, which is a good companion plant to tomatoes, and some lemongrass.

Courgette Latino, harvested in late May

Courgette

An early one, sown in mid March, that is planted out into the polytunnel in late April and gets to stay there, plus a couple of early sown ones that get planted outside in early May with protection.

Cucumbers

We keep our varieties of cucumbers apart and the tunnel is home to the Crystal Lemon cucumbers that look like lemons when they are ripe.

Oriental leaves

Successional sowings of komatsuna and pak choi.

Peppers and chillies

Any leftover plants that don't fit into the conservatory.

Experimental crops

Anything that needs the extra heat. This year, it's chickpeas.

Beans

Since it's too windy here for climbing beans (at least above hedge height), we've planted some in the polytunnel, in a spot vacated by early spring salad leaves such as red mustard and pak choi. In July, we'll also sow some dwarf French beans for a late crop.

Overwintering crops

A nice bowl of early broad beans

Broad beans Aquadulce

Sown in the first week in November, the indoor plants beat the outdoor plants by a good three weeks. We had broad beans from mid May onwards. Definitely worth having three or four broad bean plants in the polytunnel!

Peas Douce Provence

Also sown in the first week in November, the peas suffered quite a few casualties, but the remaining plants had peas from April onwards - just enough for a delicious little snack every other day. Next time we'll put these in the middle of the polytunnel to give them a better chance of making it.

Lettuces Valdor and Winter Density

Sown in September and October, these hardy lettuce types were ready to harvest in March. Quite a few were devoured by slugs so beer traps will have a permanent home in the polytunnel next winter. We'll increase the number of lettuces this year since they are all going to be eaten long before the tomatoes can be planted out. Might as well fill the tunnel over the winter!

Hardy salad leaves

Sown in September, hardy salad leaves such as rocket, mizuna, pak choi, red mustard gave us lovely fresh salad in the winter months. The rocket even self-seeded inside the tunnel so that we had a continuous supply throughout the winter.

Early spring crops

Early Wonder beetroot, harvested in early May

Beetroot Early Wonder/Boltardy

Sown in early February and planted out into the polytunnel in March, these were a good three weeks ahead of the outdoor beetroots. The ones we sowed in November bolted so starting them early in the year seems to be the better option and not any slower.

Pak choi

Sown in late February, early pak choi does a lot better under cover and is ready to eat in early May.

Lettuce

The first sowing of lettuces such as Salad Bowl Red, Merveille des Quatre Saisons and Little Gem also goes into the polytunnel, but it's not usually long into spring before the lettuces prefer the cooler outside conditions.

It took us a couple of years to decide on getting a polytunnel in the first place. Having got one, the question of course becomes, "Why didn't we do this sooner?". The increased range of growing options is nice, but the biggest plus is definitely the closing up of the 'hungry gap', when winter crops run out before new season ones are ready, that comes in late spring with outdoor-only growing.

May round-up

Blossom, blossom, everywhere

It has been a very warm and dry month of May here. Three weeks without rain and lots of days with temperatures around 20°C! Our rainwater-collecting system (six barrels, each 200 L capacity, that are filled by run-off from our roof) which we use for watering the vegetable garden was nearly empty at the end of the dry spell. With all the new seedlings coming up (direct sowings of carrot, beetroot, kale, chard, New Zealand spinach, calabrese, red, winter and Savoy cabbage, purple-sprouting broccoli, kohlrabi, lettuce, turnips, radishes, scorzonera, edible flowers and herbs) and being planted out (dwarf and climbing French beans, summer and winter squashes, courgettes, celeriac, amaranth, sunflowers), there was a lot of watering to be done: my least favourite job in the garden.

Squash seedlings

Empty beds

Path from the top paddock to the middle paddock

Salad with beetroot and celeriac stalks

So hot we had to shade the greenhouse

The first job of the month was to get the squashes going. Sowing them on 1 May means that they are perfect for planting out four weeks later, after the last frost date and when it's reliably warm enough for them. Because I'm seed swapping with a squash aficionado, I ended up with 22 different varieties this time. Of course, I had to pop in two or three seeds of each, to be sure to get at least one plant each. The germination rate was excellent and suddenly we had 51 squash plants needing a home. Luckily, the Huegelkultur bed was nearing completion. It made a very handy depository for the mountain of used-up brassica plants left over from our winter crops.

Once all the purple-sprouting broccoli, kale and most of the chard had been removed from the veg garden, the beds were looking rather empty. The emptiest it's been all year. After a quick tilling and cultivating session with the new Mantis, the beds were ready for direct sowing and to receive the latest seedlings from the conservatory. The asparagus seeds germinated very well this time, after soaking them for two days, and it looks like we've got ourselves just over a full bed of asparagus plants. I already had a half dozen three-year-old Martha Washington plants and added the newcomers (Argenteuil and Jersey Knight) to the same bed. Now wait four years.

The grass has been growing like crazy and for the past week we've been playing catch-up to get things under control again. All the hedges need weeding and mulched around as do the fruit bushes, fruit trees and potatoes. So far we've completed the top and middle paddocks, with only the large bottom paddock left to do. However, since we've removed the fence between the middle paddock and the top paddock, maybe they classify as a single paddock now! The fence was very well made, but Jim managed to extract the six-foot posts (half underground) with the aid of a 2-tonne hydraulic jack. The space has now a much more open feel and view, and we've put down a more secure pathway instead of the old chicken ladder.

We've been eating very well, with the polytunnel virtually eliminating the 'hungry gap'. Already this month, we've had beetroot, broad beans, pak choi and courgettes from the polytunnel, colourful salads most days and heaps of globe artichokes. And wild rocket is a new weed in our garden - the kind of weed we like!

The chicks at one month

The chicks are growing fast. At the age of three weeks, they got a slight shock - it rained for the first time in their lives! Can't be many Scottish chickens that lucky. Out of the five, three are hens and two cockerels. Luckily three more hens was exactly what we wanted. We'll keep our flock black-and-white with two more black hens and one white one. The cockerels will be for the pot, unless one of them is needed to replace Feathers who's been spending a lot of time on the therapist's couch recently...

P-P-P-Put up a polytunnel!

Back when it was shiny and new.

We're now just over a year into our experience of polytunnel growing. Definitely a success. Very happy that we decided to go for one. It extends the growing season considerably for a number of crops, and expands the range of growing possibilities.

If you're a grower of veg living some place with lots of wind or short summers and long winters, a polytunnel is a great option.

Polytunnel vs greenhouse (or glass house) is a classic debate. What it really boils down to is cost. To cover a given area, the polytunnel comes in a lot cheaper, even if you go (as you should) for the highest spec you can afford.

The chosen spot.

Before even getting to the tunnel, selection of a site is key. A bit of shelter is helpful, if available, but direct sun is probably more important. The ground doesn't have to be exactly level, but shouldn't be too far off, and there has to be sufficient space on all sides to work when putting the thing up.

Choose a tunnel

As usual, we did quite a lot of research before selecting a tunnel. There are a lot of options out there. For us, strength was right at the top of the desirable qualities list, as we knew it would have to stand up to some very strong winds here, particularly through the winter. That helped to narrow the field for a start. A good rummage around through gardener's forums etc. online soon flagged up some brands to forget about and a few to look more closely at.

Putting it up.

This leads directly into the nitty gritty of what the tunnel is made from and how it's anchored and, again, there's considerable variability on these points. Gauge of steel used and tube diameter of the hoops, how many sections they come in, what cross members are used, anchoring system, thickness of cover plastic - all affect the strength, durability and, of course, cost of the unit.

Cost, naturally, came next on our list of considerations. We're always looking for value, but will pay what we have to, to get good quality. There's no point in 'saving' a third on something that will only last a quarter as long.

Securing the cover to the frame.

Our final criterion was ease of erection. There are quite a few different systems for securing the cover to the frame, some more, some less user-friendly. Getting the cover on really snugly is a critical determinant of its lifespan, so we wanted to go for one that would give us the best chance of getting it right on the first attempt.

Put it up

Our chosen tunnel is 20 x 8 feet, with screw anchors at each hoop base and a clever wire-clamp system for securing the cover to the frame. We put it up over 2 days, the frame on the first and the cover on the second. It's a huge sheet of plastic, so it's vital to do this on a windless day!

The first critical step, and one that was surprisingly tricky, is getting the positions of the anchor points correct, so that all four corners are exactly 90° square. It's really important to get this right, so mark it out with stakes and string, then check and re-check using the Pythagorean 3-4-5 method on each corner. For those whose geometry might be a little rusty, the length of the sides of a right angle triangle are always in the proportions of 3-4-5.

Finally: the door.

Putting anti-hotspot tape over the steel frame everywhere it will contact the plastic is a simple way to extend the life of the cover: don't skip this out.

Make sure you have as many helpers on hand as necessary to get the cover on nice and tight. The design we chose was okay for two people to put up - one to hold the plastic while the other did the clamping - but I've heard that other types, such as the traditional trench-fixing, are better done with at least three.

So, two day's effort to finish putting up our very first polytunnel - not bad. The second would obviously be easier with the experience, but I'm in no particular hurry to do it again.

The finished article fits in nicely.

I must confess that there was a certain amount of trepidation in the air when the first of the big winter gales struck, but that tunnel is rock solid and has so far stood it all without complaint. Well, almost without complaint. The one thing that couldn't quite take it is the velcro fastening on the vent panel cover at the back end of the tunnel (visible in the photo above). No matter how firmly we press that on, it will blow off with a strong wind pressing against it. My solution has been to screw a couple of 'storm boards' into the aluminium frame across the vent. It does the job, but that fastening seems to me to be the one design flaw in the whole setup. Perhaps a zip fastener would have been a better bet.

Next time: Growing in the tunnel
Extend your growing season and range.