Polytunnel build interior.

Now the polytunnel is up, it's time to do what I like the most, design and build. Also it's been a few days now with the tunnel up and if I haven't already said, we are super happy with it and the size is perfect.

Now is the time to finalise our interior layout designs and start building, all the things I love most about having an allotment. We will share all our plans for how we want it to look in this blog, but in the real world our plan is to build as much as we can for now with the wood and compost we have, then build the rest as we get the materials.

As always with any allotment build I start by digging out my trusted old sketch book and put pen to paper and sketch out some designs.

As you can see, as well as some traditional layout ideas I have also come up with a few for maximising the growing space. But to be honest I think as this is our first polytunnel we may stay as simple as we can for now and not get too carried away. It's quite easy for me to go all in and over build it but the issues then could be that we have too much space and don't use it properly.

Once I completed the sketches me and the wife sat down and discussed what we felt would work best, as she is the green fingered one it is vital she is happy with how the layout flows and how practical it will be. We both agreed that the final design layout would work best for us in our first year with the tunnel. That design has space for seedlings, as well as a central bed so we can grow large vine plants like cucumbers and melons. Taking advantage of the amazing amount of height we have.

For the interior we decided we wanted to cover the whole floor with a membrane and then build raised beds on the top, but as we didn't have the membrane yet I cracked on with building the beds starting with the central one. This also helped me work out the dimensions and positioning of all the beds.

We are building the raised beds in stages starting with the central raised bed then the left hand side one. This is not only as we do not have all the compost and wood yet but also the right hand side of the tunnel is going to be used for our potatoes, which this year the majority we are growing in buckets and bags. Once we harvest these potatoes I will build the right hand side bed and use the compost from them to fill it. Hopefully without any rogue seed potatoes left in it

As you can see in the photo above, I decided to also line the raised beds with a membrane. This is because our floor is not 100% level and I am worried that the compost would just leak out the sides.

To finish off the central bed I created a nice top edge using pallet planks. It just helps frame the bed and also hide the membrane. I am thinking it will also stop soil loss and give us something to lean on or even sit on when working in the bed. As you can see in the photograph we planted a cantaloupe melon straight away. I really hope this works as my daughter loves them, we took a trip to France in 2018 and we didn't realise that on a Sunday in France nowhere was open, so after an 5 hour drive from Paris to the Loire Valley with no food we were grateful that the gite we stayed in had a food basket with cheese, bread and also two of the cantaloupe melons. Melon and cheese has never tasted so good.

The next bed was the bed to the left. This bed runs most of the way down the side of the tunnel with gaps at either end. The plan is to put plant pots at the top end with maybe some sort of fruit in or even some leftover tomatoes and the back end we will have staging.

Once built, I again lined the bed with a membrane and filled half the large bed with the compost we had to hand and then put some brassicas in. I am really intrigued to how these will grow as we have never had much luck growing them outside. I will keep you posted with their progress on our Instagram.

Jumping forward a few weeks we finally got the rest of the bed filled and put a row of carrots in it. In the central bed we have planted kale, courgettes, tomatoes, lettuce and cucumbers. The lettuce will only be there till harvest, then they will have their own bed once I build it. On the right there is a row of potatoes as well as three large plant pots with peas in.

I am really happy with the layout so far, we have a good amount of growing space and also a good amount of space to move around in. As for the next step, I have decided not to build staging at the end now, instead I am going to build more beds. The plan is to do it on two levels so I can have a salad bed high off the ground.

I will put more photos below to show how things are growing. What I will say is we have the same kale planted outside and it's barely grown at all and the kale in the tunnel is not long off harvesting.

You can see how well our potatoes are doing in place down the side.

You can also see how well our brassicas are doing in the bed to the side.

The courgettes and tomatoes are flowering already.

We still have more to do but for now we are happy we can start growing . This first year is one big experiment and I am looking forward to seeing what we can grow and how well it grows.