Sallygarden Smallholding - The Forum For Sustainable Living

Hi All,

I found a 9m x 35m polytunnel that was used for mushrooms; it needs
new plastic. They want Euro 1,700, it is dis-assembled and needs to be
picked up. We do have enough space for it and have a well for watering.

Do you have any advice?

Best Regards,

Simon

Hi

Welcome to the forum...

... our tunnel is 6.5m x 12m, and 3.4m high and thats fairly huge .. perfect for a v hungry family of 4, enough to freeze for winter, plus surplus to sell. How high is yours? It may be too high to safely put up the plastic yourself, and the weight of the plastic will be restrictive ... you'd definitely need several folk there to help out. Being a large space to cover ... cost up the plastic via Morris/Polydome/Highbank etc, it could be a few hundred. A big structure may well need cement foundations. Again, I'm sure the tunnel suppliers would advise but also be on the sell, to weigh up what they tell you.

the hardest part of putting up the tunnel for us was the site preparation ie digging a trench and putting a land drain pipe all around the perimeter of the tunnel and flowing out down towards a ditch.

I suppose other advice would be to ensure you get a high grade polytunnel plastic to last as long as possible.

Put the plastic up on a still day - thats a very expensive and effective kite you have there until its all weighted down.

Don't try and get all the beds dug in the first year (like we did!). Mulch some over for next season.

Make doors as big as possible to allow best ventilation on still days.

You might consider a watering system .. part sprinkler, part seep hose. Ours cost €100.

Anyone else got advice?

€1700 seems excessive, I paid €200 for 110' x 22' mushroom tunnel, but took it down myself. (we ended up with 75 rolls of insulation).

I split it with a friend. The cost for my polythene was quoted as €370 two years ago. Also need feet, hot spot tape and clips. And make my own doors.

I would get a few quotes for a complete tunnel first.

Regards

Andrew