The Great Indoors

After the uproar inadvertently caused by my blogpost last week which prompted an unprecedented number of comments (three plus my replies, so far), I feel I ought to tone it down a bit today and steer clear of any potentially hazardous topics or who knows, I might jeapordise my very existence at Pilsdon. One of the tree-hugger lobby might decide they’ve had enough and decide to do something they might regret (or worse, not regret). Besides, I have had a request from a faithful French follower of this blog to expand on the subject of Pilsdon’s glasshouses which, if I can steer clear of any mention of the three birch trees that are growing dangerously close to the back of the large one, should be pretty safe ground. Here goes.

Broad beans and lettuce in the large polytunnel

Pilsdon is well endowed with indoor growing space. There’s the large glasshouse (40' by 16') which featured in last week’s notorious blogpost, and next to it is the big polytunnel (50' by 20') which a whole team of us re-skinned, re-doored, and laid down concrete paths in the spring of 2012. Tucked away on the other side of the orchard is another polytunnel (65' by 12'), narrower but longer than the first, and then there are two small greenhouses which we use for raising seedlings until they are ready to be ‘transplanted’ into the soil somewhere (either outside or in a polytunnel/glasshouse). Seedlings are often started off in one of two electrically-heated germination cabinets in the potting shed; we use nine or twelve-celled plastic trays filled with sieved peat-free compost from the local garden centre and carefully (or recklessly, depending on who’s doing it) pop a seed in each cell.

Garlic and broad beans in the big glasshouse

Stuff we only tend to grow indoors: tomatoes, aubergines, sweet peppers, chilli peppers, i.e the real warmth-lovers. And stuff we normally grow both indoors and out in the fresh air: cucumbers, courgettes, french beans, runner beans, squash, pumpkins, beetroot, carrots, and more.  We have recently tried melons and okra in the polytunnel but neither were a great success. 

After harvesting, all the soil indoors has manure or compost dumped on it and dug in - Pilsdon is fortunate in having a constant supply of muck from our cows and pigs that we let rot down over a year or so.

Another view of the glasshouse - the dormant vines just visible at the back

Each year we plan what goes where. To keep things simple, what gets sown in the large glasshouse and polytunnel are simply switched each year as they are both of similar size. So in 2013 the large polytunnel had the french & runner beans, garlic, squash, cucumbers, okra and beetroot while the large glasshouse had the tomatoes, aubergines, peppers and early potatoes. This two-year rotation hinders any veg-specific diseases building up in the soil, although normally a three or four year rotation is recommended (we practice a four-year rotation in our four main outdoor beds). The glasshouse also has two beautiful one-year-old grapevines at the back, one for white grapes and the other red, whose recent brush with death for the sake of a couple of trees is dealt with elsewhere. Bill sows whatever he feels like in the other polytunnel.

It also pays to squeeze in an extra harvest in the spring by sowing indoors in the autumn - the extra warmth and shelter allows some veg to grow successfully throughout the winter. So in April and May this year Pilsdon were eating loads of delicious fresh broad beans, cabbages, cauliflower and spinach that I’d sown the previous September (I missed out on eating them by moving to Wales in April, sadly). The over-wintered broccoli and beetroot didn’t yield so much.  This autumn we were a bit late but even so we have serried ranks of broad bean plants pushing their way into glory, three stately rows of garlic, some directly-sown spinach poking their noses up and in the small greenhouse some young cauliflower (27) and cabbage (36) in celltrays, not mature enough to go in yet.

The 'small' polytunnel, currently with green manure growing (field beans and mustard) that will be dug in to improve the soil

None of our greenhouses or polytunnels are heated. In the depths of last winter I had to prop most of the broad bean plants up with sticks as they were flopping over in the bitter cold, but they all survived. 

Winter is a good time to carry out those maintenance tasks that are so easy to put off. The concrete floor in the big polytunnel allows easy sweeping and a cleansing with water. The big glasshouse windows need a good clean with a long-handled mop (ours has a jet attachment to direct water on at the same time). Any broken panes are replaced (we had a couple blow out from a small greenhouse during last month’s big storm). Rips in polytunnel plastic are taped up. I’ve heard of people fumigating their greenhouses with a sulphur candle to kill all fungal and bacterial nasties but that’s generally not an option for us as there’s always some crop or other in there.

Now to sit back and wait for all the angry comments to flood in from those offended by the idea of killing fungi...