Polytunnel Island

Its all very well planting courgettes under old bed frames pulled from skips and covered in plastic, but the only way to 'grow your own' properly on Lewis is to get a polytunnel.

We had re-dug the large ditches running either side of a flat section of croft by the house and named it Polytunnel Island. It took a while but eventually we bought the required piece of equipment to complete the name.

Our tunnel is 6m x 3m, and it was cheap!  I hereby give in to the idea, perhaps fact, that it will not last in the Hebridean environment, but we did so much research for so long and talked to so many people about which was the best tunnel to buy that we
a) never got round to buying it, and
b) couldn't afford the one that looked the best - despite the hope that we could get a grant to cover some of the cost.
But this year we are following the Nikey mantra 'Just Do It', so we are.

The polystyrene boxes came from a local fish farm - they were brand new packaging cases, but someone in marketing noticed they needed to change the name on the box.  They say 'Wild Scottish Salmon', but should have read 'Farmed in Wild Scotland', two very different things and something which would warrant a whole other blog post on fish farming...

...but anyway, I had to drive the van to Scalpay to pick the boxes up.  The fish-farm had a warehouse full of them and had contacted the Lewis & Harris Horticultural Producers group to see if any of their members could put them to good use.  Perfect, we thought, but unfortunately the logistic of picking them up from Harris proved too much for most growers and the majority of the boxes ended up in landfill.  Such a shame when needless waste occurs despite the best intentions.

As the year has continued though, they have been just the thing for our softer crops and seedlings.

Baby courgettes, picked young and roasted whole

Mixed lettuce leaves

Tomatoes

Oregano at the back, guerkin at the front

Meanwhile outside things have grabbed a couple of months of hot weather too. Beetroot, turnip, swede, rhubarb, red onions, rooster potatoes, cabbage and broad beans have all done well. Sometimes they have had a boost from an old bed frame cloche, but some have been given special treatment in our newest vegetable patch, carved out of the marsh grass last year with a digger.

Potatoes in the new bed - purpose built cloches in the background, made by Mark - they seem incredibly superior after my tatty bits of plastic on bed frames!

The beloved and faithful courgettes, 3 different varieties this year

and of course theres always eggs from our lovely hens... when they're not going broody and putting their sisters off laying...

One day, perhaps we will make it to our dream of having a Pick-Your-Own-Vegetables-and-More shop.

Customers will come and pick their own food from the ground so it is always fresh (home grown veg goes off noticeably quicker than shop bought because there are no chemical sprays on home produce...)

In the same way that at the moment my customers wander in and ask for eggs, I hope they could come in and wander around the vegetable patches, choosing what's ready and in season.

It's a way off yet, too many hurdles to straddle in learning what grows well in our Hebridean conditions.  But by getting the polytunnel on polytunnel island this year, I feel we are a step closer....