My New "Grow House"

At last I finally got my new tunnel house built and relocated all my plants.
I have been talking about this for a while and set my self a time limit to have it done before Christmas.
The trick was to turn the half tunnel into a full tunnel utilising all the existing material and at the same time extend to 6 meters so let me show you it taking place.

Some of the material laid out to begin

I am using 2 inch Agriculture water pipe to form the tunnel and  metal roof bracing, I also had to use a smaller sleeve inserted into the bigger pipe to extend the 3 half hoops from the old tunnel.

Extension sleeve to add other half

I have used small Star pickets to slip the pipe over, the tension on the natural curve holds it in place I suppose if you where worried about lifting you could put a bolt through to secure.

Bracing up the hoops 

The bracing comes in 6.2m length so this worked out well. Note my little helpers feeding away with out a worry in the world.

Ready to cover

The first brace up from the ground is placed at the height to take my existing shelving which is recycled pool fencing. The main cover is 50% white horticulture shade cloth just to kill that midday sun and control the wind. As far as I am concerned wind will do more damage than anything.

The cloth  comes in 3.6 wide so 12 meters cut in two works well, I have just over lapped at the join.

I have also joined 2 clear tarps together, they come at 4x3 I just tied them at the eyelets with cable ties.

I have permanently attached at one end and only secured it by rope to pegs at the other so I can roll it back at any time. I am planning to just have it folded at my work end as a little protection if need be and not effecting the plants. I have found it very important to be able to control the weather.

Cover on and plants shifted.

I have relocated the tanks as well until I can move up to a Smart -Pump in the mean time we are still gravity feed, My main line is a 13 ml. with T join reducers to 4 ml. for the Hydro trays naturally with this number of pots its important I have enough water flowing to support them. I need to add more shelving but we are up and running and I can now have more fun.

The plastic tarp comes down to the bench level so works well. I had just finished the installation when it started to rain and by this morning we had 10 ml with every thing looking well this morning.  When the sun comes back I will just roll back the rain cover and have another great day in the garden.

How good is this!  bring on 2012