Some benefits of growing vegetables in Polytunnels:

• Polytunnels retain additional heat to facilitate plant growth
• Polytunnels give protection from frost and drying winds
• Polytunnels protect delicate seedlings and young plants for transplanting and later sowing out
• Stand-in polytunnels provide a comfortable place to garden in adverse weather - add a chair, radio or good book for a relaxing bolt-hole
• Small polytunnels are ideal for allotments
• Polytunnels extend the growing season by at least 40% in Ireland
• Plus, of course, home-grown vegetables and fruit are much tastier and healthier and you can grow earlier and later so avoid paying higher, out-of-season shop prices
• Reassurance: by growing your own vegetables, you know exactly what has been used on them
• Grow vegetables from seed. Save money & also try varieties which you won't get in the supermarkets
• No air miles with your own vegetables & fruit
• Warm up your watering cans - young plants & seedlings prefer warmer water and it advances the growth if you water with warmer water

Our stand-in tunnels include a screen door so there is a constant airflow, reducing condensation and avoiding mould. We suggest having a screen door at each end.

Start off your hanging baskets for an early, healthy display

Get going earlier: Enjoy high temperatures, even in late February with your JM High Side Polytunnel

Raised vegetable beds

Raised Vegetable Beds are the ideal complement to your polytunnel. By sowing seeds early in your polytunnel to get a head start and planting out when the frosts are over (usually early June), you can ensure a steady stream of fresh vegetables for the table.

• Raised vegetable beds warm up earlier in the year, drain better and allow you to concentrate enriched soil in a small, productive area. (Organic growers feed the soil, not the plant). The ideal width is 4ft, allowing you to work from either side without treading down (compacting) soil in your beds. Each winter, simply add more manure, compost etc and cover the beds with cardboard or polythene to supress weeds. Suitable crops for raised beds include potatoes, onions, cabbage, peas, beans, radishes, lettuce, beetroots and many more. Once you have your JM polytunnel installed, you can start off most vegetables earlier in the season - then simply plant them out when the soil warms up.

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Growing delicious strawberries in your polytunnel

Instead of providing a feast for slugs and birds, why not sow some strawberry plants in your polytunnel?. Some gardeners grow them in hanging baskets in their polytunnels. Either way, strawberries will thrive inside. Feed them weekly with Tomato Feed once the flowers appear. Strawberry plants are available from garden centres. Multiply your plants by growing the runners: Click for YouTube guide from Claire's allotment

Sow earlier, get healthier plants and extend the growing season with a JM Polytunnel

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Why not grow and harvest your own fresh Vegetables?

Vegetable Growing Tips from JM Polytunnels

Growing Tips: Grow your early carrots in toilet roll inners. They like to develop long straight roots and you can plant the whole tube out when the weather improves, without disturbing their roots. Keep them moist, thin them out for fatter carrots or grow a bunch together for stir fries. The inners can also be used for peas, beans, peppers, chillis and dozens of other plants. The cardboard degrades into the soil and helps to retain moisture for the roots. It also deters slugs and other pests.

Growing tomatoes in your polytunnel.

Tomatoes like good root depth in their growing medium. Growbags are good but lack the depth for the roots to fully develop.

• Tip1: Here's a tip for improving your results. Cut the bottom off a good-sized plastic pot and sink it into the growbag (having cut a flap out of the plastic first.). Fill the pot around the tomato plant with growbag compost from a spare bag. This raises the depth of compost by at least 100%. Water thoroughly and keep watered. Polytunnel plants demand watering more frequently than their outside counterparts. Feed with tomato feed once the tomato plant has flowered and begins to 'set' fruit.
• Tip2: Run a string from the rail of your polytunnel to the plant and wind (or tie-in) the plant around the string as it grows to support it. You can pinch out the top of the plant if it gets too tall. Result: much healthier and productive plants. The lack of wind will enable the plant to flourish. Keep picking the tomatoes as they ripen. You can make delicious chutney from any surplus tomatoes: Tomato Chutney Recipe here

Chitting your seed potatoes

'Chitting' is the process of allowing healthy shoots to develop on your seed potatoes, prior to sowing in the ground or containers. Chitting gives you an earlier crop. Your polytunnel will provide the warmth and shelter from drying winds while you chit your spuds. Avoid direct sunlight. If the spuds start to go soft, remove to colder location such as shed. Once the shoots are an inch or more long, plant them with the most 'eyes' or shoots upwards. See packs for depth and spacing. Planting under black plastic will save a lot of labour - cut slits when the shoots push up the plastic.

Further Reading: For more information on growing vegetables we recommend Grow your Own Vegetables - Joy Larkcom (Available from Eason and other retailers). See below for other recommended books and seed suppliers.

Encourage wildlife with a small pond. The frogs it attracts will feast on slugs and other pests if you can site it near to your vegetable beds.

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Supermarket vegetables vs Growing your own

Vegetables grown for supermarkets have been developed to withstand transport (often internationally) and to have a long shelf-life. Unfortunately, this has been achieved at the expense of most of the flavour and texture. Armour-plated, tasteless tomatoes are just one example. Chlorine is used on lettuces. Farmer's markets now sell organic produce but usually at a whopping price premium. So what's the solution? By growing your own traditional, 'heritage' varieties of vegetables, you and your family can rediscover the true taste of fresh produce almost year-round and at an affordable price - and you'll know exactly what's been used to grow it. See below for seed suppliers.

Some Useful Vegetable Gardening Links:

The Book Depository for all books & free delivery worldwide!

Polytunnel Books

Once you get your polytunnel, you might consider buying these books:

NEW: The Polytunnel Gardening Book by Joyce Russell, West Cork-based gardener.

Recommended by our staff!

Although the Irish climate is a great one for growing a wide variety of crops we are limited to cool climate produce. If you want to grow a broader range of crops and extend your season then a polytunnel is a cost effective solution. This book is a very practical guide to polytunnel gardening and will help you get the best value out of a small space. For both beginners and experienced gardeners alike it provides the knowledge you need to succeed!

Buy The Polytunnel Gardening Book by Joyce Russell from Quickcrop.ie

The Book Depository for all books & free delivery

Read more about Joyce Russell's polytunnel gardening here

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Are you using your polytunnel to its full potential? If so, not only will it provide you with tomatoes and cucumbers in the summer, but you’ll also be harvesting fresh crops all year round, even when the ground outside is frozen. You could be harvesting sweet potatoes and late celery in November; winter radish, baby carrots and celeriac in early February; and salads leaves right through the winter. Even in the ‘hungry gap’ you’ll have a choice of new potatoes, pak choi, broad beans, peas, tender cabbages, cauliflower, beetroot and more. How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel has all the information you need to make the most of this precious covered space, including:
• a crop-by-crop guide to the growing year
• a dedicated chapter on growing for the ‘hungry gap’
• a sowing and harvesting calendar to help with planning
• detailed advice on growing a wide range of crops
• your tunnel’s first year – timely advice for new tunnel gardeners.

Reviews: “Andy and Mark are fast becoming Britain’s polytunnel gurus. This is an
excellent sequel to The Polytunnel Handbook, and will show you how to make productive use of every square inch of space.” – Simon McEwan, Editor, Country Smallholding

Click to buy How to grow food in your polytunnel all year round - (from Walnut Books, Ireland)

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Click to Buy The Polytunnel Handbook here Pioneering book, covering the planning, siting, erecting, using and maintaining your polytunnel. Aimed more at the DIY organic gardener. (from the Irish Seedsavers website)

Click to buy Gardening under plastic by Bernard Salt (on Amazon)

Vegetable Growing Books:

The vegetable & herb expert - D G Hessayon

The world's bestselling book on vegetables and herbs has been fully revised, updated and expanded. The chapter on herbs has been hugely increased. Available online from these 2 Irish sources:

www.quickcrop.ie

www.eason.ie/

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Grow your Own Vegetables - Joy Larkcom (Available from Eason and other booksellers)

Recommended by our staff!

This popular guide contains everything you need to know to create a highly-productive, beautiful vegetable plot. Joy Larkcom’s easy-to-follow advice covers every aspect of vegetable gardening, including preparing and looking after soil; manures, composts and fertilizers; growing techniques; pests, diseases and weeds; protection; and planning and making good use of space. The second half of the book provides cultivation information for over 100 vegetables, including site and soil requirements, cultivation, pests and diseases, and cultivars. Comprehensively revised, the book now includes unusual vegetables from the increasingly wide range available today, new varieties and modern techniques, and up-to-date research. It addresses the concerns of 21st-century gardeners and is totally organic in its approach.

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Creative Vegetable Gardens - Joy Larkcom (Available from Eason)

Vegetable gardens needn't be dull-looking and functional. Joy Larkcom believes passionately that a vegetable garden, whatever its size, can be as beautiful as a conventional garden of flowers and shrubs. In ""Creative Vegetable Gardening"", she shows how the principles of good design can be applied to a kitchen plot and how to use the vibrant textures, colours, and forms of vegetables, herbs, and fruit to create glorious effects and intriguing patterns without jeopardizing their productivity. Inspirational colour photographs of potagers and kitchen plots capture the essence of the creative approach to vegetable growing. Techniques are described in clear stages and illustrated with full-colour step-by-step artworks, while an A-Z directory includes more than 150 edible plants with key facts on their cultivation, supplemented with ideas on how to grow them to maximum ornamental effect. Beautifully illustrated, intricate plans of five types of potager – formal, informal, small, urban, and winter – add to the wealth of inspirational information.""Creative Vegetable Gardening"" will capture the imagination and inspire all those who think that growing garden produce is mundane. From creating a full-scale potager to simply adding some new effects with vegetables, this book has something for beginners and experienced gardeners alike.

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Grow your own - Carol Klein (available from Eason)

This is a TV tie-in for a new BBC TV series “Grow Your Own Veg!” by TV presenter and highly regarded gardener Carol Klein, who has collaborated with the Royal Horticultural Society to create a lavishly illustrated, easy-to-follow, practical and inspiring beginner’s handbook to everything anyone ever needs to know to grow vegetables, salads, and herbs all year round. “Grow Your Own Veg!” complements and builds upon the information covered in the TV series of the same name and provides all the practical know-how to get growing your own vegetables. Combining Carol Klein’s no-nonsense and enthusiastic approach to gardening, much loved by viewers of “Gardeners’ World” on BBC TV, with the horticultural best practice from the Royal Horticultural Society, this is a genuinely step-by-step beginner’s guide to growing an aspirational but achievable range of food plants. Whatever the size of a garden, this is a book to convert readers to the pleasures of growing and harvesting their own food plants. From preparing a plot, planning what to plant, and how to grow any one of the 40 featured food plants, this is a book to which veg growers can return every year, whatever their level of expertise.

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New Book:

Vegetables For The Irish Garden
Klaus Laitenberger

Description:  Specially tailored for Irish growing conditions, Vegetables For The Irish Garden covers all aspects of organic vegetable growing.  Very clearly laid out and easy to use, it describes each vegetable in detail with excellent information on all aspects of cultivation as well as history and a touch of folklore. This makes for a very useful guide as you can decide which crops you want to grow and refer to each chapter where you will find all the information on sowing, spacing, rotation, harvesting and potential problems you may encounter with growing each vegetable.  The book also covers ground preparation, soil fertility, composting, organic pest, disease and weed control, green manuring, and has a month by month guide as well an an excellent section of colour photos. It is the second of only two books I know of aimed at organic growing in the Irish climate and a very welcome publication. It will be an invaluable resource for all vegetable growers in Ireland, especially for finding appropriate sowing dates and suitable vegetable varieties for the Irish climate, as these often differ substantially from UK conditions. Format: Paperback, 296 pages.
 
Reviews: "Klaus has spent many years learning the art and craft of vegetable growing, experimenting with different plants and techniques, and passing on his knowledge to countless students of all ages. The last ten years have been spent in Ireland, where you could say that his teacher has been the Irish climate and Irish conditions. So he has mastered the vagaries of boggy soils, high rainfall, the most common pests and diseases, and has distilled what he has learnt into this book. It embraces everything from lazy beds to green manuring: there's even a section on the common mistakes beginners make. This book will be an invaluable source of information for vegetable growers here -novices and experienced alike."  Joy Larkcom

Vegetables For The Irish Garden
Klaus Laitenberger: Available from the author

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The Book Depository for all books & free delivery

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Vegetable growing advice Video Guides: There's nothing like watching someone do something to learn how to do it yourself. Check out these YouTube videos:

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click for RHS Vegetable Growing Video Guides

Bunty's blog - veg sowing, growing outdoors & in a polytunnel (YouTube)

Claire's Allotment Part 1
Great series of outdoor vegetable growing video tips (YouTube)

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Click to read the RHS Grow Your Own monthly web guide here

Click to read Thompson & Morgan web guide - in the garden this month

Why use a polytunnel? - advice from FirstTunnels in the UK (on YouTube)

See Bill & Martin's DIY polytunnel in the UK - good use of space (on YouTube)

Raised Beds - great ideas from a Liverpool plot (on YouTube)

Grow your own vegetables guide, Ireland

NEW: Grow your own spuds - Very useful SAGA guide "How easy is it to grow potatoes?"

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 Vegetable Seeds by Mail Order:

If you want to grow heritage, cold weather tolerant or new varieties of vegetables, you might have to order them from specialist suppliers. Here are a few to get you started:

Irish Seedsavers - saving Irish traditional varieties. Mail order service

Brown Envelope Seeds, Skibbereen - good variety & polytunnel box of seeds available

Mail Order Seeds: Bakker Organic Vegetable Seeds - Ireland

Seedaholic.com - Co. Mayo. Seed Packs for allotments etc.

The Real Seed Catlogue (Based in Wales, mail order service)

Dobies of Devon  Dobies are proud to have been awarded the coveted "Best Buy" Seed Supplier by Which? Gardening. (Mail order service)

Other gardening links:

Coilte Nurseries, Ardattin, Co. Carlow - bare-root hedging at great prices - mail order

Native Wildflower Seeds, Crettyard, Co. Laois : mind-numbing selection of beautiful Irish native wildflower seeds - mail order & advice given

Greenside Up If you'd like advice & training courses on growing your own vegetables, check out Dee Sewell at the excellent Co.Carlow-based Greenside Up for dates of beginners' workshops or site visits. See a photo set of Greenside Up's community gardening course at Goresbridge, Co, Kilkenny here

BBC Gardeners Calendar - a bit overly technical, but useful info nonetheless.

Remember to enjoy your garden:

"I used to visit and revisit my garden a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green". Nathaniel Hawthorne, Mosses from and Old Manse

Please suggest your relevant web links, particularly in Ireland and we will reciprocate if suitable.