Well, these little home-made polythene cloches haven't exactly stilled my envy of those with space for a full-size polytunnel, but at least they should enable me to extend my growing season for salads into the winter months.
A little while ago I decided to get a new shower curtain as the one in place at the time was definitely past its best. Rather than throw the thing away I thought I could probably use it somehow as the plastic was still transparent enough to let light through and I hit on the idea of making some 'tents' with it to put over my wine box growing containers. I found some metal hoops in a garden centre which fit the size of my wooden wine boxes perfectly and cut pieces of the shower curtain to cover the hoops which I then stapled in place with an ordinary stapler. I did the stapling while the hoops were in place in empty wine boxes so that I could be sure everything would fit together.
After filling the wine boxes with compost I sowed a few rows of hardy salads and winter greens in one, and planted previously grown seedlings (of the same) in the other. After giving the compost a good watering I slid the metal hoops into the corners of each box so that the compost surface was completely covered by the cloche. At the same time I planted garlic cloves into another box, but left this one uncovered.
Seedlings of mustard and lettuce have germinated well and need thinning out now. Older plants of salad onions and chard are further back.
Land cress and Claytonia (miners lettuce) were planted as plugs grown in module trays.
So far, the weather seems to have been unseasonably warm this autumn and everything under the cloches has grown exceedingly quickly without any real need for the protection they provide. It will be interesting to see how the cloches and the plants hold up as the weather turns colder and whether or not I can keep them cropping on into the spring.
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