Gardman walk in polytunnel

Those of you with real staying power, those loyal few who regularly read this blog, will know that I've got the full hand of polytunnels. Way back last year in June I built a 3m wide x 3m high x 10m long fruit cage / polytunnel out of water piping and scaffold netting. That's going really well and has easily withstood the winter weather to be filled this season with raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes and melons.

But this post is to give you an update on the outcome of the April topic on a walk in polytunnel, when I agonised over the decision to part with £82 for a 3m x 2m x 2m Gardman walk in polytunnel. So what follows is a pictorial blow by blow account of the polytunnel construction with a summary of it's likely longevity. Just click on any of the images to enlarge.

Note : If you're thinking of buying one of these polytunnels, please do read the comments at the foot of this post. You can also read the latest update almost three years on at Gardman walk in polytunnel update.

So here's the spot I chose to erect the polytunnel. Quite lucky the space between the shed and greenhouse was just right and would give added protection from the wind. Unlucky that I'd only just installed shelves aiming to raise strawberries (bad idea in the end... they don't like an exposed spot). And having the storage bin there was a bit of a problem too... I'd dug it into the ground so it didn't impede the view from the back of the shed... only to find on first use that when the lid was open I couldn't see out anyway! So it would take a lot of shifting. Not a loss overall though since I hadn't been using it fully for some time and stripped down to the frame it would go on to make a good wood store.

Site cleared and ready for action!

Bit concerned the local rodents might have a field day gnawing through the polytunnel walls so decided to use some paving slabs going spare to surround the base from the outside. Sampson the cockerel isn't particularly impressed with progress.

Paving slab surround now completed, let the digging commence! Decided it would be best to do the heavy duty digging before putting up the polytunnel. Knowing my luck I'd put a spade through the wall otherwise.

Digging finished. After this stage I put in two level raised beds and hammered in levelled wooden pegs on which to rest and tie down the polytunnel frame.

The frame and cover were easy to put up. Once installed I put loads of wood chip into the cavity between the polytunnel and the paving slabs.

On both sides there's just enough room for me to squeeze through if I need to.

After finishing off with wood chip down the middle of the raised beds, the first plants go in... cucumber and squash.

A few weeks later, having kept the zipped front closed to keep the warmth in, plants are growing well. Started to keep the front open to enable pollinating insects to do their job.

Now virtually having to beat the gourds back with a stick to get in the polytunnel.

Tomatoes bursting forth.

Squash flower.

One of the types of gourds I'm growing for the first time.

Another type of gourd getting bigger... and bigger... and bigger! Since you can't eat gourds, wonder what I'm going to use them for? Here's some samples of gourd art. Amazing, eh?

A developing snake gourd, from which you can make a didgeridoo and craft other works of art.

But there are early signs of wear... partly my own fault! When putting up the polytunnel frame make sure you put bolts in so the bolt heads are showing outwards from the frame. It's not so obvious since the easy way is to screw the bolts in the highest part of the frame from the inside out. But this leaves the bolt ends sticking out into the polytunnel cover. I've temporarily compensated for this by covering the bolts with thick cardboard and will repair when I take the cover off in winter... although I am intending to grow lettuce over the winter months so not sure when that'll happen.

My dad

'The lights of Atholl Palace burned bright at night just like a fairy castle'.

And so we found ourselves, close members of the McKinnie family, sat down for afternoon tea at the Atholl Palace Hotel, the location my dad viewed so magically when he first saw it, a lad aged 5 or 6 years old from a tenement in the east end of Glasgow in the midst of the 1930s Great Depression.

I love being with family back home in Scone... it happens all too infrequently. And although the reason for this visit was a sad one, following my dad passing away on Friday 08-July, I know he would have enjoyed seeing his sons and daughters, grandchildren, great grandchildren, wider family and friends all together. Also really satisfying to see how Becky, Beth and John got on so well with all their Scottish cousins. Just a pity David's broken leg meant he couldn't travel.

It was all arranged in a bit of a hurry, made more difficult by the fact that 20,000 Jehovah's Witnesses had descended on Perth for their annual get together. Bed and breakfast vacancies were rarer than hens' teeth. So we stayed at the Murrayshall House Hotel, on the hillside overlooking Scone.

On Thursday evening we found just about the whole family round at mum's giving her support. Dad's drink cabinet is a bit of a legend within the family... everyone knew he had a fair collection hidden away but the joke was no one ever saw more than one bottle at a time. So as the padlock was broken open ~;0) it was no surprise to release some quite exotic liquors into the light of day as all drank to his memory.

The Friday ceremony was of course sombre. A service at St John's RC Church in Perth before a quiet Scots piper led ceremony at Fonab cemetery in Pitlochry. We left Dad in the shadow of Ben Vrackie in the location he so loved to have an afternoon meal at the Atholl Palace Hotel.

On Friday evening we found all the male members of the McKinnie family (excepting David) at Scone Bowling Club furiously attempting to outdo each other at 50p a time dominoes. Lots of banter and general bonhomie, particularly when brother Andy chose a vulnerable time to pop to the loo... just about to start a game, the worst possible hand was selected for him, four dominoes full of sixes and fives. We all had loads of fun watching him innocently trying to play the hand as best he could.

We had a great family weekend, saddened by the fact my dad couldn't be there to enjoy it. Hopefully the eulogy I gave in church did him justice... I've shown it below to give a better idea who my dad was, along with some photos of the weekend.

Today my brother Andy and his son Michael were hoping to climb Ben Vrackie to put some of the earth from dad's grave on the summit and to bring a stone back from the top to go on dad's grave, but unfortunately they'll have to leave it to later since the weather beat them.

There's so many good things to say about my dad, but he asked for his eulogy to be kept short so I'm going to speak about a couple of things I know were really close to his heart.

The first is his love of Pitlochry. This afternoon he'll be heading off to his resting place in the cemetery there. Pitlochry is a lovely place and I knew he liked it, so much so that he bought two houses in view of Ben Vrackie. But clearly his love of Pitlochry was far more deep rooted than many of us realised.

Dad first went to Pitlochry when he was about five or six. His dad, John Sylvester McKinnie, was a stoker on the railways. It was a tough job, the main function being to shovel coal into the engine furnace to keep the steam train barrelling along. One of the perks was an entitlement to free rail tickets and the family started travelling by train each year to Pitlochry for their annual holiday.

Now, viewed from the comfort of the 21st century there seems nothing remarkable about that. But dad was a kid from a tenement in the East End of Glasgow, a Glasgow severely hit by the 1930s Great Depression. His dad had a good job but the family were surrounded by unemployment and deep deprivation. So an annual holiday in the countryside would have been something to cherish.

Not your typical bed and breakfast though... Aunty Kate's cottage was where they stayed in the first few years, on a hillside overlooking Pitlochry, with running water provided from the burn outside. The lights of Atholl Palace burned bright at night just like a fairy castle (dad's words) and Ben Vrackie loomed over a village that even then fairly bustled with visitors brought by the railway.

So it's no wonder dad loved enjoying the sparkling Highland air and wide open spaces with his family. He loved it so much that as a lad he returned year after year, even cycling the 60+ miles to be there in his summer holidays.

And his love of family holidays continued when he had his own brood of five. I remember train rides to Fleetwood in Lancashire, farm holidays in the Lake District. I have a picture at my bedside from one of these trips... of my mum, brothers and sisters all smiling and looking very smart, dad behind the camera lining us all up. Lunch would be banana sandwiches in the back of the car, mum furiously buttering for all she was worth to keep up with the phenomenal consumption.

One year dad managed to borrow a caravan and decided this was to be a full-on first towing experience... he was taking mum and us five kids from one end of the country to the other, all the way from Scotland to Cornwall. I remember as night set in running out of petrol just yards from the overnight camp site, having to hop out at Cirencester to retrieve a stray hubcap, of the car wheezing up hills with a queue behind. The car did a lot more wheezing and stopping on the way back home because of dirt in the fuel pipes, but we had a fabulous family holiday, one of many.

And that was dad's second great love, that for his family. He liked nothing better than to be with his family, with his sisters, with mum to be amongst us sons and daughters, grandchildren and great grandchildren, with all of us laughing and joking, telling stories, reminiscing on old times.

Dad lives on in all 22 of us... through our mannerisms, our way of speaking, our optimism and can do attitude. Even in his two great grandsons Connor and Sammy he's there, both left handed like dad, both of whom peer back at me with dad's pale blue eyes.

He'd love seeing us all here today, together for him and mum.

Thank you everyone for coming to celebrate Dad's life.

A small selection of the family gathered on Thursday evening to support mum and investigate dad's drink cabinet.

An early session of 50p a time dominoes, and brother Andy (in the background) makes the fatal mistake of nipping out to the loo.

The second session of dominoes and all is still general bonhomie.

Brother Bob awards me the triple pot to much dissatisfaction all round. I'm the handsome one on the right of the photo, desperately trying to get the money out of Bob's grasp.

The view from just above dad's resting place showing Ben Vrachie, the Atholl Palace and looking towards Aunty Kate's cottage.

Sunset view from Scone looking towards Pitlochry.

Apple wine easy recipe

My apple wine is a bit of a legend in our family. And I reckon it's the major reason why I'm currently thrashing my sons at the weekly session of darts and pool down at The Legion.

Mind you, it's a delicate balance. The right amount with Sunday tea beforehand and the cycle down, matches and wobble back through the quiet lanes of St Ives go like a dream. I return triumphant, making it one of the best possible evening's entertainment. A little too much and the wobble starts in the middle of the matches, I don't stand a chance and it's anyone's guess where I'll end up on the cycle ride home.

So here's the recipe. No chemicals are used, just all natural ingredients other than Milton baby liquid to sterilise equipment. A great Autumn wine to make. Why not try some of the other Allotment Heaven easy recipes?

I started making this wine for two reasons... firstly its a shame so many apples go to waste in Autumn, and secondly because I was fed up trying to find wine in the shops that didn't have the 'contains sulphites' message hidden away on the back label. Sulphites can cause allergies and a headache.

Every autumn there's an excess of free apples from friends or gathered in the wild. With a bit of organisation, very little effort and a small investment you can make yourself enough sweet white wine to last the whole year. Not sure where to get enough apples? If you don't have any friends desperate to give you their excess have a look around the countryside. Often there are trees along roadsides or footpaths where you can gather the apples for free.

The instructions below are to make five UK imperial gallons of wine, which will give you just under thirty bottles. It's simpler to make large batches of wine since it's easier to bottle without disturbing the sediment.

The cost of equipment is pretty low... about £35 if you acquire the wine bottles by saving from bought white wine. Thereafter your only cost is for sugar, raisins, lemons and some wine yeast... so having made the initial investment in equipment, typically you're enjoying rather nice, strong wine with no sulphite content for well under 50p a bottle! Why wouldn't you want to do it?

Equipment needed

One 5 gallon plastic fermentation barrel with lid

Something for stirring the contents

Milton baby sterilising liquid

Large strainer

Long clear plastic tubing (available from DIY stores)

Funnel

One 5 gallon plastic demijohn

Rubber bung and airlock

30 wine bottles (ideally clear glass)

30 stoppers

Ingredients needed

Enough healthy apples to fill the 5 gallon barrel when quartered and cored... its best if you can get a mix of cooking and eating apples

Wine yeast (follow manufacturer's guidance given on container regarding amount)

8kg of sugar (adjust this depending on how sweet you like your wine)

1kg chopped dark raisins (not sultanas, which are treated with sulphur dioxide)

The juice of 9 lemons

Small cup of black tea (i.e. tea leaves and water, not a full cup of tea leaves)

Method

1. Sterilise the fermentation barrel and lid using the Milton liquid.

2. Wash the apples, quarter and remove the core, place in fermentation barrel until almost full, discarding any bruised bits.

3. Fill with boiling water. It doesn't take all that much since the barrel is so full of apples.

4. Put the lid on and leave for a few days, stirring twice daily.

5. After a few days the apple juice will have seeped out into the water. Strain out the apples and you're left with the apple liquor.

6. Add the sugar, raisins (make sure you've chopped them), lemon juice and tea.

7. Top up with part cold, part hot water (so the temperature of the water is lukewarm) to make up to five gallons and stir to ensure all the sugar is dissolved.

8. Add the wine yeast, stir, cover with lid and store somewhere warm.

9. After a few hours you'll notice something starting to happen... there'll be a froth on the surface as the yeast starts to ferment, turning the sugar into alcohol. Stir the contents twice a day.

10. It will take a couple of weeks or so for the fermentation to finish. Once completed transfer the liquid to the demijohn using the plastic tubing and funnel. Make sure all the equipment has been sterilised with Milton liquid.

11. Avoiding disturbing any sediment, place the fermentation barrel at a higher level than the demijohn (e.g. put the barrel on a table and the demijohn on the floor), put one end of the plastic tubing in the barrel, and having placed the funnel in the neck of the demijohn give the other end of the tubing a strong suck to pull some of the wine in the tube up and over the edge of the barrel. Quickly remove your mouth and put the tube end into the funnel. The wine should start to drain.

12. Avoid transferring any of the sediment from the bottom of the barrel if you can. Once all the liquid is in the demijohn top up with water to bring to five gallons. Seal with the rubber bung and airlock, having put a small amount of diluted Milton liquid in the airlock.

13. You can now store the wine for months somewhere cool and frost free. At first the fermentation may start up again and you'll see bubbles going through the airlock. Gradually the wine will clear.

14. Once fully clear repeat the draining process, this time from the demijohn to sterilised wine bottles. Put a stopper in each bottle and store.

15. The wine will be ready to drink but will improve even more with age. Typically I bottle and start drinking the wine from May onwards. If the wine is too strong dilute with water.