Our community polytunnel grows both food and friendships
◆ There have been great successes – and a few failures over the years
It started as a way to support a local village initiative, to grow a few veg and herbs for the table and get out of the house on a Saturday morning while my teenage kids lounged in bed.
But now our community polytunnel is threatening to take over most of my free time. In an area with few services, we were given a grant to build it and the 18 raised beds inside.
Many of us who joined the grower’s group had little knowledge of gardening previously, but we had enough combined expertise and good will among the wider community to get started. A local farmer provided 18 dirty sheep’s fleeces, or claggy wool as it is called, to line the bottom of the beds and produce slow release fertiliser.
Topping them with a mixture of topsoil and compost, we got started with our radishes, salad leaves and tatties – all the easiest things to grow for novices.
In the intervening years, we’ve become more adventurous. We have a productive vine and a healthy crop of asparagus each year. One member grows some of the hottest chilli peppers I’ve ever braved while another produces edible flowers which fill the polytunnel with spectacular blooms for months on end.
As for the rest of us, we’ve learned as we’ve gone along, and granted, made some mistakes. Planting a terrorist horseradish was one of mine, as it became a constant battle of wills to stop it taking over. Likewise the year that I grew a pumpkin was a lesson in efficient use of space. The triffid-like beast produced only one, albeit impressive, fruit. I don’t even like pumpkin pie.
But I’ve also had countless triumphs – spectacular coloured heritage tomatoes, beautifully ripe corn on the cob and the kale and brussels that keep us going through the winter. And of course everything tastes better when you have grown it yourself.
You might say that the £50 yearly subscription, plus the cost of seeds, tools and time mean that the price per unit per cucumber is the same as if it were hand delivered from Harrods.
But the camaraderie of swapping seedlings and advice with my bedneighbours, getting together for (courgette-heavy) annual harvest lunches and sharing gluts of our produce throughout the year is priceless.