The Polytunnel Handbook by Andy McKee and Mark Gatter

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1st Edition, Paperback

Planning • siting • erecting • using • maintaining

“As someone considering buying a polytunnel, I am so pleased that I read this book first. The Polytunnel Handbook has guided me to the type of tunnel I need, made me think about the use and given me confidence to get started.” – Liz Wright, Editor, Smallholder magazine

The last decade has seen an unprecedented rise in demand for organic fruit and vegetables, and each year more of us are discovering that home-grown food is fresher, tastier and more nutritious than food shipped in from elsewhere. A polytunnel can be used as an affordable, low-carbon aid to growing your own food all year round, from crispy salads and fresh vegetables in the dead of winter to juicy melons and mouth-watering grapes in high summer.

The Polytunnel Handbook looks at all aspects of polytunnel use from planning your purchase to harvesting the rewards, and includes a step-by-step guide detailing how polytunnels are put up and maintained. There are chapters on developing healthy soil and preventing pests, and a jargon-free guide to the range of often mystifying accessories that many tunnel retailers offer. For the DIY enthusiast there is a full set of instructions for building a polytunnel from scratch, and the authors explain how to keep your polytunnel productive in every season.

The Authors: Andy McKee first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five, and since then he has grown in situations ranging from a seventeenth-storey window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas tree plantation. He had his eyes opened to the potential of polytunnels during a visit to one featuring a hot tub warmed by a clay oven. He lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset, and is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables.

Mark Gatter began growing vegetables while homesteading in north California in the early eighties and has been a keen gardener ever since. He’s a firm advocate of an organic, raised-bed approach and relies on a polytunnel to keep fresh food on the table right through the winter. He and his wife share their smallholding in Wales with 11 sheep, several chickens and two dogs.