Last week was a busy week for all things garden based.  However, Monday will forever be known as ‘The Day of the Polytunnel’.

We had been waiting a while to order it as, although we needed one, we were unsure where to put it.  The delivery came and Jon put it in storage for a week whilst I mustered up the courage to attempt to build the beast.

The experience was a long one. Well, at least it felt like it.  We fought long and hard to put up the structure with minimal assistance from the manufacturer.  We opened the box, pulled out the instructions and laughed to ourselves.  No wonder the comments on Amazon said the instructions were bad;

Saying that, we managed it.  In semi-reasonable time too! We were secretly a little impressed with ourselves even though the father figure kept looking into the garden and shaking his head.  The reviews said it took 2 hours to put together.  I’m sure these people had a little more sense than us.  It took us 2 and a half.  Not bad going for complete novices.  There were a few occasions where, if our relationship was weaker, we would have been throwing in the towel or beating each other with the galvanised tubing.  But we didn’t and we pulled through even when the fixing holes refused to line up for the tenth time.

Once it was finished and we went inside, we realised how big the thing was.  3 meters by 2 meters.  BIG.  Well, for newbies anyway. So, now comes the vast challenge of keeping it full! To tell you the truth, initially, I was excited…. now, I’m just thinking “Jeeze! How many plants am I going to have to store inside the house before the last frost!?”.  The last thing we want to do is excitedly put everything in the greenhouse, for the frost to come and destroy it straight away.  Either way, we now have enough space to grow melons. Probably a lot of them.  Melons, anyone?