Premier Polytunnels Blog

There are few things more rewarding than growing your own vegetables and reaping the rewards in the form of a delicious stew, curry or as an accompaniment to a succulent Sunday roast.

That feeling of satisfaction when you’ve cultivated your own crops, right through from planting to harvesting, is one that’s difficult to match for all the keen gardeners out there. It’s vital that you carefully protect your veg plot, otherwise the trimmings around your Christmas dinner could look decidedly measly, and one great way to do this is by employing crop rotation.

But if you’re wondering what are the advantages of crop rotation and how you go about it or indeed what crop rotation even is, here at Premier Polytunnels, we can provide the answers.

Whether it’s based on a farm, smallholding, allotment or in a back garden, polytunnels are hugely useful. Designed to retain heat, they provide the ideal conditions for plant growth, meaning that your plans don’t have to be dictated by seasonal changes. While traditionally used for cultivating fruits and vegetables, many have been updated to house sheep and other livestock. Yet as hardy as they are, like anything, they can be susceptible to damage. Whatever’s caused yours to wane in standard, you can easily rectify it. Look no further than our guide to find out how to repair polytunnels effectively.

It may not show nature in bloom, but winter is still a spectacular time of year. Just think of the snowy landscape and frost on the trees. Pretty as it is, however, this season often affects plants that aren’t fully protected. Cold weather can cause the water in a plant’s cells to freeze, damaging cell walls and causing it to wilt.

Tender plants are more easily impacted; if hit by frost damage, they tend to appear limp, blackened and distorted, while their leaves take on a translucent look. However, strong plants and evergreens are also vulnerable to severe cold. In the event of frozen soil, their roots become unable to absorb water, causing the plant to die from dehydration.

Therefore, frost protection for plants is crucial. To achieve this, a strategy is needed. To help you protect your garden during the chilly months, we’ve created a straightforward guide.

For the keen gardeners among us, there are few things more frustrating than seeing your plants and vegetables ruined by the weather or those pesky pests.

But fear not, for there is a simple solution at hand!

A cloche – the French word for ‘bell’ – could help your garden thrive and here at Premier Polytunnels we have a range of garden cloches to suit your needs.

Acting as a cover for plants or vegetables, the very earliest models were initially made of glass but now there are many different types, including polythene cloches or shade net cloches. But what are the benefits and why should you be using them? Read on to find out.

The unpredictable UK weather can prove problematic for farmers, so it’s important to plan for all eventualities and ensure your livestock remain adequately protected.

Lambing season, for example, is a crucial time for the agricultural industry so it is imperative your sheep are well taken care of in the form of efficient sheep housing.

Sheep polytunnels are the best way to reduce lambing losses by shielding your flock from harsh weather conditions or predators, as well as offering additional feeding help.

We’ve put together this handy guide to help take you through the best practices when it comes to meeting your sheep housing requirements.

Bees are crucial for gardeners. This is because they are pollinators, and pollination is needed for plants to reproduce. Therefore, to promote healthy crops that return season after season, gardeners aim to encourage bees into their allotments and onto their vegetable patches.

Whether you’re new to gardening or you’ve been growing crops for a while, it’s important to fully understand why pollination is important and how it works. If you have been trying to entice pollinators into your polytunnel for a while but you have always wondered how bees pollinate plants, read on.  

We see a lot of rain here in the UK and when it comes to growing fruit and veg, rainwater can help crops thrive. To easily get rainwater to these crops, gardeners will use rainwater harvesting.

Using this system, rainwater that would usually flow away down drains is collected and stored for future use. Gardeners will then plan how they want to distribute the collected water around their crops.  

If you would like find out how to harvest rainwater and set up a harvesting system that can be used in your polytunnel, follow our guide for some top tips to make your crops flourish.

Harvest season is possibly the most important time for both gardeners and farmers. This is when fruits and vegetables are ready to be picked before being used for salads and cakes, pies and stews.

It also signifies the end of a process that sees gardeners cultivate and tend to their crops, spanning from the initial sowing of the seeds through to the moment the resulting produce is ready to be gathered. This, therefore, is when a gardener will know for sure if their growing season has been a success.

If you’ve been growing your crops in a polytunnel, the results are slightly different to those being planted outside. This is because, by their nature, polytunnels are designed to protect your herbs, fruit and veg from the elements, so the cropping season will differ while they’re under cover.

Therefore, if ‘when is harvest season for my polytunnel-grown crops?’ is the big question for you, read on.  

Bees are perfect pollinators. Attracting them to your garden can be crucial for a successful crop, as well as for strengthening future harvests.

Therefore, it’s important to take some time to work out how to attract bees to your garden. In the UK, the spring months are when bees start to come out of hibernation and make their appearance. This arrival coincides with the new flowers coming into bloom.

When it comes to drawing attention to the flowers inside your polytunnel, a strategy is needed. So, to help you take advantage of the return of these pollinators, we’ve created a guide to making your garden an inviting patch for bees. Read on to find out more.   

Whether you have a comprehensive irrigation system in place or you’re still trying out some new ideas in your polytunnel, you’ll find that all water is precious. This is because your polytunnel is protecting your plants from the elements and therefore they can’t easily gain access to rainwater.

Therefore, when it comes to making sure your crops are well hydrated, every drop counts. Start thinking of ways to save waste water and repurpose it for your crops. Not only are you giving them regular access to water, but you’re being more eco-conscious too.

The methods for saving waste water don’t have to be too advanced – even some of the simplest methods can be effective.