As you get to know your polytunnel, and improve your organic gardening skills, you will discover a whole host of little gardening hacks and tricks to make your life a little easier. If you are new to polytunnel gardening, you may be offered tons of advice by more experienced gardeners. But to help you separate the wheat from the chaff, here are our top 7 polytunnel gardening hacks, to help you make the most of your garden.
1) Harvest Water From Your Polytunnel
Harvesting rainwater is one of the best and most important gardening hacks. Although it may be a bit more of a top tip than a hack, harvesting rainwater is so beneficial to the environment. It is also one of the best ways to make the most of the natural resources at your disposal. You may already be harvesting rainwater from the roof of your home. By affixing a simple system of guttering along the sides of your polytunnel, you can harvest rainwater from this structure too. Not only will this allow you to access water for your plants close by, the barrels or butts will also store heat, releasing it later and keeping your polytunnel a little warmer during the night.
Here are some ways to use harvested rainwater in your garden, polytunnel and home:
- Water the garden
- Fill garden pond or water sculptures
- Wash the car
- Washing clothes
- Cleaning the household
- Cooking
2) Mulch Leafy Veg with Grass Clippings
Organic mulches will help you to return nutrients to the soil in your growing areas. One of our favourite gardening hacks uses organic mulch to add nitrogen to plants. To do so, you should mulch green, leafy vegetables, which have high nitrogen requirements, with grass clippings from your lawn mowing. A thick layer of grass clippings around brassica and other such plants will also help to retain moisture and reduce watering requirements.
Read more about organic mulches and how to make them
3) Deter Flies with Bags of Water
Flies are the bane of many gardeners lives. However, fortunately, there are a few gardening hacks that can help you deter flies with little work. For example, have you ever thought about using water to deter flies? Flies can sometimes be an annoyance in a polytunnel. Hanging bags of water may keep them away. Though there is little scientific evidence for this, many people do swear by it, so it may be worth a try. You could also try this method in a fruit cage or greenhouse.
4) Use Bran To Protect Seedlings From Slugs
Gardeners will often give you their methods for organic slug control – most are partial controls at best. In an organic polytunnel, creating a good natural balance in the surrounding ecosystem is the best way to keep slugs at bay. However, barrier methods, such as placing bran, egg shells or sheep’s wool around seedlings could be worth trying if there are particular plants that you really want to protect.
5) Plant Onions & Other Alliums to Deter Carrot Fly & Other Pests
One proven method for pest control is companion planting. Planting onions and other pungent-smelling alliums around carrots and other crops can help to confuse and repel pests such as carrot flies which could otherwise decimate a crop. Aromatic herbs can also be beneficial for companion planting for pest control in a polytunnel.
6) Make Your Own Biodegradable Plant Pots
A lot of us would be grateful for gardening hacks to make transplanting seedlings much easier. However, some seedlings are just easier to transplant than others. On the other hand, though, some do not like root disturbance and for those plants, it can be easier to transplant them if you have biodegradable pots that you can simply place in their entirety into the growing areas in your polytunnel. Make your own biodegradable plant pots quickly and easily from cardboard toilet roll tubes.
7) Use Weeds To Make Home-Made Plant Feeds
One final hack for polytunnel gardeners involves making the most of the often neglected resources at your disposal. Rather than discarding weeds, use them to make a multi-purpose home-made plant feed by allowing them to decompose in water and using that watery mix to feed your polytunnel crops.
Boost Your Polytunnel With Our Gardening Hacks
Although gardeners everywhere would agree that gardening is a fun hobby, there are plenty of gardening hacks out there to make your life easier. And our gardening hacks are perfect for you gardeners out there, whether your garden is focused in a polytunnel or not.
Do you have any secret gardening hacks of your own? Let us know your tips!
Sources
https://rainharvesting.co.uk/6-top-tips-use-rainwater-home/
