[ambodach]

I'm about to invest in a 7 x 4.5m polytunnel with high sides (1.4m) - those dimensions are 24 x 14:6 and 4:6 ft in old terms!).

Can someone give me some guidance on the layout of raised beds  and paths please.

I'm near Edinburgh and although the last two summers have been good for veg growing, I want to off-load my small g/h of tomatoes and cucumber, to move some items into a protected area to maximise yield, and also get a better range of winter greens.

Many thanks
Rob

[Kristen]

My thoughts are:

Maximum bed width that is reachable from both sides is usually stated as 4'

A bed against the outer sides cannot be reached from the far side, 'coz the poly-sides are there , so they need to be "less than 4'"

You'll need to decide how wide the paths need to be - to fit a barrow down etc. but let's say 18"

So if you had 2 x 4' beds and thus 3 x 18" paths that would leave the outer beds being just over 1' wide.

With a single 4' bed in the middle and 2 x 18" paths that would leave the outer beds 3' 10" - which I think is on the wide side

2 x 3' beds and 3 x 18" paths = outer bed width just over 2'

You could perhaps mark out a single wide bed in the middle and see if that would work in a mock-up practice:

1 x 5' central bed and 2 x 18" paths = outer bed width just over 3' 4"

Here's the formula I'm bunging in Google to calculate the width of the outer beds in case it helps:

(4.5m - 2 * (4 feet + 0 inches)  - 3 * 18 inches) ) / 2 in feet=

4.5M width of tunnel

2 = number of beds in the middle

(4 feet + 0 inches) = width of those beds

3 * 18 inches = number (one more than the number of central beds) and width of paths

result is the width of each of the side beds.

[mumofstig]

I'd have a 3ft wide bed along one side, from front to back, and a 2ft6in wide path next to it.

The rest of the area would be one large bed - with boards (or mypex strips) across from the path to divide it into areas for planting....it's a bit more flexible than smaller beds IMO

[Kristen]

I seem to remember this coming up before (might have been a different forum!) and some very useful photos of different layouts.

In particular the "one path offset" and then "narrow access paths at right angles to that across the wide bed" was a particularly attractive looking layout.

Picture paints a thousand words, eh?

[Kristen]

Found two pictures - one here, one on Ahem! "another forum"


http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=110035.0

[adri]

That piccy posted by Kristen is my skethup of the layout for our PT.  I did more or less that but without the connecting bits so that I could get round everything and now when I'm clearing down the PT at the end of the season it's proving a good choice.  So what we have in there is 8 beds each of 8ft by 4ft and then staging all along the other side.  Worked well this year and will keep it that way.

All the best

Adri

[cadalot]

Found two pictures - one here, one on Ahem! "another forum"

You mean to tell me there is another place like this 

[mumofstig]

No, it's not like this one - this one is better 

IMO of course 

[Kristen]

I couldn't possibly say - not lease of which being the having-to-kill-you aspect, and what with the rules here and all I expect I'd get planted too

[mumofstig]

 

Can I refer you and m'lud to a comment you posted recently

The other forums I frequent can be 99% chatter and 1% gardening, and personally I prefer to have 99% gardening discussion on a gardening forum ...

I rest my case 

[cadalot]

Looks like I'm staying put then 

[sunshineband]

Can I refer you and m'lud to a comment you posted recently

The other forums I frequent can be 99% chatter and 1% gardening, and personally I prefer to have 99% gardening discussion on a gardening forum ...

I rest my case 

Busted, Kirsten!! 

(and I agree with you btw  )