[GrannieAnnie]

i'm making some cloches out of  big 4 litres bottle of squash i know this sounds daft but what end do i use the one with the lid or the base and put holes in forgive me i am a newbie after all!!!

I do that with the big milk bottles too Tali.  Like Beansticks says, just cut off the base, and I stapled 6 together to get a longer cloche and put short canes down through the top where I'd taken the lids off.  helps keep them in place when its a bit windy!

[Axe Victim]

My daft question is...what's the minimum thickness of polythene you would use for a poly-tunnel?

Locally I can get 89 micron (?!!!?) for 18 squid a roll....but it seems ever so thin for a poly tunnel.

What are the units it's measured in? MM? Microns...or weight?

Baffled :shock:

[GrannieAnnie]

I don't know what the minimum is, but First tunnels use 180 microns for their tunnels.  But I wouldn't try anything any flimsier than that, with the wind that we seem to get now.  I worry about my polytunnel, but it stood up all last year okay, even though its 5 years old and we moved it last year.  They say you shouldn't use the polythene again if you move the tunnel, but ours has done okay, few splits and holes, but I just keep taping them up!!!!!

[Axe Victim]

So, where can I source 180 microns?  :shock:  :? .

Thanks Annie.

[muntjac]

dpm sheeting from a builders merchant ,its just thick ..... its the heat retention in a polytunnel not the light quality folks ,,,,

[Axe Victim]

It was DPM sheeting that I could get..89 microns...seemed a bit flimsy... :shock:

[GrannieAnnie]

The polytunnel companies sell replacement polythene, but when I was looking to replace ours, I calculated what I needed from First tunnels and it came to about £130.00  because my polytunnel is 25 foot long.  That was too much, but I looked at Highland polytunnels and my calculatoin on their site was about £56.00.  However I recently looked at Highland again, and their site is changed and they say they are commercial polytunnel people, so I don't know if that means they don't do replacement covers for smaller tunnels now.  You could try them though.  I can't even afford £56 at the moment!!

www.firsttunnels.co.uk

www.highlandpolytunnels.co.uk

www.polytunnels.me.uk

I'm not very good at sourcing really cheap polythene, I'm more into recycling old wood and old double glazing!!!!!

[FatGaz]

As I'm growing veg in containers, and I'm only going to grow 2 potato plants, I'm using a couple of spuds from the supermarket - as it would be silly to spend nearly £6 on seed potatoes when I need only 2!

Fingers crossed that they are ok - if not, they have only cost me time.

you might be wasting your time gaz on supermarket spuds it realy is hit and miss,you can get 3kg bags for around £3 homebase/wilkos/B&Q
plant a few in pots and when you harvest around june then plant some more.

Hi Shaun - thanks for the tip!! Off to Wilko's I go