Poly/shade tunnel

I need somewhere to hold plants before they get planted, and to propogate, that is protected from wind, but mainly the very strong sun and where I can water easily (porous pipe?)
Am considering a polytunnel, either with shade net sides, which can be covered in the winter, or completely covered in shade net.

Does anyone have any experience of construction/use with these please?
Any ideas and opinions will be appreciated :)

I once helped put up a couple of small commercial polytunnels for the SILs father who had a small market garden. It was a marvellous day, SIL, SIL's dad and me, no experience between us, wind and rain in joyful abundance, just right for handling large sheets of plastic that mustn't be ripped! Add to that a rather large pile of wet clay to fill in the trenches for the sheets and a wobbly shovel ......... well you can imagine, patience is a virtue I'm told *G* We did get them up without a tear too.

If it's feisible get some experts to do it, seriously it's a pain in the botty to put them up.

Thanks for the tips Baa
I'm considering getting one with wood at the bottom to hold the cover down as it's dry clay here (otherwise known as concrete LOL)
Also think I'll be covering with shade netting rather than polythene

Sounds as if you had a fun day then ;)

It was wonderful Philomel, I'd recommend it to anyone (whose company was tedious) *G*

Mom's partner built the duck and chicken alcatraz out of wood and shade netting, that seemed much easier but then he did it all himself so of course it was easier for me :) If you have the shade house you always have the option of turning it into a poly tunnel later on don't you. Will you and yours be building this one?

Yes, I think we'll probably have to put it up as I haven't yet found anyone to do things like that here in France. My SIL is quite practical and my daughter quite strong for a female LOL, so hopefully we'll cope.

I need somewhere to propogate lots of stuff to go in the rather ginormous garden. To buy it all would cost a fortune - and not be nearly as much fun...
The sun can be really scorching, so need somewhere to care for the little babies, with a watering system!

Will be specialising in drought and sun tolerant plants (no point fighting nature)
Lavender, rosemary, cistus etc etc
Abelia seem to like it here too, so that's good :)

We've inherited chicken&duck houses in a run, so now we need to find a livestock market. Only going to have a few. The shade net for them is a very good idea I hadn't thought of!
I fancy muscovies - always liked the ugly brutes *g*
Wonder what chickens we'll find...

Best of luck *G* I suspect it will be easier without the weather, we just chose a bad day. I'd love to know what you're planning for this new drought tolerant garden, it's something you don't see much in Hants

The netting is great as the birds can over heat and it breaks the wind in the winter. We'd love some muscovies here, they are a bit out of our price range for pets and since we've another broody duck, we might be overstocked in a couple of weeks. Not counting ducks before they hatch though, they were late to sit this year!

Mmm, thing is the plants need to be drought tolerant in the summertime, but not mind a soaking the rest of the year... tall order!

What ducks and hens do you have?
Good luck with the hatching

Do you really need a poly-tunnel, or would a shade house work for you?

Put some 4 X 4 post in the ground and some "rafters" for a roof, then some lathe or the like (or your shade cloth) over the top to shield it from the sun. This would give you plenty of stand-up room for potting and such.

Not sure how cold it gets in your new location. Are you looking for someway to keep your cuttings/rootings/babies from freezing, hence the poly-tunnel?

(My mind has been on making a shade house lately so of course it comes to mind when reading this thread.) :>)

Hi Horseshoe :)
Yes, I've been thinking of a tunnel, but covered in shade netting. Just thought the frame of a tunnel would work well, being a ready made structure, as I'm not too good at DIY LOL

I need somewhere that I can water easily and to give protection from the strong sun (and occasional wind) for propogating (both cuttings and seeds). Not too bothered about protection in the winter time as I intend to grow hardy stuff in the main.

What will you be using your shade house for?

Where I'm at it gets so hot here in the summer I can barely work in the g-house. It is easily 120 in there, not a very comfortable environment at all.

With a shade house I can move plants outside and just shut the g-house down for the summer. I could also use the shadehouse for hardening off plants in the Spring, and also thought of putting a solid roof over part of it so I could us that area for potting and re-potting.

Little summer watering and able to cope with rain in winter is what we aim for, hence the main planting here being european and some asian species but we're growing a few more S. hemispehere plants lately with a good degree of success even in clay.

The chucks are hybrids but we're looking into getting some Light Sussex, Barnvelders or similar again since the hybrids don't live more than a few short years. Less eggs per year but over a longer period.

The ducks are purely pets and extremely mucky to boot! They are all bantam breeds, we've two pairs of Black East Indians, 1 Blue East Indian duck and a Miniature Silver Bantam drake (looks like a little Silver Appleyard)

Shoe

It's bad enough that our greenhouse gets to 100 with a shade cover, I couldn't cope being in 120 *G*

I'm convinced - it's a shade tunnel I need
Thanks for all the input

Wow and you're 7a so it gets cold in the winter Shoe!
... and I'm still waiting to discover my true winter cold - you're down as warmer than me Baa, at 9a. Everyone tells me there is 'never' any snow, and there're peaches and oleander growing with no protection at all - as freestanding trees/shrubs. The Acacia have been made to grow from suckers however - presumably cos the frost gottem, whereas I had a tall tree of it in my garden in Kent.

It's exciting having to find out about totally new conditions :)

Will keep you posted on the fowl front Baa - none yet. Your crowd sound lovely. Another thing to learn about...

I'm getting deeply into butterflies too. There are so many here! I'm looking up the caterpillar food plants for all the possibles so I can grow as many as I can.

Yeah 9a tropical Hampshire ;)

Duck hatched out 3 duckerlings yesterday, today there are two, hopefully these will make it to adulthood and then be sold or swapped. I think they are the BEIs, the silver drake has had several years to prove himself but I'm pretty sure he's sterile (watch me be proved wrong!)

Talking of butterflies, on a forest hike, we found a newly emerged Brimstone that was just drying his wings on a Carex. Mom got him on her hand, we know he'd have fluttered off if he could have but it was still special to view one up so close! As for food plants i'm sure we've got some spare Senecio and Urtica species ;)

LOL
Plenty of Urtica here too. But nothing compared with my Kent garden hmmmm.
Senecio almost under control ;)

That Brimstone sounds gorgeous. They are all so perfect when newly emerged
Yesterday we had the first Scarce Swallowtails that I've seen in the garden (the ones an Englishman named. They're actually very common in southern europe). The photo is fuzzy as my camera focused on the background :(
When we first came there was a flush of Swallowtails - they were everywhere, so exciting. I'd not seen one in the flesh before

Oooh, got so engrossed in downloading photo I didn't congratulate you on your baby duckies :)
Bet they're cute

My daughter found where we can buy chickens yesterday, so we'll be having some soon