‘Let’s build a greenhouse for the tomatoes,’ we said. ‘Just a small
one,’ we said.
You might wonder why, when we live in the land of hot summers, we felt
such an urge. Well, reader, last year we had a pretty wet summer (warm, but wet
and stormy) so Rob hastily erected a plastic covering for our tomato plants. It
was ugly as sin but it certainly did the job; we had our best tomato year ever,
despite the rain. Meanwhile, our neighbours’ open-air tomatoes were ruined by
blight and hailstones.
This year, we thought we’d take it one step further and build a more
permanent, polytunnel-style greenhouse. It’ll be great, we said. Just a small
one, we said.
Yup, we ended up with the biggest polytunnel ever built in a back
garden. It’s eight metres long. It’s three metres wide. It features more plastic
sheeting than a whole series of
Dexter.
Rather than buying a greenhouse kit, we made it ourselves out of
plastic sheeting and bendy central heating pipes, all for about £50. The result
is, um, something that looks like a £50 greenhouse. But it’s survived
some heavy wind and it doesn’t leak, so that’s good.
Wouldn’t you know it, as we went to all the trouble of building a
greenhouse, this summer has been crazy dry and hot. Some days it’s 50°C in there.
At the start of the summer, we used to go in regularly just to obsess over the
temperature. (‘Look, it’s 30°C already!’ Nerds.) Now, in July, it’s basically a
no-go zone after 9am. But the tomatoes keep on thriving, so we’ve decided to
stop worrying about it.
Building it together was fun. If fun means spending your entire Easter
weekend sweating and swearing at the man you love. We had some strange looks
from the neighbours when we started bending pipes and unfurling an acre of
plastic. Then, as it took shape, we got the odd ‘bravo, extra’ from them (‘extra’
meaning very good). Then they said they might build one themselves.
Then they built two.
It’s probably the biggest compliment any Bulgarian has paid us since we
moved here. I mean, Bulgarians love giving advice, especially when it comes to
the garden. To pass an idea onto them is … well it’s kind of like a Mongolian moving
to Britain, teaching everyone a much better way to play cricket, mix Pimms and
queue, and then being awarded an honorary knighthood and one of Mick Jagger’s
daughters. It’s that epic.
'Let's build a greenhouse.' |
'Just a small one.' |
'Is it a bit wonky? It looks a bit wonky.' |
'Let's never do this again.' |
Four months on. 'Tomatoes!' |