Will’s World: My name is Will, and I have polytunnel vision
© Richard Stanton Owning a polytunnel is a bit like keeping horses or being a vegan – it very quickly gets to a point where it begins to take over your life, you completely lose the ability to talk about anything else, and you’ll bore to tears any poor soul who comes within talking distance as you eagerly extol their many virtues.
Well, I say owning it, but it isn’t mine, it’s the present Mrs Evans’. Like a lot of other people in the UK, she began growing organic vegetables during the pandemic.
See also: From steel sheds to polytunnels – livestock housing options
About the author
She enjoyed it so much that she turned it into a thriving small business, and here we are, three years later, a couple of polytunnel tragics, regularly debating vegetable rotations, irrigation systems, what makes a good compost, and the best way to get rid of the bane of our lives – slugs.
You probably won’t know this unless you own one yourself, but it’s such a sub-culture that there are huge followings for polytunnel owners’ Facebook groups (we’re enthusiastic members of several), and at this stage we’re honestly not far off getting matching “Polytunnels 4 Life” tattoos on our forearms.
Will’s big build
I never thought I’d get sucked into the lifestyle though, especially back when she first put in the order. “They want £1,000 for building it,” she said. “How much?” I said. “Balls to that, I’ll do it myself!”
It’s a good size at 24x60ft, but we weren’t talking commercial fruit farm size, and how hard could it be?
A few days into the build, and much sweat and a little blood later, I’d have paid them £2,000 cash right there and then to take over and get it finished – it isn’t as easy as it looks.
Eventually, and with help from a team of willing volunteers, we got it done, and it looked marvellous as it shimmered like silk in the midday sun. We were proud of our work, and confident in the future.
Then five days later, Storm Arwen arrived. A good friend of mine – and an experienced polytunnel owner – had already warned me that I’d never sleep properly again if there was any sort of severe weather, and boy was she right.
At 2am I was out there frantically hammering in lats, tightening ratchet straps, clinging on for dear life as the 75mph winds buffeted me in all directions, and screaming out my defiance to God, Mother Nature, oil companies and, for good measure, Michael Fish.
After all the effort of building the thing, if it was going to end up somewhere in the vicinity of Cheshire, I was damn sure I was going with it.
Peace of the action
Finally, the night passed and the storm died down. Despite the devastation all around us, the tunnel and I had both survived the epic Battle of Arwen physically unscathed, and our bond was now unbreakable.
If you think I’m being melodramatic, you weren’t there, man. Trust me, I’ve seen things.
Since that slightly traumatic start to polytunnel ownership, things have been much quieter and far more enjoyable, as we’ve steadily morphed into Tom and Barbara from The Good Life.
We’re eating a far more varied diet (much to our children’s distress), we’ve learned a lot from our mistakes, we’re getting nice feedback from our customers, and best of all, we get to do what every farmer dreams of – control the weather.
If only we could do that for the rest of the farm. Nice and warm, with the occasional few days of steady rain about once a fortnight would be the order. And no more storms, please.