Greenhouse resurrected

It is true that glasshouses on urban allotments are not a great combination, particularly when the neighbourhood is full of 12 year old boys.  What is the fascination between stone, arm, glass pane and sound of shattering glass.  Oh, that’s it right there – the sound is the reward for the effort.  There are (were) many panes of horticultural glass in a 6×8 greenhouse….

There was also a spate of greenhouse thefts, yes that’s right.  The whole aluminium greenhouse lifted overnight and probably melted down by day break.  Who knew the stuff was so valuable!

Any how, this is my story of a polycarbonate refurbishment and resurrection.  It all started with 10 packs of 4mm polycarb from a nice man on Ebay.  I filled up 3 dustbins with shards of glass and at the end of the weekend, the greenhouse was ready for action.  It gave two years of service, all the tomatoes and cucumbers a family of four (and the neighbours) could ever need.

Then 2012 arrived and this happened…

Back to Ebay and found a very nice company called Sheet Plastics who cut polycarbonate panels to size.  Remembering Grandad muttering about measure twice and cut once, I sent off my order and upgraded to 6mm sheets!  I also sourced some double-sided sticky tape; the variety used by glaziers and a really big bucket of clips.  Another weekend of fevered activity (I got the measurements right!) and it looked like this.  Just in time to be road-tested by another storm…

That just left the inside to clean out – the bindweed had moved in and put everything back.

The peach trees appreciated being indoors again.  I’ve added a mini greenhouse to get an early start and keep the temperature a little higher at night.

And finally, I potted on the cucumbers last weekend.  These are Carmen, which I have never grown before but which are reported to be prolific.  We have new neighbours, they don’t know about the allotment cucumbers, yet….