May 2018 Chris11 Challenge

Polytunnel

Ordered a 20' x 14' polytunnel from Northern Tunnels and it took longer to arrive than expected. There was a bust box in the delivery so 1 part missing, and the screw-in ground anchors didn't work. Once built, wind conditions prevented skinning. All in all, lost 2 to 3 weeks on the build. But very happy with the supplier and the tunnel.

The polytunnel uses wires to clamp the plastic, so going to be re-tensioning the ends again once help available. Currently got plastic hanging inside both doors.




I'm also experimenting on the door window design. Currently got a piece of netting in top half and plastic bottom, but having issues with high wind speeds, so looking at options to cover netting. The door on the right has a 22mm pipe being used as a roller, with 25mm Blue pipe as clips, but need a way to hold it in place.


Chilli Plants.
I've had to keep the plants in the 11cm pots until the polytunnel was built. The porch was quite crowded and due to lack of space, tomato plants were stuck in 7cm pots.


The plant were moved out as soon as the cover and doors were on, to make space in the house and will have been out 2 weeks now.

I'm going to planted most of them up into B&Q buckets, so thought one last picture with them all lined up is called for.




The plants are in the same order as last month, so we can see which plants have taken off and identify plants that I expect to be smaller.

2 entries this month, 26th and 31st (5 days after potting up). Just height this month.




I had hopped to put off potting up until I could get Orange buckets for known chilli plants, but not going to get to B&Q until weekend


Issues

Since moving to the tunnel, some plants have had wilted tops. Others have yellow spots (pollen or white butterfly type eggs)on the leaves. I was advised that wilting may be due to pot size, so best to re-pot.






I've also noticed that temperature in the tunnel was 48C with min 16C Sunday. Today - 28th - climbed to 49.6C.

28/5/2018
Completed re-tensioning the plastic at the ends. Removed all waste plastic.

Ordered some wedding favour bags with the hope of isolating the flowers


31/05/18


Potted plants up and was away for a couple of days. The Max temperature was 54C and Min 14C. some of the other chilli plants are still suffering, but I had put all Chilli challenge plants under the staging. Table above updated to reflect growth.