How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel: All Year Round

An easy-to-follow, practical guide to growing crops year-round in your polytunnel.

Are you using your polytunnel, also known as high tunnel or hoop house, to its full potential? If so you'll be harvesting fresh crops all year round – sweet potatoes and late celery in November; winter radish, baby carrots and celeriac in early February; salad leaves right through the winter. Even in the 'hungry gap' you'll have a choice of new potatoes, pak choi, peas, tender cabbages, beetroot and more.

How to Grow Food in Your Polytunnel has all the information you need to make the most of this precious covered space, including a detailed crop-by-crop guide to the growing year, dedicated chapters on growing for each season, including the 'hungry gap', and a handy sowing and harvesting calendar to help with planning.

Andy McKee grew up in Belfast, and first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five. After an early career in pharmacy, he pursued his interest in gardening and vegetable growing, and has grown in situations ranging from a seventeenth storey window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas tree plantation. Andy contributed to the Transition Town initiative for Dorchester, which went live in Spring 2009. Andy has contributed regularly to the blog section of the Ecologist Online, and his personal blog can be found at www.hedgewizardsdiary.blogspot.com.

Mark Gatter grew up in suburban London, but always wanted to live somewhere rural. Mark currently lives in Carmarthenshire with his wife, and spends a full week in every month in his two-acre smallholding with his rescue sheep, chickens and dogs, a 10 x 20ft polytunnel and an area of raised beds. They grow as much organic food as they possibly can, and enjoy giving it away at least as much as eating it themselves.

Andy McKee first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five, and since then he has grown food in situations ranging from a seventeenth-story window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas-tree plantation. McKee had his eyes opened to the potential of polytunnels during a visit to one featuring a hot tub warmed by a clay oven. He lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset, England, and is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables.

Mark Gatter began growing vegetables while homesteading in north California in the early eighties and has been a keen gardener ever since. He is a firm advocate of an organic, raised-bed approach and relies on a polytunnel to keep fresh food on the table right through the winter. He and his wife share their smallholding in Wales with 11 sheep, several chickens and two dogs.

Mark and Andy are also the authors of The Polytunnel Handbook (2009).

Mark Gatter grew up in suburban London, but always wanted to live somewhere rural. He eventually got his wish when he swapped houses with a friedn from the Lake District, both agreeing to deal with the landlords later. After living there for five yers, and co-running a printing partnership, Mark went on a two week holiday to California, and ending upliving there for eighteen years after meeting his wife. Whilst in California, his love of gardening grew, with a special focus on growing food. Mark currently lives in Carmarthenshire with his wife, and spends a full week in every month in his two-acre smallholding with his rescue sheep, chickens and dogs, a 10 x 20ft polytunnel and an area of raised beds. They grow as much organic food as they possibly can, and enjoy giving it away at least as much as eating it themselves.

Andy McKee grew up in Belfast, and first grew vegetables with his father at the age of five. After an early career in pharmacy, he pursued his interest in gardening and vegetable growing, and has grown in situations ranging from a seventeenth storey window box to guerrilla gardening in the middle of a Christmas tree plantation. Andy has lived in Birmingham, Belfast and the Isle of Man, and now lives with his wife and family in rural Dorset. The family is entirely self-sufficient in vegetables. Andy has also helped to set up the Transition Town initiative for Dorchester, which is scheduled to ‘go live’ in Spring 2009. Andy has contributed regularly to the blog section of the Ecologist Online, and his personal blog can be found at www.hedgewizardsdiary.blogspot.com.

Mark and Andy have written two books together for Green Books: The Polytunnel Handbook and How To Grow Food in Your Polytunnel.