Budget Bender Greenhouse

Now I've got my camera working again I can post pictures of the home-made polytunnel I've been working on. It's tiny, but any extra greenhouse space is going to be useful this year 'cos I've been digging over the patch of weeds that I've had under cover for a year, so this time I'll have twice the space for planting that I had last year. That means I'll need twice the number of seedlings, and my windowsills aren't any bigger than they were…

I found a small willow tree on a footpath near the allotment, with nice straight branches just right for building a bender. The number of suitable branches really limited the size of the bender, but it's still big enough to be worthwhile. I've never built a bender before, and had to take it all apart and start again a couple of times until it came out a good shape – having used a tee-pee shaped greenhouse last year I really wanted to make sure this one would have a good amount of headroom, so I kept rebuilding until I made the sides go more or less straight up instead of sloping inwards towards the top.

I ordered clear polythene (guaranteed for five years against deterioration in sunlight) off the internet from here http://www.polytheneone.com/polytunnel_polythene_super_strength_clear.htm
and only realised when it arrived that I'd struggle to get it from my house to the allotment without a car. I managed by kind of folding my arms around the roll at its balancing point and stopping a few times for a rest. But I was glad after all that I hadn't saved up for a bigger roll which would have been cheaper but harder to move.
It would have been harder to unroll, too. Luckily I'd measured up ok – I'd been worried because the bender's shape was so irregular that I wasn't sure I'd got the highest point, but 7m x 7m turned out to be just right. I dug a trench around the base of the bender and got help from another plot holder to unroll it over the frame, and then spent a whole afternoon folding it neatly to fit flat into the trenches and filling them back up with soil.

As you can see it was getting dark by the time I'd finished. I went back the next day just to admire it over a cup of tea. The next problem is what to do about the door. At the moment I've just folded the loose plastic at the front to one side and weighed it down with bricks, but it's a huge hassle to get in and out, in fact I haven't been inside since I filled the trench in case it disturbs the plastic before it's settled firmly into the ground. Here's a glimpse through the side:

It's only been up a few days so I don't know if it will withstand high winds, and I still lack a real plan for the door, which I'll be working on in the next few weeks, but I'm quite pleased with progress so far!