We’ve got the polytunnel up, we’ve got the cover secured all the way round and we’ve even got a hand-planed bit of wood to add some weight to the bottom of the zip up door. Now we need to get the inside ready for growing.

This morning, we took several trips to local DIY stores and came back with bags of peat-free compost and top soil, gravel boards and sundry other items. Sundry other items included a vacuum cleaner for the shed so that I can capture most of the dust generated by tools like the circular saw, which I used to put 45° angles at the ends of the boards so I could join the together (strengthened by pegs made from the offcuts).

That made it a bit of a spendy day but I’m anticipating a good harvest of things like tomatoes, which I set going a couple off weeks ago and we now have ample seedlings germinated of a number of varieties. I put the new beds in and spent quite a while making sure they were level before half filling with home-made compost. Tomorrow I should be able to add a top layer mixed from the bags we bought today and it won’t be that long before we can starting planting the new beds up.