We did it. On Tuesday morning we got up before the wind and managed to get the plastic on the tunnel. As with everything else so far, we know much more than we did before we started and next time (if there is one) would be a lot more efficient! The first step was putting channels on the bows, which took longer than expected and created a sense of nervousness and time pressure given the wind was forecast to pick up during the morning. The plastic is heavy but standing on ladders we hauled it over the top of the frame and then got busy securing it as the wind speed slowly increased. As time passed the wind would catch the plastic and sometimes lift the frame up a few centimetres, adding to the “excitement”. Perhaps I should have gotten up earlier as was suggested…

By 11am we were done and we had a tunnel.  By that afternoon it was already unbearably steamy inside! It is truly incredible how hot it can get when the sun is out. Fortunately the kit came with cleverly designed hooks that hold up the plastic sides. The ends were a slightly different story. Whether it was tiredness, stress from rushing or just being dumb, we couldn’t figure out how to combine a star picket, rope and purlin strap to secure the ends the way we had seen it at Longley. (In our defence, the instructions we had were for a slightly different model.) To get things over with we moved our potato bags on the ends of the plastic and agreed that we were done for now.

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Our harvest expanded from radish and lettuce to include tatsoi. It’s a tasty vegetable in the brassica family and is terrific because it can be eaten in salads when it’s small or sautéed/stir-fried when it’s bigger. I cannot recommend this more strongly to anyone wanting easy rewards from their garden! It germinates within a couple of days and is ready to harvest after about a month. Incredible! And it keeps giving – you can cut it back and it harvest more two weeks later to really reap the rewards of one initial effort. The only catch is that there is a moth (the Diamondback moth) that hones in as soon as the seedlings appear so you need to put insect netting over straight away. But a small price to pay ($3.50 for seeds and $20 for a small net to be precise) for delicious fresh greens on demand. I only wish I had known about this during my veggie garden battles in Sydney.

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A final success to document is that I have finally found a delicious recipe for radish tops. This one has rice wine vinegar and chillies to give it a kick. And it took less than 10 minutes to make. Thank you internet (again).

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