Gardening with a "green tunnel".

We moved this past year and garden space at the new house was very limited, so I wanted to make the most of every square foot. Also, for the last couple of years, I had been thinking about building a lattice house to provide partial shade to prevent lettuce and spinach from bolting in the hot summer season.

The "green tunnel" was the perfect solution to both limited space and cool weather crops. The idea for the "green tunnel" came from COUNTRYSIDE articles showing how to make storage sheds out of cattle panels. Instead of plastic sheathing, I used garden vines!

To construct a "green tunnel," drive stakes into the ground in two rows approximately eight feet apart, bow the panels to fit in-between me stakes and use a couple pieces of scrap wire to tie each panel to the next one. Adjust the width of the tunnel so that you can walk comfortably underneath it. Make the tunnel as long as desired by using any number of panels.

The tunnel shown in the photograph is four panels, 16 feet long. This past year, it supported two cucumber vines, two birdhouse gourd vines, 12 tomato vines, and 16 pole bean vines. Cucumbers, tomatoes and beans were a pleasure to pick from inside and outside of the tunnel. The shade helped to keep moisture in the ground and provided an ideal environment for growing lettuce and spinach throughout even the hottest part of the summer. Lettuce and spinach were planted on a rotation schedule underneath the tunnel with three or four crops planted throughout the growing season.

DAN SARGEN
13752 HWY. 7E
HUTCHINSON, MN 55350