Make a Garden Tunnel

Here’s some No Guff advice: Tunnels are easy to make yourself. Donna shares her tried-and-true tunnel tidbits below.

The result is a tunnel 16–18” (41–46 cm) tall in the centre.

Supplies

• No. 9 or No.10 wire, cut to 76” (1.8 m) lengths
• Thin-gauge clear plastic (known as “poly” in the trade)
• Bend wire lengths into arches
• Sink wires into ground 6” (15 cm) on each side, 4’ (1.2 m) apart

• Lay plastic (or row-cover fabric) over arches

Procedure

Tunnels quickly overheat and fry your crops on a warm days, so be ready to open it up on short notice.  

Flexible plastic tubing is an alternative to wire and works better with wooden raised beds because it can be fastened to the wood and left in place permanently.

Make a tunnel to create a microclimate in your vegetable garden.

Donna says: On my four-foot-wide bed, I used eight-foot-long pipes with approximately six inches shoved into the ground or braced on each side of the framing. This gives a tunnel that is three feet off the ground in the centre—an adequate height for broccoli but too short for tomatoes and too tall for lettuce.

MORE: SEE WHAT WE SAY in No Guff Vegetable Gardening about using tunnels in the vegetable garden.

Garden Coaches Chat: No Guff. Lots of fun.
Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs
Garden Coaches