One of the great appeals when starting a simple life is growing food. If you are like us and you’re contemplating an off-grid or semi-off-grid living situation, you are undeniably browsing the web to get your teeth into anything homesteading-related. This goes from learning how to start seedlings, how to create rich compost or even biochar and how to set up a high tunnel. These are just some of the topics we have researched as we were gearing up to move to our Portuguese Homestead.
Indeed, while the first 12 months of our Portuguese homesteading adventure we’re entirely dedicated to building a house. We are determined to produce our food as we now have more than adequate shelter above our heads.
For us, growing food means a few things
– Lowering our food costs so that we have more disposable income to re-invest in the farm.
– Knowing where our food comes from and making healthy choices.
– Lowering our gas and diesel bill since most of the products we regularly eat should be available on hand at all times in our garden and high-tunnel.
-Growing our food potentially means that we can expand our animal flock. Truth be told, we don’t want to add more animals if we can’t provide for them.
Our challenges
In theory, growing our food should be easy. Plant a seed in the soil, water regularly and harvest the bounty. Yet, our context is not that simple and maybe yours won’t be either.
We have 3 dogs, and our neighbour’s dogs also regularly come and play on our land.
Now, of course, some would say, just build a fence. And a fence we are indeed building or would have built by the time you read this post. Some would also say, just tell your neighbours’ dogs off. But we don’t want to do this. You see, most dogs who visit our homestead are Tras-Os-Montes Mastiffs. These dogs are experts at keeping wild boars off and guarding the land. Also, one of the dogs who visit us almost daily is Elroy’s mom. So, it feels wrong to chase her off when she gave us the most precious gift in the world. We also love that Elroy, Gruff and Mason get extra socialisation with other dogs. Thus, telling the dogs off the homestead is not an option. And with the size of the garden we’re planning, it would mean building a mammoth fence too.
Our Chickens are troublemakers
Like most homesteaders, we too have a small flock of chickens. And ours are free-range. Keeping the chickens free-ranging is very important for us because we almost have no feed cost, and they decimate the bug population and we absolutely need them to do this. Our land was home to a herd of cows and goats for years. So, fleas and ticks we have a lot of or had a lot of before the chickens made breakfast out of them.
Micro Climates
Portugal has many microclimates. Indeed, while North Portugal is theoretically a zone 8A, we quickly realise that it is not a true 8A.
In fact, because of the valley, our land sits in. There are huge temperature fluctuations which could affect sensitive crops. It’s something you should keep in mind if you are looking for land. Speak to your potential neighbours and find out about the microclimates. While we ignore this key factor when looking for land, btw. It seems that lady luck smiled down on us as our meadow is perfectly positioned to get excellent sun exposure. Yet, it does not mean that we can rely on the 8A planting guide because we can get unexpected frost every so often.
So when looking at our context it was evident that we needed a high tunnel or a greenhouse.
Looking for the perfect greenhouse and high tunnel (polytunnel)
I suppose like everyone who’s been following Laura’s channel, I too dream of a beautiful Hartley greenhouse. But we have other priorities that we need to address before investing in a glass structure like what Laura has.
With the budget at the top of our mind, and space somewhat limited (because our Portuguese homestead is not 5 hector+ – we have 1 acre that’s it) we need to carefully plan. So we started looking at options once we figured out how big we needed the greenhouse to be.
Our requirements
I can’t believe I’m writing about requirements again; it must be a professional deformation to assess our needs and look for solutions that fulfil them before purchasing anything. After all, I was a marketing manager in a past life and investment always comes with risk assessment. (LOL ) So Dan and I had a good sit down, and we talked about the greenhouse or high tunnel.
What do we need it to do?
– Protect our crops from our flock.
– Resist high wind
– Be big enough to set up a temporary carpentry shop but not too big so it would overtake the land.
– Easy to install irrigation
– Should be solid and should last us a few years as is. But it should also have the possibility to modify it later.
– It should sit in proximity to our garden.
Fulfilling our greenhouse or high tunnel (polytunnel) requirements
Now that we know what we need our growing space to do, Dan and I decided that a 6m x 3m structure would fulfil our requirements. This way we could have a 2m carpentry shop / she shed and a 4m growing space. So we started looking at greenhouses and polytunnels to realise that a beautiful greenhouse would have to wait. Indeed, the High tunnels were a lot more fitting with our budget. So we got hunting…
Like everyone in Portugal, I suppose we look at the regular shops, VidaXL (which we prefer not to buy from, our chicken run came from this company and the plan was really bad some pieces were not even as illustrated on the plan – screw holes at the wrong place.) We also look at Agrilogia but it turns out the largest high tunnel they had, measured 200X300X200CM. So too small. Our research also took us to Amazon where we found many suitable options yet none of them was 6mx3m. The closest polytunnel we found to fulfil our requirements was the Greenhouses Caseta Jardin Tunnel Large Outdoor Heavy Duty Polytunnel which is 600x200x200 cm and cost a whooping €665.84!
Vevor to the rescue
We had heard of a company called Vevor through some Youtube channels. We know they deliver in Portugal quickly and usually have quality products at a reasonable price – could they have a polytunnel that meets our requirements? Well, it turns out they did AND at a reasonable price too $287.68.
So what made us choose this high tunnel over others?
- It is round, so it should resist high wind.
- The hoops are made of Galvanized Steel. So they should last many years.
- The meshing that covers the high tunnel is 12mm thick.
- This Poly Tunnel boasts 2 doors, so we could use 1 entrance for the carpentry shop and 1 for the garden.
- The high tunnel is 3m wide. So it’s a lot larger than most we’ve seen online which are traditionally 2m wide.
- It is white; we didn’t want to have an ugly green thing right next to the house.
- This high tunnel boasts 12 windows. So the Polytunnel will be easy to ventilate.
- When it comes to installation, well we’ve seen other YouTubers installing Vevor’s products and it seemed pretty straightforward as they have good plans. So we think this high tunnel will be set up in a jiffy, although we’ll put it on a foundation.
Getting ready to set up shop!
With the order placed on our high tunnel now, all that’s left to do is to set it up and start growing once it arrives! This means that in the coming weeks, you can expect a great high tunnel set-up video where we’ll review Vevor’s Walk-in Tunnel Greenhouse, 20 x 10 x 7 ft w/ Galvanized Steel Hoops, 3 Top Beams, 4 Diagonal Poles, 2 Zippered Doors & 12 Roll-up Windows, White. This way if you are considering buying a polytunnel, you’ll know if Vevor’s Walk-in Tunnel is a sound option for your context too. If you’ve not subscribed to our channel yet and you’re interested in learning more about Vevor’s High Tunnel, make sure to subscribe today and activate the notification bell. This way you won’t miss the video once it’s released. Vevor ships goods throughout the world so everyone should get value from our upcoming video 🙂
And if you’re super keen to get the greenhouse we got, make sure to use the discount code BRTO5: 5% off on any purchase superior to 189€. The promo code is valid until June 30th.
